Interest
Official Ika Musume/Squid Girl Dried Squid Snacks Sold
posted on by Egan Loo
Yotchan Foods, the Japanese maker of a popular line of seafood-based snacks, is collaborating with the producers of the Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl) anime to launch its official "Cut Yotchan x Shinryaku! Ika Musume" dried squid snacks on March 15. Ministop convenience stores in the Kantō (greater Tokyo area), Tōkai (Gifu/Shizuoka/Aichi/Mie), and Kinki (Shiga/Kyoto/Nara/Mie/Wakayama/Osaka/Hyōgo) areas will exclusively sell the snacks for 168 yen (about US$2).
Each Cut Yotchan x Shinryaku! Ika Musume package will "bundle one bromide card de geso!*" Each of the three major areas will have a different package design and 10 different bromide cards, for a total of 30 regular cards to collect. Plus, each major area will also have a "special bromide card."
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 season.
Yotchan Foods already makes 21 different seafood-based snacks, including the Cut Yotchan dried fish snack line that Japanese markets have sold for years. Similar to beef jerky in North America, dried squid is a popular snack in Japan and many other Asian countries.
* 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.
Source: Walker Plus
Images © Masahiro Anbe (Weekly Shōnen Champion)/Umi no Ie Lemon
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