Invasion! Squid Girl – Isn’t it an Adaptation?

She hunted the meat for those dishes herself. The creature was Capture Level 40.

About a week or so ago, I watched the OVA for Invasion! Squid Girl. It was a fun little episode, though also somewhat saddening because unlike Seitokai Yakuindomo, we aren’t repeatedly getting new episodes added. It had a similar feel to the second season, and a big part of that is because I was able to read the original manga chapters beforehand. You could argue that doing this takes away from the humour, but I disagree mainly because it’s common for the anime to play things differently and use the medium to its advantage. This is why my favourite parts are usually when the characters start hamming it up (“Games are my life!” was nowhere near as awesome when I first read it). There is still a serious issue when viewing the anime this way, though. While it does like to add funny scenes wherever it can, there are also times when it very clearly takes away from the chapters.

Invasion! Squid Girl – Review

I keep referring to the series as Squid Girl and the character as Ika Musume. Is that weird?

I’m a little more nervous about this video than usual, both because it’s my first review made with Audacity and because I’m discussing a gag series. It’s difficult to come up with much to say about something like this, but I think I manage it fairly well all things considered. I really liked how well some of the pictures fit together in particular.

Current Manga Rankings – 2011 – Part 2

15. Rosario + Vampire II

What a long, awkward trip it’s been. I remember back when I started this manga and it was just another boring harem series with various random monsters to fight. Since then it’s grown up into a surprisingly well done series about the relationships the previous series began, and it manages to provide a good amount of depth to what were previously uninteresting characters. It even manages to make the action more interesting, since it’s no longer just Inner Moka stomping on everyone. I’ve actually started looking forward to the newest chapters, which I would never have expected at first.

Yerocha’s 2011 Anime Awards – Part 1

I’m sure some of you know that in addition to running a blog about manga, I’m also an anime fan. There are so many anime blogs out there that I usually leave it to the other bloggers and focus on manga. However, now that the year is almost up and I missed my chance to do the 12 Days of Christmas, I thought it would be a good idea to say a few things about the shows I saw this year.

Now I could do a Top 10 of 2011, but there’s a little problem with that. For various reasons, I wasn’t able to watch all of the really popular shows from this year. To give you an idea of the shows that aren’t included in these posts:

• Deadman Wonderland, Blue Exorcist, Toriko, Bakuman II and Usagi Drop were series I read instead of watched. The first three will be on the upcoming Manga Countdown, but it didn’t feel right to include them here when I obviously haven’t watched them.
• Tiger and Bunny and Fate/Zero are shows I just haven’t watched. I actually saw the first episode of Tiger and Bunny, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to watch the next episode. Fate/Zero just plain doesn’t appeal to me, though I may take a look after it ends.
• Mirai Nikki, Mawaru Penguindrum, Usagi Drop and Steins;Gate are shows I haven’t watched yet. I eventually plan to, and I considered holding off on this until then, but I wanted this to be out at the end of the year.

In spite of all that, there are still quite a few shows I watched this year that I wanted to discuss. And so I put together my 2011 Anime Awards. For each series I saw this year, I’ll give it an award and explain what I thought overall.

Invasion! Squid Girl – Chapter 186

Not Recommended: Shojo haters, anyone who enjoys long jogs by the beach

I think it goes without saying that most comedy manga, if not most media in general, have a romantic element put in. Maybe it’s for the added ratings, maybe it’s the size of the cast or any other reason. Since I read comedies like Hayate and Yandere Kanojo which have a big focus on romance, the scenes in Squid Girl that focus on it seem small by comparison. But having small romantic subtext is far from having none at all, and I’ve noticed a surprising number of different pairs in this series.