Some mad man in Japan was talking to
the fairies on his shoulders one day and he asked them, “What do
the Americans watch these days?” The littlest fary answered, “A
show about three blundering idiots doing odd jobs and getting in
trouble ever day!” Then, the larger fairy then beat the crap out
of the littlest fairy saying, “You dumbass! That's from the
1930's! How is that even relevant today!? They are watching a show
about an incompetent alien invader attempting to take over the Earth
with a malfunctioning robot slave!” Then the third fairy who we
shall name Banana stepped forward and said, “But both of those
shows have since ended...” Being driven insane by the fairy's
banter, the mad man started drawing out an idea for a girl that looks
like a squid that wants to conquer the Earth but is a blundering
moron. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Squid Girl! Or as its
suppose to be known, “The invader
comes from the bottom of the sea” because America is stupid.
Let us give a
moment of silence for the mad man and the death of his sanity due to
fairies... Right! Moment over! Squid Girl! That is literally
everything you need to know about the main character in this anime.
Shes a squid that has the form of a girl. What? You need a better
description? Ugh! You people are impossible! Umm... Ok, she is
also wearing a dress that make it look like she came from Greece more
so than the bottom of the sea. You happy yet? NO!? My god!
Humm... She... has tentacles for hair that she can move around like 8
extra arms! There! Ya happy now? Can we move on!?
Our story tells of
how this squid girl came from the sea to the surface to conquer it
and put the humans in their place for the constant abuse of the sea.
She is named Ika Musume which literally translates out to Squid Girl.
For naming purposes, I will be referring to this character as Ika
for the rest of the review because Squid Girl is dumb... like the
English dub. Anyway, Ika comes to a beach and finds a little food
shack there to use as her home base. During her attempt at taking
the place over, Eiko, one of the sisters who runs the place, takes
her out back and asks her what she is doing assuming this is just
some kid cosplaying. When Ika explains her position, Eiko doesn't
believe her so she demonstrates her tentacle power by smashing a
giant hole in the wall of the shack. This roles her into being a
slave herself to pay off the damages by working in the shack with
everyone. And here is where we get the rest of our character
introductions.
The oldest sibling
is Chizuru AKA Superhuman Face Crusher and Eiko, the middle one, run
the restaurant together since their parents are... I guess having fun
else where. They live together with their younger brother Takeru.
It was a simple life, till Ika showed up. Later, we get introduced
to a buff lifeguard named Goro who has the hots for Chizuru and would
literally jump off a cliff and die a painful death if Chizuru asked
him to. I mean, there is showing your love for someone and then
there is blind devotion. Someone really needs to explain to this guy
that just because the pwetty wady asked you to do something like...
jumping off a cliff and die... doesn't mean you have to! Oh well,
all in the name of comedy I suppose. Then there is Eiko's friend
Sanae who takes a liking to Ika. Wait, “liking” isn't a strong
enough word. I think “obsession” is better. No, wait! Thats
not good either. How about we just say that Sanae is the black
plague to Ika. She can tell her to go jump off a cliff with the
lifeguard to die and she would still come back to love her. No
matter how many times you kill her, she just keeps coming back.
Lastly, there is a busty American scientist named Cindy who becomes
extremely interested in Ika as she is in fact, a thing of science.
She is constantly trying to conduct odd experiments on her with the
help of her three lackeys back in the lab who I like to call the
Three Science Douches.
The
best possible way to describe this anime in a nut shell would be
refering back to the opening paragraph. In case you didn't already
pick up on this, Cephalopod Women is like merging the Three
Stooges with Invader Zim. Just condense the Stooges into a
singularity, thrown in Zim and Grr, and out will pop a DVD box set of
this anime. Its slapstick comedy to the max. When faced with a
situation that could easily be solved by a sane person, that mad man
and his fairies show their influence and make the problem get
resolved by the most insane way possible. For example, one day, it
is way too hot. So, in order to cool off, the Three Science Douches
invent a device to make it snow in Japan on the beach in the middle
of summer. They also invented a gun that they have no idea what it
does and then decide to start shooting it at each other. On that
note of idiocy, Ika at one point forgets that she is a squid and thus
cannot drown, but someone manages to anyway. Those are just a few
example of the idiot levels that are measurable in this anime.
In terms of logic... Well... What
logic? Its a slapstick anime. Its suppose to not make any kind of
logical sense! There are a lot of questions surrounding exactly where
Ika came from. Yes yes, she came from the ocean but thats a big
place. Thats like saying I came from planet Earth. Ok, WHERE on
Earth? Getting back to Ika, do we know of any other squid people?
Or is she just some terrible experiment gone horrible wrong and
released into the ocean. Yes, an experiment to merge man with squid!
Only the mad man would think it up! Just like trying to condense
the Three Stooges into a singularity! After all, she has all the
powers of a squid and all the powers of a human. Tentacles, spits
ink, can breath under water, swims with her tentacles, and is
insanely annoying... You know, like how 90% of the population thinks
everyone else is. However, at one point, Takeru dresses up like her
so he can hang out with her and she thinks he is real other squid
boy. So maybe she is a thing of nature. If thats the case, then
what kind of evolutionary trait said she needs to keep both arms and
legs when she spends all of her time in the ocean using her tentacles
to swim, eat, and protect herself?
But now I'm being too picky. Over all,
its fun little anime to watch when you had one of those days where
you are just pissed off at everything and want to relax by watching
someone else get bitch slapped. Let me save you the embarrassment of
watching MTV and direct you to this anime. Its overly cute and
adorable, entertaining to watch at the very least, the animation
style is pretty impressive, and the story(or whatever kind of story
there is) is at least good. Does it make sense? Oh Hell no! Is it
funny? Oh Hell yes! Can I recommend it? I guess so. But one last
closing note. Remember how I said in Powerpuff Girls Z that the
English dub was terrible? Well, this is the second English dub I
refuse to watch. Some jokes where animated to work with Japanese
only and only fit in Japanese culture. But the most insulting thing
about the dub is Ika's dialog. Every fucking sentence is a squid
pun. And not funny ones either. Just random dumb shit! Like
replacing swearing with squid stuff. “What the ink?” “Son of
a guppy.” Tell ya what, Squid Girl. I'm going to ink you tentacle
into next week you damn dirty son of a mother inking guppy beck
inker!
