ANSWERS: Word Squares: Tetris Edition

Well, it's been two weeks since I've posted my Tetris-ified version of "Word Squares" (which you can still solve here, with an easier version here), and after the relatively low solver count of Tetris Month's first two puzzles, I was surprised with how many people solved this one, especially since I was worried that some people might get confused by the directions. Anyway, here's a list of people who have solved this puzzle:

• Grant Fikes **
• Eric Maddy **
• Paolo Pasco **
• Adam Weaver **
• Lynn Sweeney **
• Sam Levitin **
• Mom **
• Christian H.P. **

Now for the answers! Just go below the break to read them, along with some solver comments to read!

The squares sticking out of the grids, colored above, spell out KAT and ANA from the Warioware series, whose names combine to spell out KATANA: A Japanese sword

Kat has pink hair, Ana has orange. Also, the number of vowels in their name correspond to the number of pigtails they have.

Solver Grant Fikes pretty much knew it was going to be Kat and Ana right away, and he also said that "[Y]ou're not allowed to mention "infamous" and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in the same sentence without reminding me of this" [A video where Slowbeef of Retsupurae reads a creepypasta called "0bl1v10n.exe"]

Solver Eric Maddy had a lot to say: "fwiw, I STILL didn't have to enter the words into the grid to solve this, although the "hack" was a little less obvious than on the preceding two puzzles...

Methodology: Solved the clues (AMOCO, MANAT, ARESO, NOUGAT, ASTRID, RENGO, DOTTO, SAMOA, ISAAC, TRAUMA). Note the six-letter answers in bold; I already know the three odd letters I'm looking for will be the first or last letters of these words (N or T, A or D, and T or A)*. I then look at the blocks for this grid and take that set of 28 letters twice (total of 56 letters), I delete the 53 letters from the clue answers, and I'm left with NAA. Which neatly double-checks as each of those is either the first or last letter of a six-letter word.

Did the same thing for the first grid (with one false-start; I had RODENT for the groundhog, but with the D being a singleton in mid-word, it couldn't be correct. So I kind of had to back-solve to get that; ended up with AAKMMORTT with six of those letters anagramming to my groundhog and the other three my leftovers, and knew the K from KOSMOS would be one of the leftovers so had to stare for a bit before pulling out MARMOT.

*Well, at least I'm assuming that; theoretically, one tetronimo could stick out two spaces, and use its first two or latter two letters, but you didn't do that in the example and it seemed unlikely you'd do that in the puzzle itself."

Now your horse can look ridiculous, too! Only two-and-a-half dollars!

Solver Paolo Pasco "[d]idn't even solve the puzzle yet; just looked at the prompt, remembered your Warioware clues [I mentioned Kat before in one of the clues for my second meta-crossword], and thought, "Yup. Katana."