Shinryaku! Ika Musume (The Squid Girl)

Humans have been polluting the ocean for a long time, carelessly pouring their garbage and desecrating the waters that many creatures call home. The denizens of the sea have suffered at their poisoning hands. Finally, one certain squid has had enough and vows to punish the humans' selfish actions.

Possessing all the fearsome abilities of a squid such as powerful hair-tentacles, the ability to spit ink, and even use bioluminescence at will, Ika Musume takes it upon herself to rise from the depths of the ocean and exact revenge upon humanity! She surfaces at a certain Lemon Beach House, a restaurant managed by the sisters Eiko and Chizuru Aizawa. Thinking them to be an easy first step toward world domination, she immediately declares war against them, only to find out that she is, quite literally, a fish out of water! To make things worse, she destroys a part of a wall of the beach house in an attempt to flaunt her squiddy superiority and is consequently forced into becoming a waitress to pay the repair costs. Beached for the time being after tasting a thorough defeat at the hands of the Aizawa sisters, Ika Musume is forced to put her plans for world domination on hold.

Despite these setbacks, Ika Musume soon finds herself right at home in her unexpected position as Lemon Beach House's newest employee. Wacky and hilarious, Shinryaku! Ika Musume follows her brand new life on the surface as she makes precious memories and meet lots of new people. With her newfound acquaintances, Ika Musume is looking to take the world by storm, one squid ink spaghetti at a time!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Shinryaku! Ika Musume
Side story:	Shinryaku! Ika Musume Specials
Sequel:	Shinryaku!? Ika Musume
Other:	Shinryaku! Ika Musume: Ika Ice Tabena-ika?, Shinryaku! Ika Musume: Kore ga Umi e no Ai Jana-ika!

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Ika Musume

Main

Kanemoto, Hisako
Japanese

Aizawa, Chizuru

Main

Tanaka, Rie
Japanese

Aizawa, Eiko

Main

Fujimura, Ayumi
Japanese

Nagatsuki, Sanae

Supporting

Itou, Kanae
Japanese

Alex

Supporting

Saitou, Nagisa

Supporting

Enoki, Azusa
Japanese

Aizawa, Takeru

Supporting

Ootani, Miki
Japanese

Sakura, Kiyomi

Supporting

Kikuchi, Kokoro
Japanese

Arashiyama, Gorou

Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi
Japanese

Tokita, Ayumi

Supporting

Kawasumi, Ayako
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Ishiguro, Tatsuya

Producer

Satomi, Tetsurou

Assistant Producer

Sgroi, Victor

Assistant Producer

Mizushima, Tsutomu

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Screenplay

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Opening Theme

"Shinryaku no Susume☆ (侵略ノススメ☆)" by ULTRA-PRISM with Ika Musume

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Ending Theme

"Metamerism (メタメリズム)" by Kanae Itou

Reviews

Jan 13, 2011

Archaeon

Recommended

The problem with the anime industry is the continuous failure to capitalise on titles that are actually good, and instead redirect time and resources to producing shows that leave you as empty as a tectonic bowel movement. Every genre has suffered this iniquity, but while most bounce back with other, much better offerings (comparatively speaking), comedy continues to prove the medium's "Achilles heel". Those of you who are fans of Gintama may disagree with that perception, but consider for a moment the number of anime released during the last year that have borne the "comedy" label.

Now have a think about whether they made you laugh, ...

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Jun 7, 2013

GonzoLewd

Mixed Feelings

I’m not going to lie, this show is a weird one to talk about. Not because of the actual premise, although it does add a little to it, but on the way it’s structured. It reminded me of my childhood shows with three separate story arcs that had a basic theme. With an anime plot involving a cute squid girl trying to invade the entire planet by herself only to be undermined by many people who own a food court near a beach, you’d think that would speak of random hijinks that will only appeal to prepubescent girls. Fortunately, there can be some merits here ... that could appeal to any age group.

Squid Girl has a plot that is hardly focused or has any substance to the original goal that the squid character, Ike, intended to do. It mainly involves her trying to learn about humanity and the culture of Japan that she is settling in. It’s essentially a show based on culture shock and how foreigners try to adapt to a different country that they have no idea about. The tone of the series is light-hearted and comedic; they handle it pretty well without hampering the basic premise conflicting with the comedy. It’s pretty entertaining to watch and, at times, funny to see Ike acting very holier than thou upon the people she meets when she has no power over the others whatsoever.

With a show like Squid Girl, you need to supply great characters that are both funny and memorable to watch. While some garner a lot of entertainment, others are not fully realized and don’t add much depth to the comedy. The best ones that I liked the most were Ike, Eiko, and Chizuru. They all have so much great chemistry together and make many great gags work perfectly. Chizuru provides some of the best scenes involving her having a friendly personality. Still, once something terrible happens to her or the workplace, she turns menacing to the person doing the trouble-making. Ike herself, voiced by the always charming Hisako Kanemoto, gives the show a great sense of passion towards making this Slice of life atmosphere into an entertaining comedy with her constant alluring presence in every scene.

Unfortunately, not all of the cast hits the level of greatness and our three main characters. Sanae, Takeru, and Goro all don’t have the same great chemistry with Ike as she does with Eiko and Chizuru. That’s not to say they’re terrible, they do have some funny moments, but it’s essentially just them acting very googly-eyed over Ike’s presence in the world that quickly doesn’t have much to go for in the grand scheme of things. For example, Sanae’s only gag for existing in the show is to be all lovey-dovey over Ike and nothing else. Sure it does get a few laughs, but after a while, the joke falls flat and gets old quickly. If it weren’t for Kanae Itou’s sweet voice playing Sanae, I would probably think lesser of Sanae, to be honest.

Another problem with the show was how each plot arc ended so abruptly. There are times when a plot arc would end, and it didn’t feel like that particular scene felt any closure for it. It ends relatively quickly, and we’re brought up in a different scene. The problem is that they interlude between a different arc by showing a cut of arrows that are supposed to tell us that we’re doing a different arc. Still, it happens so fast that you barely notice it because the arc beforehand hardly had an ending. In turn, some of the arcs felt rushed or weren’t finished in the writing process during production.

In short, I thought there wasn’t anything special to be found in Squid Girl. It might be something that you might show to your younger daughter to have some fun with, but on the other hand, there is some decent humor for adults. It might be a stretch to say that this is Japan’s answer to Spongebob. The only difference is that Spongebob had a lot of great memorable characters while Squid Girl only had three that are even worth discussing over. It’s a harmless show for what it is, a decently entertaining show for older kids. Even with some of the adult innuendo thrown in, that’s at least that's something that most kids' shows are hardly about these days.

Grade: B-

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Dec 10, 2010

Mugen900

Not Recommended

Preliminary (10/12 eps)

Ok, so just 2 more episodes and this anime is already nearing its end, so what can I say about this anime? Well, let's put it this way according to how I rate this anime:

STORY:

Originally, the plot of this story is about nature fighting back against humans who pollute the seas with garbage and with the help of squid girl Ika Masume and her so called invasion force of half human and half squid, which,by the way she seems to had forgotten bring it along with her at the start of the anime- talking about letting a girl do a grown-up's job. But,only to get ... sidetracked by working in a seaside eatery, fumbling around as she learns with the everyday life on the surface and having a relationship (including harassment from 2 lesbians Cindy and Sanae) with the surface dwellers, though, the comic side of it is cliche, I thinks that it still deserve a fair score of 6.

ART:

I have nothing to say about the art of the anime,but the artist's impression on how the characters and the background were drawn would literally give one an impression as to what the anime is without telling the audience about its synopsis. Then again, there were some awkward parts of the character's appearance e.g. the sharp ends that were sticking out on the left side of Eiko and Chizuru's hair,the design of Ika's tentacles and the baseball team were Ika participated. But in fairness one can simply just forgive it, so, a fair number 6 it is.

SOUND:

No comment for the sound, and I like the opening theme of the anime, so it deserves the number 6th spot for its rating.

CHARACTER:

I don't have much comment for most of the cast, but for Gorou to be called "Life Saver," kinda make the term an awkward definition of his occupation, I don't know for sure if it is the fault of the author or is it the translation, but the proper noun for the said character's role is "Life- Guard." Also,I'm no marine biologist, but,if Ika Masume is a squid girl then she belongs to the species of cephalopod and should only have 8 tentacle instead of 10, she should also swim using jet propulsion instead of using her tentacle and she should also have chromatophores that enables her to either hide,glow or communicate with other squids in the water and depending on the species of Cephalopod an ordinary squid can live only about 10 years in captivity . I guess both the author and artist don't know anything about squids except when eating it as sushi. Then again,who cares? As long as the character entertains,then it is decent enough to rate it as number 4.

OVERALL AND ENJOYMENT:

Decent enough to be viewed by all ages, so number 4 it is.

Trivia: Humboldt Squids can grow as much as 30 feet.

It is estimated that there are at least 1000 tons of non biodegradable garbage floating around the world's oceans.

Japan is a known consumer of Whale meat , according to Greenpeace data.

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