Disclaimer: This review covers Season 1, Season 2, and the 3 OVA for the 2010 anime "Squid Girl," also known as "Invasion! Squid Girl" or "The Squid Girl - The invader comes from the bottom of the sea!""Squid Girl" is a cult-classic comedy anime. At least, I think it is, although I'm not sure exactly why. The 2010 series was in the middle of being released by Media Blasters, before the company had some financial issues (to this day, it struggles but manages to barely stay afloat). The first season had a DVD release and complete English dub, but the second season was left hanging. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of excitement for the show anyway, but online reviews who did watch were generally positive. A sleeper hit that would be sleeping with the fishes, so to speak. But out of nowhere, Sentai Filmworks, successful at the time, rescued the license and released the entire franchise in one set (Seasons 1, 2 and the OVA, 27 episodes total). They even got the English dub actor for the lead character back to finish dubbing the rest of the series, although every other character had to be recast. The Bluray set evens goes the extra mile by including Japanese actor commentaries, in-character! For some reason, it spreads the content across 5 Bluray discs when it could have been 3 or 4, but that's a minor complaint. You could even shell out for a collector's edition!(Speaking of the bonus features; there are also 1) extra "chibi-Squid" shorts, more of these is great, 2) a stand-alone version of a segment from Season 2 - Episode 4 called "I Th-INK That's English!?," identical to the Japanese subbed version, but repeated just to highlight how different it is from the English dubbed one, 3) 3 full-length and dubbed OVA episodes, complete with a unique opening theme, making it like a bonus shorter Season 3.) Was all that worth it for this show though? Eh, if some people were happy to see it brought back, why not. And it allowed curious viewers a new chance to discover this innocent slapstick comedy.The premise is fairly simple. At a Japanese tourist beach, out of the sea comes Squid Girl, a human-squid-being. Think of Spider-man, but squid instead of spider, and girl instead of man. Squid Girl has certain squid-like abilities and traits, like tentacle-hair that act as extra arms, and the tendency to barf black ink when nervous. Squid Girl comes to shore with a mission: the human race has polluted the sea for too long, so she'll aim for total world domination, conquering humanity for the sake of her home! And that little snack bar on the beach will be the perfect place to start, right?Of course, the family run restaurant-shack isn't easy to take over. The middle sister doesn't take Squid Girl's threats seriously, and quickly tricks her to become their new employee. The youngest brother thinks her tentacles are cool and fun to play with. The oldest sister seems calm and welcoming, but can quickly nuturalize any threat on her family or store, including any atempt of attack from squids. And if Squid Girl can't handle a restaurant of a couple dozen tourists, how would she handle thousands?... wait, there are billions of people?! Her grand plans might take longer than she thought. So "Squid Girl" is a slice-of-life slapstick comedy, with two or three adventures per episode, revolving around beach life, the ocean, tourism, and other stuff. Squid Girl trips and falls, cries and whines in a cute way, and gets sidetracked into temporarily forgetting her reason for being on shore for another day. There's no overarching plot about the world in danger, or worrying about proving yourself to an overbearing parent or boss. There's no romance, fan-service, or crude humor, making the show accessible and easy to watch with a crowd. The one questionable aspect is the trope of one girl who thinks Squid Girl is so cute, she falls madly in love with her, drooling even when pummeled after a hug attempt. Also, perhaps the increasingly obvious foot / sandal fetish by the time Season 2 starts, but for a show that's almost entirely set at a beach, that was inevitable. 
And the puns... so many puns... yes, the Japanese dub has some wordplay, but mostly relies on Squid Girl saying "(squid-squid)" at the end of each sentence. The English dub goes the extra mile, throwing a clever joke in every other sentence Squid Girl says. In the first episode, this includes gems such as "my ink-vasion of mankind," "shark got your tongue, scardy-fish?," "wait just a kraken-minute!" and "hold your sea-horses, will ya?" Squid Girl talks a lot and is the main character, so you'd get that many puns in about the span of a minute. Every minute. For every episode. Even if some puns are reused and get old, the English translators deserve a gold medal. Yes, "Squid Girl" is funny, cute, and within the bounds of the setting, clever. But the first episode kinda gives you everything there is to the premise. After that, there isn't much reason to keep watching the rest. It doesn't help that this isn't just a 12-episode season, or a series of minnow-sodes: there are 27 full-length episodes here. The result is a great show to have on in the background, while working on other things (writing a review, for example), perhaps to distract children or have playing while hanging out with friends. Part of what makes "Squid Girl" effective, especially after extended viewing, is how cute and adorable it is. The puns help with that. There are also a few spin-off "dream" episodes featuring a thumb-sized chibi Squid Girl, with virtually no dialogue; infinitely watchable, those could have held up a complete season on their own. The tone of the comedy and the character designs also feels very retro, as in mid-2000's, despite originally airing in 2010 and 2011. The production values are actually pretty good of you like that art style, and the transfer looks good on Bluray thanks to distinct colors and bold outlines. The English dub also sounds like it was recorded in the early 2000's, which isn't great, but the script is so pun-filled that I can't help but love it. Anime comedy doesn't always translate well to Western audiences, but "Squid Girl" works well enough, and is pleasant enough to recommend whatever your disposition is. There aren't many like that, so I'd probably fit the show somewhere in my top-10-anime-comedies list, even if I'm not excited for it. Squid Girl herself makes for a cute mascot character, a shame we didn't get t-shirts of her claiming for world domination instead of Haruhi Suzumiya. Heck, it's not too late: "Splatoon" became a hit video game franchise, so squids are trendy enough for the show to make a comeback.