Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Squid Girl: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Something's fishy in the state of anime.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 10, 2012

There must be something in the air. We’ve had a glut of recent anime releases where at least one of the main characters is fused in some way with another species. Guin Saga: Complete Collection featured amnesiac warrior Guin, whose head was covered with a leopard mask, and Cat Planet Cuties: Complete Collection gave us Eris, a sort of feline hybrid alien with cat ears and tail. Now comes Squid Girl, probably the oddest combo of the three, and one which (unlike the other two) has a sort of environmental subtext that at least helps to make the human – other species (in this case molluscs) conceit a little more understandable. Squid Girl magically evolves and walks ashore one day because her home world, the sea, has become so badly polluted through the ignorant actions of humans. This petite, tentacle-headed lass has decided she will single handedly invade Earth and squirt some inky sense into the people who have defiled her watery abode. The show really gets underway when Squid Girl fumbles an attempt to kill a mosquito (one can only assume that a new anime series is in the offing entitled Mosquito Girl, about an insect - human hybrid who is aghast that people and/or squids keep trying to kill her species). That attempt ends up damaging a seaside restaurant, and the restaurant owner demands that Squid Girl go to work immediately as a waitress to help pay for the repairs. That in a nutshell (oyster shell?) is about all there is to Squid Girl, another odd anime series that is so patently weird that it becomes almost useless to try to analyze it in any rational fashion. As all denizens of the ocean learn sooner or later, sometimes it’s simply easier to go with the flow.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Squid Girl is at its core a (sorry about this) fish out of water series which generates most of its comedic energy from its title character’s often bumbling interaction with the humans she is supposedly there to conquer and even humiliate. What Squid Girl soon learns is not only does she not scare humans (or at least most the them), she is frightened by seemingly innocuous items like inflatable whales, since squids have a natural aversion to the beasts and Squid Girl doesn’t immediately understand the world of blow up toys. The series is awash in supporting characters, and in fact it seems to want to introduce one new character at least every couple of episodes or so (in the early going, at any rate), perhaps a sign that the creative staff realized that there’s really not a lot to this show at its very core. While this grants the show a certain variety, it also draws attention to the fact that aside from Squid Girl herself, a lot of these supporting folks are pretty generic. In fact the only even partially innovative character here is Squid Girl, a charming (if often pretty annoying) naïf whose misapprehensions about the human world give the series most of its impetus. The series repeatedly falls back on plotlines where Squid Girl doesn't understand what's going on, or attempts to get something done but fails miserably (at least for a moment), giving the entire enterprise a formulaic, rote feel that only further undercuts the show's general appeal, making it a fairly predictable outing quite a bit of the time.

There’s no denying that there’s a whole subset of anime that is decidedly outré (my favorite example being the beyond odd Hare and Guu), and Squid Girl fits into that niche. It’s shallow (sorry) but not unenjoyable on its own terms. It’s a fairly “noisy” series, with lots of yelling and screaming and characters morphing into their chibi forms at the drop of a hat (and/or tentacle). One thing the series does surprisingly well is make its translation into English still full of squirm worthy puns, just like the original Japanese version. Therefore we get little jokes like Squid Girl undertaking an inkvestigation (th-ink about it). Later, when a scientist shows up who is convinced that Squid Girl is an alien, and tries to abduct the little hybrid beast, Squid Girl accuses the woman of trying to arrange a squidnapping. It’s silly, yes, but it gives some indication of the general level of humor in this show.

Squid Girl is the sort of series whose success rests on a fundamental decision each individual viewer has to make. If any given audience member is prone to liking outright silly, inconsequential animes that have their fair share of humor (some of it extremely juvenile) wrapped up in a sort of weird premise and bizarre ambience, they’ll no doubt like Squid Girl, despite its general slightness and anecdotal nature. If, on the other hand, a viewer is expecting something either more boisterously comedic or even “meaningful” (given the environmental crusading set up), they’ll just as certainly be quickly disappointed by this series, one which kind of ambles along pleasantly enough, without ever really going anywhere. Squid Girl is indeed in its own way kind of like a sunny day at the beach: it’s relaxing and enjoyable, but don’t expect a (sorry again) whale of a lot to happen.

Squid Girl: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Much like the series' content, Squid Girl: Season 1's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 is simple but charming. Presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Media Blasters, there's nothing really amazing about the stylistic elements here, but this is a bright and colorful presentation that pops quite nicely in high definition. There are some very effective CGI renderings of water that tend to work like bumpers or interstitials helping the series segue from scene to scene, and those sparkle and glisten quite invitingly. Line detail is strong and precise, though aside from Squid Girl herself, the rest of the characters really offer nothing special to recommend them, and the overall look of this show, like the show itself, is somewhat generic and unremarkable. The title character is fun to watch, with her waving tentacles and ability to spew ink and glow, all of which is animated well and looks great on this Blu-ray.

Squid Girl: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Squid Girl: Season 1 features two lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks, one in English and one in Japanese. This is an awfully noisy series (with an especially crazy theme song), and a surround mix might have opened up the sound field enough so that things didn't sound so crowded some of the time. Fidelity is fine, though the series is so over the top so much of the time that dynamic range is a bit less varied than might be expected. Voice work is generally excellent, with Christine Marie Cabanos' English language Squid Girl appealing but still appropriately bothersome (at least to many of the other characters).

Squid Girl: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Textless Opening (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing (HD; 18:25) contains 13 slight variations of the closing credits sequence.


• Interview with Hisako Kanemoto (SD; 1:33). Kanemoto provides the voice of Squid Girl and talks briefly about her work on the series.


• Hat Folding (SD; 2:19) has Kanemoto doing a little quasi-origami and making a paper hat.


• OVA Mini Episodes (HD; 9:26) features Squid Girl in some additional brief adventures.

Squid Girl: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Squid Girl is kind of a middling entry in what seems to be an "exciting" new trend in anime, lead characters who are hybrid versions of some other species along with human. The lead character is engaging, if also a dunderheaded idiot a lot of the time, but the rest of the show just kind of meanders along in a generic, cut and paste fashion that never really generates much interest. The show's comedy, while also slight, does find its mark at least some of the time, especially for those who love puns. If expectations aren't especially high, there's probably enough borderline entertainment value in Squid Girl for undemanding anime fans to at least check it out. But with so many hybrid characters out there to choose from, Squid Girl may just find herself to be one of plenty fish (and/or mollusks) in the sea.