Considering I watched Shinryaku Ika Musume Crunchyroll before Ohayocon, I'm pretty sure I should have written
this review awhile ago.
Instead I kept putting it off (but there were other
posts in there, so at least no one can yell at me) and finally decided I may as
well write the darn thing.
I think everyone is pretty well-aware that humans have caused pollution all
over the place, including in the oceans. Not exactly a surprise.
This series starts with Ika Musume (Squid Girl), who is seriously a squid,
coming up out of the ocean in order to enslave all of humanity as revenge
for everything people have done to her home.
Now, you can't really blame her, but the problem with her plan (I'm going to
stick with one problem) is that because she's dense/a total idiot, she never
realized quite how many humans there are.
So what happens is she ends up breaking a wall at this beach restaurant and
then is forced to work there in order to pay for the fixing.
She does so, and along the way learns more about humans (doesn't really get
any less dense though) and sort of starts to become part of the family.
Everything in this series revolves around her antics and general craziness,
without much of an actual plot.
The Characters: Shinryaku! Ika Musume
The primary stars of the show are Ika-chan and the family she is staying
with / working for, consisting of sisters Eiko and Chizuru Aizawa, as well as
the younger brother Takeru.
Other characters frequently spotted include Sanae, a friend of the sisters
who basically has a love-at-first-sight thing going on with Ika; Cyndi, an
American researcher of aliens and her group of lab guys; and Nagisa, who is
seriously afraid of Ika.
Ika herself is definitely the best character all around, on the principle
that she's the only character with more than one dimension, more than one
purpose.
Yes, her primary goal is to take over the world, but along the way you
discover things about her other than all of the wacky things she can do with
her tentacles (though those things are pretty awesome on their own), like
she's a math genius.
How she's a math genius I haven't a clue, but she is. Everyone else?
Chizuru exists to be the scary sister, Takeru doesn't seem to
have much purpose at all, Sanae is there to obsess over Ika and so is Cyndi,
while Nagisa exists to be frightened of our little squid girl.
The only
other character who seems to do more than one thing is Eiko, and there's not
much to her, either.
Basically, don't come into Ika Musume looking for character depth.
The Mini-sodes: Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl)
While Ika Musume is a 12-episode series, it's really got more than that. Each episode contains different chunks, which make up what I like to call
mini-sodes.
Kinda like old kid's shows it would run for half an hour, but
you would get to see two different stories in that half hour.
Every episode, and every mini-sode, is self-contained, 100% unrelated to the
others besides taking place in the same setting with the same characters.
Running the series like this, instead of just going straight through with
what happens to her, allows for the showing of only the fun stuff after all,
even for a squid girl, not every day can be exciting when you're just
working at a beach restaurant.
The best mini-sode? Mini-Ika! I want one. Baka-Raptor doesn't.
Conclusion?
As I said, there is no plot to this series. The events are unrelated,
nothing ever seems to affect anything else continuing into the future, and
well...that's okay.
Not every series needs to have a great plot. Or any plot at all. Sometimes
they exist as pure crack, and as long as they aren't trying to be something
they're not (coughSOULEATERcough) that's all fine and good.
Granted, better characters can help out even the best of crack, but Ika
Musume knew what it was doing, and well that's what it did.
Would I recommend this series? Sure.
Now if you're a serious person who only
watches serious anime while maintaining your serious eyebrows, no you should
go watch Death Note or something.
But if you're looking for a laugh or two and wouldn't mind spending 12
episodes looking at a really adorable girl who is actually a squid, yeah. Go
for it.
My rating: 7/10
Okay humor, very cute, but...I've seen so much better on both fronts.
Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl) | |
| Episodes | 12 |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy, Slice of Life |
| Aired | October 5, 2010 to December 21, 2010 |
| Directed by | Tsutomu Mizushima |
| Producers | Diomedea |
| Opening Theme | Shinryaku no Susume by Ultra-Prism |
| Closing Theme | Metamerism by Kanae Itou |
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