Review for Squid Girl Complete Series 1 Collection

Introduction

Think of all the superheroes in literature and comics that are imbued with aspects of nature. The most innocuous of animals, when they are anthropomorphised become names endowed with strength, with presence and a visceral impact. You remember names like Spiderman, Batman, Wolverine, Catwoman and the like... That isn’t true of every animal though. Just how far down the list of prospective superheroes must you go to be saddled with the moniker, Squid Girl? Of course Squid Girl is no hero. She would be more appropriately considered a villain, as after all her goal is world domination. Incensed with the way that humanity is treating the ocean as a garbage dump, she comes ashore to take over. The thing is that she only thought there would be a couple of thousand humans to invade.


Originally called Invasion: Squid Girl, but in Japanese, the show was renamed simply Squid Girl for the US release. It’s called Squid Girl here too, but on its trip via Australia, from where we source the PAL transfers, it got renamed to The Squid Girl. So don’t scratch your head for too long at the indefinite article appearing on the disc menus and cover art. You might also be salivating at the prospect of Season 2 coming hot on the heels of Season 1, having watched it on the Crunchyroll streams. Take a minute to calm down, as while Season 1 was licensed, dubbed and released by Media Blasters in the US, and they have licensed Season 2, they aren’t in the strongest of positions right now, only releasing shows when they can afford to do so. At this time, there is no release date for Squid Girl Season 2, which means no AU release, and consequently no UK release either. Until the US release is confirmed, you’ll just have to make do with the Crunchyroll streams to sate your Squid Girl fancies.


Ika Musume is tired of the way that humanity treats the oceans, with exploitation and pollution despoiling her home. Incidentally, I’ll call her Ika henceforth in my review, rather than Squid Girl because first, I’ve been watching the Japanese audio as I usually do, and second, Ika sounds a lot cuter than Squid Girl. Ika decides to invade the land and take over humanity, which would serve them right. She hasn’t actually taken the nature of humans into account. For one thing, there are a whole lot more of them than she expected, and some of them are quite intimidating. The other thing is that the first thing she does when she comes ashore is look for a place of operations. The Lemon Beach House cafe looks like a likely HQ, except that the first thing that happens is that the Aizawa sisters who run the place put her to work waiting tables. She’ll have her work cut out taking over the world if she can’t handle a couple of pushy sisters, but at least she has her special powers, her ten prehensile tentacles masquerading as hair, her ability to glow in the dark, her gift for spewing ink...


The twelve episodes of Squid Girl: Season 1 are presented by Manga Entertainment across two discs, along with some extra features.

Disc 1
01. Who’s Up for a Squid-vasion?
02. Hold On a Squid, Aren’t You a Compatriot?
03. Aren’t I Just the Squiddiest?
04. Wait a Squid, Aren’t You on My Side?
05. Up For a Squid-Celebration?
06. Wanna Play With This Squid?

Disc 2
07. Aren’t You a Fraidy-Squid?
08. You’re The Squid’s Sworn Enemy, Aren’t You?
09. Squidzooks! Aren’t You A New Recruit?
10. How Much is that Squiddy in the Window?
11. Ride ‘Em Squiddy!
12. You’re Phonier than an 11-Tentacled Squid

Picture

Squid Girl gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which courtesy of Australia’s Madman Entertainment gets the native PAL treatment, with the 4% speedup that implies. It’s a very nice transfer, clean, sharp, and smooth, with bold and bright colours, bringing out the best in the simple yet appealing character designs and the vivid animation. Squid Girl is an anime aimed at the younger market, and that’s reflected in its visual style, which is a lot more cartoonish and energetic than anime aimed at more mature audiences. This really comes across well on this release, and it’s hard to tell what more a Blu-ray release would have to offer compared to this transfer. Nevertheless Media Blasters did release a region free Blu-ray version of Squid Girl in the US.

Sound

You have the option here of DD 2.0 Stereo English or Japanese, with translated subtitles or a signs only track. I went with the Japanese audio as always and found it to be quite enjoyable, if the voice performances were a little predictable for the genre. Ika is suitably cute, and as per cute-girl convention, she has a habit of adding random cute sounding syllables to the end of each pronunciation. Here said suffix is ‘-geso’, and it is quite charming. I have read complaints that said suffix isn’t reflected in the subtitles. Why you would want a cute noise subtitled is beyond me. But the subtitles do reveal another issue... puns. This show is full of squid, seafood and ink related puns, at least the English translation, and the subtitles are filled with them. Puns are a strong aspect of Japanese humour, but quite obviously they rarely translate, so the ones in the subtitles are a translator’s choice. I didn’t find them all that funny, and indeed at the frequency they appear, the joke quickly gets old. Oddly enough, reading puns is more painful than hearing them and what I tried of the English dub was acceptable enough, although it did put me to sleep after a few minutes. The opening theme is the epitome of annoyance, but the closing song is mellow enough.

One of the subtitle captions wasn’t overscan friendly, losing a couple of letters at the edges of an old style CRT set.

Extras

Both discs present their episodes on static menu screens, and the discs have jacket pictures to look at when they are at rest in compatible players.

The extras are all on disc 2, beginning of course with the usual textless credit sequences. The opening sequence is there, as well as six of the twelve closing sequences. Each episode has a subtly different one, and we get to see half of them sans text. Apparently the US release from Media Blasters offers all twelve, but it’s not such a devastating loss.


The Interview with Hisako Kanemoto lasts 90 seconds and offers the barest minimum of her talking about her role as Ika Musume.

Hat Folding lasts 2½ minutes, 1 minute of which is devoted to the origami creation of Squid Girl’s head gear and the rest to the voice actress signing some posters.

The best offering on this disc is the collection of OVA episodes. There are two of them here, running to 9 minutes, offering more adventures of the mini-Ika that you first meet in episode 5. For me, these are even funnier than the main episodes.

Conclusion

Squid Girl is light and inconsequential fun, which is a surprisingly rare delight in anime. You’d think that anime is a disposable commodity at the best of times, but so much of it is serialised, relies on character development and back story, and ties into other media, especially manga, that it’s hard to take even the most trivial of creations without a hint of weight. Squid Girl on the other hand has none of that. It’s the simplest of creations, twelve episodes crafted around one joke, and you can just watch and bask in its simplicity.


The joke is Squid Girl herself. Ika Musume is the unlikeliest of invaders, supremely sure of her superiority, but constantly defeated by her own inadequacies. She’s brash, loud and confident, and fortunately for the average anime fan, supremely cute and adorable too. The joke is in her attributes, as being a humanoid squid doesn’t exactly imbue you with superpowers. The most effective of her abilities are her prehensile tentacles, which make her a versatile waitress, and give her a wicked ability to deal with pesky flies, as well as fend off unwanted advances. Other than that, there’s not a lot of hope in conquering the world with the ability to glow in the dark, or spew ink. She can be mistaken for a ghost, and does provide an appetising topping for squid ink flavoured noodles (although you do not want to see the chef preparing them).


The comedy comes from the characters that she meets and interacts with. Her first encounter is with the Aizawa family, who run the Lemon Beach House. Eiko is outspoken, intimidating, and quickly puts Ika to work when her tentacles punch a hole in the side of the shack. Eiko’s sister Chizuru is soft spoken, gentle and kind, and more terrifying than anyone else. Only little brother Takeru is amenable to a squid invasion, and the two quickly become friends. It isn’t long before Ika moves in with the family.


More danger comes from Eiko’s friend Sanae, a girl with a cosplay fetish, who loves all things cute, and very quickly starts lusting after Ika, hence the need for tentacles to fend her off. Then there's Cindy Campbell and her back up crew of MIT graduates. She’s looking for an alien to study, and despite Ika’s protestations to the contrary, decides that the Squid Girl is actually an alien tentacle girl. Into this mayhem also arrives surfer Nagisa who also gets a job at the beach house. She thinks that an actual Squid Girl invading is really dangerous, and that everyone else is crazy for dealing with her so matter-of-fact-ly. Ika’s just glad to find one human who is actually intimidated by her. As the episodes progress, more and more characters are introduced, with their unique foibles and comic traits.


Each episode consist of three stories, simple set-up and punchline formats that are ideal for the simple nature of the comedy. There’s not a lot to Squid Girl, as it’s really just a show based on the humour that arises from culture shock, where an unlikely being is introduced to a strange situation, with the misunderstandings and mayhem that arises. Some of the stories are funnier than others, a few are downright hilarious, some not so much, but most offer a fair bit of mirth that had me quietly chuckling throughout. The characterisations are simplistic and clichéd, while the stories don’t tax the intellect. Some of it does get mildly saucy, particularly Sanae’s infatuation with Ika, but most of it is gentle, understated comedy that doesn’t really push any boundaries. Occasionally, enough of an emotional arc will develop in an episode to get you invested in a character or two, particularly in the final episode, but most of it is of the quick giggle variety.


Squid Girl is cute, charming and adorable, and pretty funny too. Squid Girl is also forgettable, disposable, and ephemeral nonsense, but once in a while, that’s just what the anime doctor orders. The excess of squid puns, which I suspect have been juiced up for the English subtitles and dub, can get tiresome, so it’s best to take the show in small doses. But this is the first show since Azumanga Daioh with a decent ‘Oh my Gaah!” That’s got to be worth something in someone’s book.