Japanese food collection

So one of my Christmas presents was a big box full of genuine Japanese food! There was a brilliant assortment! Alas, I could not deem it possible to write a worthy review on just a snack so I've decided to combine them altogether in one super awesome food post!! So I present you with a whole box of food!

Squid Girl

Ok, so this wasn't my Christmas present. It was actually my sisters but anyway, it's February and I'm still getting through Christmas presents? Stay tuned though, the anime you've recommended will be reviewed! Time for some anime now.

Squid Girl or 'The Squid Girl: The Invader comes from the Bottom of the Sea' is a short comedy about a squid-girl hybrid who wants to conquer the earth. Strangely she never gets a real name and instead is always referred to as 'Squid Girl' she has powerful tentacles and a solid motive; she wants to rule humans because she's fed up of all the pollution and littering we cause. I assumed that the anime was going to give loads of green peace messages through out, but boy was I wrong! When she first comes to land she decides to take the nearest beach house as her mission headquarters but she accidentally breaks the wall and ends up being tricked into working there instead. I would be hard pressed to call it a slice-of-life anime because slice-of-lifes are supposed to be about everyday occurrences and personally I haven't heard of many encounters with squid girls, but it is without much development. It's extremely funny though and that's the main point. Me and my family were in hysterics at all the fishy puns like 'inkvasion', they are pulled off very well. Everything is so ridiculous to the point were you just have to laugh so I would definitely call this anime a win!
The art is really cute! They made squid girl look like a child and not intimidating in slightest, and they still got the features of a squid in there! Her silly hat that vaguely resembles the head of a squid and her blue tentacle hair, it's adorable really, but you can tell she's a squid! The humans however, all look a bit funny. I think it's the hair, it kind of defies gravity it almost makes me think of Pokemon with the ridiculous hairstyles! But yeah, it's a very simplistic art style just like most "slice-of-life" anime (they call it that on ANN so I'll just go with that). I do really like squid girl's design though!

A Bride's Story

Still going through my Christmas presents! But don't worry, I will get to every one's recommendations eventually!

It is exactly as the name implies: it's a bride's story. Set in Asia, 19th century comes the tale of an old bride who marries a boy from another tribe. The bride is Amir and she is extremely skilled in archery and horse riding but upon reaching the age of 20 her tribe sends her off to 12 year old Karluk of a very different tribe. This book is more educational and informative than a story as instead of any particular plot the book focuses on the daily life of the tribe members portraying many traditions and different ideals. There's a whole chapter about wood carving that's really exciting and points on fashion, medicine and food. There's also lots of marriage traditions throughout. In the afterword the author does say that she done a lot of research of this time period, so we can assume it's accurate. But there is a bit of plot which I assume is going to be carried on in the next book: so basically Amir comes from a semi-nomadic tribe but they need to marry into another tribe in order to claim land for winter (or something like that). But the only woman they have to offer is Amir, since they never got anything Karluk's tribe for their marriage so they insist that Amir be returned. However, Karluk's grandmother lies saying Amir is pregnant and as such can't leave putting a certain amount of strife between the two families. But this is an extremely under-developed plot that's completely overshadowed by all the every day life stories.