Shinryaku!? Ika Musume

After a year of absence, Ika Musume returns once again to invade the anime world, bringing along with her all the gags and skits of the first season back for another run. For those who have watched season one of Ika Musume, this is definitely a must-watch. But even for those who haven't watched season one, you won't be missing anything if you jump right into the second season. All you need to know is that there's a squid girl "attempting" to invade the land. Shinryaku!? Ika Musume is essentially the exact replica of the first season except with different stories so don't go into ... it expecting something totally brand-new. So, let's begin the review ~de geso.

Art (7/10)
The artwork for the show has always been simple but good. The characters and backgrounds generally look lively, with the designs taking a more comedic style once in a while. It's nothing to cheer about but it's watchable and does what it's supposed to do.

Characters (7/10)
Surprisingly, there weren't any new (and notable) characters this season. Even though I was glad that the entire cast from season one returned, I can't say I wasn't disappointed at the lack of new faces. The characters have barely changed - Ika Musume is still the center of attention and comedy, Chizuru is still extremely creepy when she's mad, Sanae is still obsessed with Ika Musume, etc. I guess the idea of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" was in the mind of the mangaka as he continued Ika Musume after realizing it was successful.

Sound (8/10)
Like last season, Ika Musume opens with a fast-paced and upbeat OP that readies one for the comedy in next twenty or so minutes while the slower and softer ED wraps up the episode. I personally liked both songs, with the OP slightly getting the edge over the ED. As expected, the same BGM and seiyū from season one return for season two. Not many changes to note in this category.

Story (6/10)
While the first season was generally plotless, I was more forgiving considering that the series was still new to me. However, with the second season now finished, I'm starting to wonder if the original premise of Ika Musume invading the land has been completely forgotten. It's actually not the lack of plot that bothered me this season, but how unfitting the show's title is. Sure, maybe the question mark is there to hint that the invasion may not happen after all, but I'm still quite confused as to why the word "Shinryaku" is even there in the first place. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the three skits (or "stories", if you prefer) in each episode. They were generally entertaining and amusing.

Overall (7/10)
To be honest, the second season of Ika Musume didn't live up to the first season. I think it's the repetitiveness of it all that made it lose its charm. Still, that is not to say it was bad in any way. In fact, I am slightly looking forward to a third season, though I have a few doubts here and there. And with that, we bid farewell to squid girl once again and wait to see if she'll appear again next year.

Here we go again!

The second season of Shinryaku!? Ika Musume is very much like the first season however with some changes here and there, for one, no more new characters are permanently added to the cast, it's the same cast we know with all their running gags only amplified.

For one, Cyndi and the Three stooges' invention gets ramped up into more bizarre inventions that utterly don't help the situation in their venture to make Ika Musume their test subject, Sanae's obsession with Ika Musume is amped up as well with her obsession going into masochist mild yandere states at times.

Once again many of Ika Musume's ... ventures are like making the more mundane things humans go through making Ika Musume seem to make it intense and awesome in alot of ways.

We do in this season get some mild character development (if LA can call it that) to some characters in this season such as Chizuru (still LA's favourite character in the series) showing off her more emotional side as well as showing off some of her weaknesses due to her being Ika Musume's biggest obstacle in her invasion in the first place. Ika Musume shows off some more of her new powers, showed development of showing that not ALL humans are bad which culminated into getting an emotional moment in the finale with Eiko showing that even though Eiko is Ika Musume's biggest minder (and the tsukommi to Ika's boku) she still somewhat cares about Ika Musume as harsh as she is to her. Some minor characters like Kiyomi gets expanded upon as well what with Kiyomi's click getting added to the cast but only as something of a satellite characters to Kiyomi.

So essentially Shinryaku!? Ika Musume is just many of Ika Musume's daily lives with even goofier and wackier scenario's for her to be put in, that and the "flavour" of the first season of Ika Musume is still in this second season, by not only showing off Ika Musume's daily life and all but defying expectations to MANY of skits LA mentioned above.

Ika Musume's humor comes from one situation that leads into another THEN having our expectations of Ika Musume winning or the outcome but then ONE factor screws/changes the outcome of Ika Musume (or the character in focus) that allows Ika Musume to be put back to square one. Now this is saying the status quo is in place for the most part and in this season LA thinks it got the brunt of it due to the no follow through besides those setup in the first season. Now is LA saying the humor isn't the same as the first season due to this, no, it's just the factor of isolated incidents of Ika Musume going through the motions and even if the status quo is in place, LA got a chuckle from a couple of skits in this season if not because of how much crazier or unexpected the result DID become be it if LA knows the outcome or not.

Unexpectedness is key for Shinryaku!? Ika Musume and it nailed it even in this season.

In terms of animation once again done by diomedea, the character designs and backgrounding is through and through the same as the first season...really not much too talk about the animation besides the rare times of art style changes for exaggerated reactions and everything but the animation is the same as the first verse just consistent.

The voice acting is again the same as the first season, the only annoyance LA actually found this season happen to be Kanae Ito as Sanae, nothing on the voice actor on this one as Sanae's obsession peaked this season so she's even more obnoxiously annoying compared to her first season portrayal. Hisako Kanemoto doing her squid-esque accenting is consistent as ever and Rie Tanaka as Chizuru is her typical caring older sister but DON'T F*** WITH HER vocals as well. There are some actually decent "English" in this anime dubbed by Sarah Hauser for both Cyndi and Ika's English...it was more or less uncanny hearing that. But yeah..same as the animation, the voice acting is consistent at best.

Shinryaku!? Ika Musume's second season is going through the motions of Ika Musume's daily life, trying to invade the world but failing time and again, however what Ika Musume fails to realize is all the time she's spent with Eiko, Chizuru, Takeru, Cyndi, Sanae and Kiyomi and everyone else, sure she hasn't invaded the world but she has "invaded" and oddly enough helped all the people she's encountered to be together and if it wasn't for Ika Musume, they would have never meet the people that they did. "Invasion" is a strong word, more like "friendship" at best and that is what Ika Musume is to everyone by the end of it, the hilarity, craziness or mundanity of it all.

Nonetheless Shinryaku!? Ika Musume was a nice wrap up to the Ika Musume series even for a status quo rather unpredictable skit based comedy anime about a humanoid squid girl wanting to take over the world.

Shinryaku!? Ika Musume is the second season of the Ika Musume or Squid Girl franchise –a highly risible anime series about an adorable and bumbling anthropomorphic squid christened Ika Musume (unimaginative name, eh?) who originally intended to invade the surface to punish the filthy and callous human race for polluting the ocean.

Unfortunately, a high school girl (albeit with superhuman powers) trounces Ika in her first battle, which quickly puts an end to the underwater threat to human civilization. Of course, this hardly dissuades Ika Musume (because she is a numbskull) who ardently continues to pursue her quixotic idée fixe and concocts outlandish schemes, by the ... bushel, to conquer the world, all of which result in her being hoist on her own petard, in hilarious fashion.

Over the course of the series, Ika Musume also meets an eclectic and eccentric cast of characters, which include a crazy teen girl called Sanae (the second best character of the series) who desperately wants to test if love (and a lot more) can flourish between two species; a bodacious and brainy American-cum-MIT graduate-cum-alien hunter-cum-bikini babe named Cindy, who wants to dissect her (and yes, I am probably insinuating something by repeatedly using that word; are you sagacious enough to guess what?); and many other less remarkable ones. As the story is in episodic format, it primarily depends on Ika’s interactions with the characters for humor.

The second season continues in the much the same vein and introduces a few new side characters; albeit completely unmemorable ones. Unfortunately, for a show that is completely character driven, the second season has little to no character development and I quickly got bored of the shticks and quirks of the side characters. However, this did not dissuade me much, as the piece de resistance of the show –Ika Musume, retained her ineffable and inimitable charm that made me like the show so much in the first place. I think that it has to do with the fact that I really adore gamines like Ika (only in anime) because they evoke wistful memories of my vivacious and mischievous 9-year old sister –who stays 2,000 KMs away from me with my parents.

Still, there is only so much that one outstanding character can do for a poor show and by the penultimate episode, my interest was flagging considerably and I was certain that the show would end up with a rating of 4. Thankfully, the last episode turned out to be an absolute gem, wrapped up the season in spectacular fashion, and tugged a few heartstrings as well, which made me reconsider my decision and resulted in the score being bumped up to 5.

As for the audio-visuals, I thought that the show could have been better animated and I did not like most of the character designs–with the notable exception of Ika Musume. The voice acting was mediocre overall, although I think that Ika’s seiyuu did her job consummately.

As for the OP and ED, the former is fast-paced and ebullient while the latter is slower and beautifully expresses the bonds that Ika shares with her human counterparts; I really enjoyed both.

To sum it all up, I felt that the second season of Ika Musume is more or less a rehash of the previous season and gets boring very soon; so, I would only recommend loyal and devoted fans of Ika-Chan (like myself) to watch this season; others can skip it or can watch the only last episode, if they wish.