UPDATE September 4, 2018
More DMCA take downs have hit the blog despite screen captures long being considered fair use. Due to my not being able to afford a lawyer, I have no choice but to remove them or have the blog suspended. Only the words will be left.
TVTokyo is proving to be foolishly draconian in targeting posts meant to get people interested in seeing the Squid Girl anime and perhaps even purchasing it on DVD or Blu-ray. Being anti-piracy myself this is infuriating that they are targeting posts I wrote hoping to encourage people to try out a delightful show.
The delightfully silly first season of Squid Girl comes to a close with only two stories instead of the usual three. Raucous beach action fills the first third, while an unusually down story takes up the rest. Laughter, unnecessary violence, and heartfelt emotion show off all of the show’s best attributes in memorable squid fashion.
What a fun ride this little series has been. It was only my second dip into comedy anime and I am glad to have found such rampant silliness able to cross over cultures.
Anysquid Up for a Game?
Beach volleyball has grown in popularity worldwide, but it seems that it really struck a chord in Japan. There have been anime and manga devoted to it, so it makes sense we would get a good spoof of the sport since the series is set on a beach.
When the Aizawa family spots a signup sheet for a volleyball tournament with a grand prize of a 3D television set, dedicated gamer Eiko can’t wait to sign up. After being told what 3D means, Squid Girl decides she is in too. Setting aside their differences, the two form a team determined to dominate the contest.
Every regular in the cast shows up to form teams: Takeru and his friend, Goro and his lifesaver buddy, Sanae and Cindy (the All-Stalker Team), the Three Idiots, the fake Squid Girl and her dad, and even Nagisa and Kyomi. Returning from Episode 6 is the the little blond announcer from the Noh Mask Rider play. She covers the carnage that team Lemon Beach House inflicts on their opponents in hilarious fashion.
There is injury, abuse, and fear in these contests, for the two girls are terrors on the sand. Drawing the little kids first, Ika and Eiko show no mercy and no sportsmanship. That 3D TV will be theirs, no matter what and heaven help anyone who gets in their way. But eventually they run into worthy foes and find themselves pushed past their limits.
Will they win the TV? For that matter, will anyone survive the matches?
We’re in Squid Trouble?
This double length story serves to end the season (and the series if it did not get a sequel) and take the show back full circle. After a particularly busy day, exhaustion hits our plucky heroine. Unable to move her tentacles one centimeter, she cannot even feel them. Initial amusement by the others turns to worry and multiple therapies are tried to get them working again.
Not even the most radical of treatments works, but even worse is that all of Ika’s other superhuman (or super squid?) abilities are fading away. A theory is formed by Cindy and the Three Idiots that atrophy is happening. This is because Squid Girl is adjusting to life on the surface and does not need her tentacles anymore in some accelerated evolution.
Highly depressed by this, Ika retreats into solitude to reflect on what this means for her and the invasion of the surface world. In a charming moment, she decides that maybe she has succeeded in invading the hearts of the humans around her and sets out to prove it. Yes, she has a plan, which is never good news.
Being the genius Squid Girl is, it involves saying she’s leaving so that everyone will beg her to stay. Floating the idea that she needs to go back to the ocean to regain her powers results in a lot of support for the idea, even from Sannae. Disappointed, she heads off into the sea…
…and does not return.
Summer ends and the Lemon Beach House closes with the arrival of Fall. Winter passes into spring in a lovely, if sad, montage of the supporting characters moving on with their lives. Occasionally they run into each other, but it isn’t until the next summer that they reunite to remember the strange girl who invaded their lives. Life has become boring without Ika around and the sense of loss is palpable.
A sudden arrival is very much like the events of the first episode, but the reaction of Eiko is completely different. While this may be a slice of life series, it does have some character development and the change in Eiko is subtly handled, but emotionally satisfying.
Yet something is very wrong. Squid Girl has cut off her tentacles and is speaking strangely by speaking normally. Gone are the squid and fish puns, replaced by a very annoying “you know” added to the end of every other sentence. That has to be a tribute to “degeso” which is added at the end of most of her Japanese dialogue. Which of course is a riff on the formal ending of “desu” from old Japanese… Oh, look it up for yourselves. Back to the story!
None of her powers have returned, but her ambition has expanded to conquering the universe. There must be some kind of strange inverse compensation going on. Anyway, Ika goes about resuming her life at the restaurant and adjusting to living like a normal human.
Oh and in Japan, gals cutting their hair shorter is usually viewed as a sign of being heartbroken, often over a breakup. So there is more to her lopping her tentacles off than removing something useless.
After days of this, Takeru voices deep frustration and anger, for Squid Girl is no longer the girl they knew. His emotional outburst exposes her deep depression and the story ceases to be amusing. Instead, it has become a gentle drama that is better executed than I expected.
Depressed and feeling alone, Ika is approached by a strange girl, slightly older and vaguely inhuman. A sweet conversation about the people of the surface world follows as the girl in red gives some good advice. She seems vaguely octopus like, wouldn’t you agree?
Will Squid Girl adjust to being human? Will she ever get her powers back? And why has a death flag been suddenly raised?
Thoughts
The final episode is a solid one, starting out with boisterous physical comedy and ending with a sadder character driven story. It demonstrates how far Ika has come from that first failed attempt to take over the Lemon Beach House, while pointing out what is really important in life. Animes often stress the importance of friendship, but here it is about more than that. It is about family.
A strange and motley collection of people have become Squid Girl’s family with the Aizawa’s being the core and the others being her extended oddball cousins. She also has a best friend in Kyomi and girls her age to run around with. But one of the relationships stands out more than the others.
Her relationship with Eiko is very much that of siblings, complete with rivalry and friction. The focus of the episode is rightly on the two with everyone else in supporting roles. After all, Eiko was the first to deal with her that fateful day she tried to invade the restaurant.
I loved the series after watching it on Crunchyroll when it had completed. Having it released here in the States was a huge surprised, as was the excellent job done by the English voice cast. Now if Media Blasters can hold on long enough to license the second season and get it out I will be very pleased. Though not quite as good as the first, it is more of the same – which is well worth watching.
The end credits are replaced with a montage of daily life for our favorite squid and feature callbacks to all the characters. It makes for a very sweet ending.
BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!
Chizuru breaking out the Noh Mask Rider Anya mask along with a red haired wig to impersonate Eiko was ridiculously funny. Her destruction of the opposing team was straight out of a shounen anime. But with the tournament won, Ika tragically finds out that just because the shrimp on screen looks real doesn’t mean it is edible.
It was strange to watch Squid Girl swimming like a normal human. The whirlpool created by the Three Idiots nearly killing Eiko was unexpected and actually created tension.
Ika cares about Eiko more than she would ever admit, like many a younger sister. Her determination to save the other girl brought her tentacles back, showing she has learned to value the people around her. There may be hope for the girl yet.
Such a sweet moment between the girls. Of course, Ika had to ruin it and deserved what she got. Still, her prior actions speak volumes.
