Check-in Station: Squid Girl eps 1-6 (“How can you justify your existence without eating shrimp?!”)

Aside from my love of sushi, I don’t care much for squid or squid based products.  Well, that’s all changing because Squid Girl is my favorite squid based product… and it may even be better than sushi!  Behold the vicious calculated invasion of Squid Girl!

The hopes for this show weren’t very high when it showed up in my list of shows airing for the FALL season.  It looked just like some generic moe.  I think the thought that came to mind was Ume Monogatari meets Kanamemo, neither show I’m terribly fond of.  I very honestly was going to skip this show all together.  What made me take a peek was the hype the first episode was getting on Twitter.  Descriptions just shy of “best thing evah” will peak your interest.  It was a slow, but satisfying build up until the golden moment.  The first time Squid Girl inks someone.  Oh yeah, I was hooked.

This show revolves exclusively around Squid Girl.  This means the show is incredibly vulnerable to how compelling one character can be.  But up until this point the show has yet to suffer because of it.  Squid Girl is an incredibly adorable character.  Tasked to be the initial invader (whether by her own volition or by decree of some council we’ve yet to know) of the human world, she fails miserably.  Enslaved to her conquerors (some teenage sisters who run a seaside restaurant) she’s forced into menial labor.  And so begins her daily grind of small conquests and failures all this leading up to us either laughing or fawning over the ridiculous little abomination from the sea.

Let’s be honest, Japan can make anything cute (albeit with mixed results), and here I think they’ve quite gloriously succeeded.  The combination of tentacles and what appears to be a 10 yr old girl should lead to loli hentai bans across the country of Japan.  Somehow the show manages to quite easily avoid that.  The comedy pretty much involves 2 elements rotating around Squid Girl, what she wants and who’s around her.  Whether it be finding a servant inTakeru; a plaything in Nagisa; a rival in Goro or a stalker in Sanae (I honestly thinks she wants to have sex with Squid Girl, don’t worry that’s a one-way infatuation) this show finds a way to make it weird, fun and adorable.

I have trouble criticizing this show at this point.  The good consistent animation, the infectious opening theme, the quirky characters or the plethora a quick, fun and light episodes; Squid Girl melds perfectly.  I only hope they can keep this pace up as I’m anxiously watching every week.  I hope other anime lovers will join me in the Squid Army follow Squid Girl all the way to the end.