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Thursday, December 7, 2017

Squid Girl Review Dubbed & Squidden Ready

There are so many Squid puns, so many words with ink-volved or about the ocean you have to wonder how the recording sessions went? Did voice actress Christine Marie Cabanos spit up ink recording the second season? She's the voice of Squid Girl by the way.

Squid Girl Seasons 1 & 2 Complete Collection
$64.99

Who is Squid Girl? Why she's trying to conquer the earth and darn it, she's super cute about it. It looks like it'll be tough though as a far as she's gotten is a beach front shack and though only thing she's captured is the family that works there. And, not captured them like in a hostage situation, more like captured their hearts sitcom situation. Let Squid Girl wrap you up in her tentacles in this new collection with the much waited second dubbed season.

Squid Girl, if you haven't seen the anime before or wondered why she was featured in Splatoon, is a conqueror from the sea. Her real name is Girl with the name Squid in front. Yeah, no one goes around giving her a "land" name and as such we have the very oddly named girl with blue hair going around trying to conquer a beach. Oh, and her blue hair is really tentacles with which she can do super amazing feats. And that's only the start of her strange abilities.

In her first attempt to conquer the world she tries to take over the Lemon Beach House, as you've guessed that's a cafe on the beach, but she was soon thwarted by the Aizawa family who runs it. In very short detail she becomes a member of the staff as a waitress and a part of the three sibling family of the older sister Chizuru, younger sister Eiko and their little brother Takeru. She's pretty much the bratty little sister of Eiko from the get go, as she fights with her the most.

Soon after Squid Girl meets all sorts of weirdos like Sanae who immediately falls in love for her for how cute she is. Sanae is a girl by the way and it seems to be over how cute Squid Girls is. Three American MIT graduated scientists and their bikini clad leader Cindy who think she's an alien out of boredom and having a bunch of alien fighting gear they can't use. Then there's the unspeakable abomination of the Squid Girl heads from another cafe. There joined by other beach-goers who all sort of have Squid Girl enter their lives.

Squid Girl makes an average day an insane day while learning about how people live on the land and of course always trying to conquer the world as though planned by a five-year-old. Things usually go hilariously wrong, but that won't stop Squid Girl's confidence in finding a way to rule us all.

Our squidding adventure has only just started as you'll laugh your tentacles off at how many "puns" are crammed into Squid Girl's mouth, when ink isn't being shot out of it. Everything she says will at some point be modified by terms about the ocean. It's ridiculous or as the anime would say, "It's Kraken me up!"

With tentacles and squid ink splattering the screen it's hard not to consider it one of our favorite comedy animes. Squiddies special abilities, mainly using here tentacles to wrap people up or basically do a bunch of crazy stuff, never stops to amaze. Be it serving multiple people at the cafe or knocking someone out with extreme velocity and force, it always amazes to see those tentacles whiz by.

This release features the second season dub. Fans have wanted this for a while, but the last company who had the rights for the anime series fumbled and didn't do the second season. As so much time has passed Sentai recast everyone but Squid Girl's voice actress for the second season. It is a bit inconvenient, but the other option was no dub. It's great to finally hear the second season dubbed.

Some choices for at least two of the dubbed episodes are a bit questionable though. We were wondering how they were going to tackle and episode where Cindy, an American scientist, teaches English as the cast in the original anime speaks Japanese. What happens is a total nonsense episode where jokes miss their mark as she teaches Squid Girl to speak with a British accent. We would suggest to just keep that episode subtitled.

Another episode we didn't understand that was re-dubbed strangely was when Squid Girl learns of early morning aerobics for kids at the beach. You see, in Japan they have programs in the morning for kids to do aerobics and you can earn prizes by coming with a stamp card. The jokes in the original episode are about the random and bizarre moves and names given to the exercises. Like, "Daddy came home late again, now cry about it." For some reason the dub team altered the episode so those dumb, but funny names don't really get called out and it just makes the episode feel weird and out of place.

The rest of the dub we've watched worked and kept the momentum of the previous season dub.

Everything else included, which adds three OVAs, is in great quality, probably the best you can watch the episodes in.

Listen humans on land! It's about time you heard these words and we aren't squidding around! If you want an anime that balances moe with a sitcom-esque style about a young lady out of the ocean trying to conquer the world one beach cafe at time then look no further! For a show that's mostly a comedy and strangely teaches lessons about family and loneliness you need to let Squid Girl conquer you.


Also out now Squid Girl Seasons 1 & 2 Premium Box Set
$129.99
  • Language: English, Japanese with English Subtitles
  • Runtime: 675 min.
  • Release Date: December 5, 2017
  • Extras: Clean Opening Animation x2; Clean Closing Animation x26; Japanese Promos x29; Mini Squid Girl Short Stories x2; Squid Girl Chat + Commentary x5 (Eps 1, 3, 8, & 12); OVAs x3; Box Set Contents: Booklet, Art Cards (Double-sided) x6, Keychain, Button Pack, 3D Lenticular Card