News

Ika Musume #3 Tops Overall Weekly Chart with 9,000 BDs

The third Blu-ray Disc volume of the Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl) anime sold 9,000 copies (rounded to the nearest thousand) to top Oricon's overall sales ranking chart for the February 28-March 6 week. It is Ika Musume's first Blu-ray Disc volume to rank #1; the first volume sold 6,000 copies in its first week of sales to rank #14 in December, and the second volume also sold 6,000 in its first week of sales to rank #5 in January.

The first two Blu-ray volumes reached #4 and #5 in December and January, respectively, on SoundScan Japan's weekly Blu-ray Disc charts. None of the Ika Musume DVD volumes have ranked on Oricon's weekly DVD charts.

The third Blu-ray volume contains the fifth and sixth episodes from the television anime series, and it came with a Mini Ika Musume figure and a box for all six volumes as limited first-edition extras. The anime adapts Masahiro Anbe's Shinryaku! Ika Musume (The Invader Came From the Bottom of the Sea!) comedy manga about a squid girl who vows to invade the beaches of mankind since humans have polluted the seas. However, her invasion is less than successful, and she ends up on dry land.

The first season premiered in October, and the media-distribution website Crunchyroll streamed the season outside Japan as it aired. Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine has since announced a second anime season.

Ika Musume/Squid Girl characteristically ends her sentences with either "-ika?" or "-geso" — words that literally mean "squid" and "squid tentacles" in the dictionary. Thanks to their widespread use by Twitter and blog posters, Ika Musume's catchphrases were #3 on the Net Ryūkōgo Taishō 2010 (Net Buzzword Awards 2010) list of fad words and Internet memes from the Sankei Shimbun paper. Yotchan Foods will begin selling its official "Cut Yotchan x Shinryaku! Ika Musume" dried squid snacks on March 15.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web