Squid Girl Complete Series Collection [DVD]

'Squid Girl' ('Shinryaku! Ika Musume' in Japanese) is the story of an invader from the sea who comes to conquer humanity in retaliation for polluting her ocean home but ends up working as a waitress at a beach front restaurant. The story follows Squid Girl as she makes friends and learns about life on the surface world.

This two disc set includes all twelve episodes of the first season of the 'Squid Girl' anime. Each episode is split into three short stories that are all entertaining to watch and very funny at times. Each of the short storylines in based on one or more chapters of the original manga and although some of the chapters have been expanded on or joined with other chapters, the series does a relatively good job of adapting the manga. My favourite parts of the series have to be the brilliantly done Won't You Keep It? and the greatly funny Won't You Fight?, but all the episodes are very entertaining. The tone of the anime is very light-hearted but the series is capable of producing some surprisingly emotional moments as well. The animation for the series is nicely done as well. The characters in the anime are all relatively interesting but I must say that Chizuru probably ranks as one of my favourite characters from any anime.

'Squid Girl' is the first anime I have watched entirely in both Japanese and English, and while I do personally prefer the Japanese version the English dub is relatively good once you get used to the incessant squid puns. Most of the English voice actors do very well and suit their characters nicely but I did think the voices for the three idiot scientists were off somewhat. The translation is generally nicely handled but oddly there are some differences between the episode names on the list from the inside cover of the DVD and the episode previews on the disk itself.

Bonus material includes on this set are an interview with Squid Girl's Japanese voice actress, instructions on how to make a Squid Girl hat and two Mini-Squid Girl OVA's. None of these are dubbed however.

'Squid Girl' is a very entertaining and light-hearted anime and I feel that it deserves around four and a half stars.

Squid Girl came from the sea to conquer and ended up working in a beach restaurant! This is a great comedy show and I watched it in under a day. Each episode has 3 tales. Beforehand I was a bit worried about this, as when The Simpsons try this with Treehouse Of Horrors you normally get 3 stories that are rushed and underdeveloped, but the stories here are nicely paced and structured, they are all amusing and perfectly sized.
The show is a great character comedy and of course, Squid Girl is the star. She's optmisitic, enthuasiastic, easily bored and distraced and easily led. The writers never forget that she is a squid so stories revolve situations such as her sudden infatuation with umbrellas, arguing with her own echo, spends 10000 yen on shrimp and is scared by inflatable killer whales. She used about 100 puns per episode too, such as "beat the squid out of you".
The other characters are fun and interesting too: like Chizuru who takes passive aggressive to a new level and Sanae who is fixated on Squid Girl. Now I've watched the series I want to see more of them, which is always the sign of a succesful show.
Whilst only having a few laugh out moments, Squid Girl is consistently fun and breezy. Smartly written and wwith gorgeous animation it's well worth 17 squid.

Funny, quirky and odd. If you don't like puns then stay away..
However if you can handle the puns then you'll be fine for the rest of this fun little adventure.
Each episode is made of 2-3 mini stories and as such it can feel a little bit hectic and jumbled but as it goes along you'll find yourself in the right mindset and pace to enjoy it to its fullest.