The season follows the adventures of Finn, a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and size at will.

The episodes were storyboarded and written by Tom Herpich, Jesse Moynihan, Cole Sanchez, Rebecca Sugar, Steve Wolfhard, Skyler Page, Somvilay Xayaphone, Ako Castuera, Michael DeForge, Kent Osborne, David OReilly, Ward, Graham Falk, Thomas Wellmann, Luke Pearson, Seo Kim, and Andy Ristaino.

Former character designer Andy Ristaino and series' art director Nick Jennings both won Emmys for "Outstanding Individual Achievement In Animation" in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

Common storylines revolve around Finn and Jake discovering strange creatures, dealing with the antagonistic but misunderstood Ice King, and battling monsters to help others.

[5] According to Adam Muto, OReilly was brought on board after Ward expressed an interest in letting him helm an episode.

Initially, the producers had wanted OReilly to appear in earlier seasons, but the network was hesitant to bring in guest directors.

[16] For the first half of the season, the writers room was largely composed of Ward, Kent Osborne, and Pat McHale.

McHale eventually left the series to create Over the Garden Wall,[17] and Jack Pendarvis and the newly promoted Muto and were brought on board to pen story outlines.

[18][19] The season was storyboarded and written by Tom Herpich, Moynihan, Cole Sanchez, Sugar, Steve Wolfhard, Skyler Page, Somvilay Xayaphone, Castuera, Michael DeForge, Osborne, OReilly, Ward, Graham Falk, Thomas Wellmann, Luke Pearson, Seo Kim, and Ristaino.

He wrote on his official Tumblr that, "Cole and Adam Muto basically held my hand through the whole process, and were both incredibly patient with me.

[21] Guest artist Falk, creator of the animated series Untalkative Bunny, storyboarded the episodes "Shh!"

", however, Elizabeth Ito, a former storyboard artist for the show in season one, returned to the series and was also credited as supervising director in place of Muto.

[5] In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ward revealed that he stepped down as series showrunner sometime during this season in favor of Muto.

[37][38] The voice actors for the season include: Jeremy Shada (Finn the Human), John DiMaggio (Jake the Dog), Tom Kenny (The Ice King), Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum), and Olivia Olson (Marceline the Vampire Queen).

Former storyboard artist Niki Yang voices the sentient video game console BMO in English, as well as Jake's girlfriend Lady Rainicorn in Korean.

[39][42] "Bad Little Boy" features Neil Patrick Harris returning as Prince Gumball, Madeleine Martin reprising the role of Fionna, and Roz Ryan reappearing as Cake.

[50][52] Musical parody artist "Weird Al" Yankovic reprises his role as Banana Man in "We Fixed a Truck".

[53] Noah Nelson reprises his role as Kee-Oth the demon in the two-parter "Play Date" and "The Pit", having first appeared in the third-season episode "Dad's Dungeon".

[60] In "Up a Tree", Jim Cummings voices the Porcupine, Lenny the Beaver, and the Owl; and Marc Maron appears as the squirrel.

[68] Both Johnny Pemberton and James Adomian appear in the episode "The Suitor", voicing Braco and the demon-possessed Cinnamon Bun, respectively.

[77] In "Love Games", Katie Crown voices Slime Princess's sister Blargatha, and John Hodgman appears as Elder Plops.

[80][81] In addition, Make a Wish Foundation arranged for a 14-year-old named Christopher to be the voice of a background character in "Root Beer Guy".

"[95] Kohn felt that the show's exploration of "sad subtext"—such as the series' mysterious Mushroom War and the relationship between Marceline and the Ice King—and the characters' abilities to "deny the bad vibes their surrounding world invites" via "cheery songs and vibrant artwork" were some of the series strongest points.

"[96] Furthermore, he compared the entry to Cormac McCarthy's book The Road, specifically citing the similarities between the mutant creatures in the episode and the "demented people" in the latter.

[96] Kohn ultimately concluded that the series' "willingness to contemplate [the themes of the episode] while sticking to its unique combination of silliness and haunting beauty routinely transforms the show into a wondrous genre experiment.

[98][99] Rich Goldstein of The Daily Beast argued that the emotional depth of the series increased during this season, highlighting "Simon & Marcy" as an example.

"[100] Guendelsberger praised the show's aforementioned creativity and experimentation, and also wrote that "the writing staff has also taken the less-obvious X-Files approach: expanding the length of the stories they're able to tell by linking monster-of-the-week episodes into longer arcs.

Club later named the series the 27th best television series of 2014, noting that, "The end of the super-sized season five saw a string of conceptually ambitious episodes that blew the world of Ooo wide open, deepening the stories of Lemongrab, Lumpy Space Princess' doomed romance, and Ice King's past as Simon Petrikov.

[107] On July 31, 2014, it was announced that series art director, Nick Jennings, had won an Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement In Animation" for his work on the episode "Wizards Only, Fools".

[108] Warner Home Video released multiple DVD volumes, such as Jake the Dad, The Suitor, Princess Day, Finn the Human, Frost & Fire, and The Enchiridion which contain episodes from the fifth season.