We've seen in anime that even the devil gets a part time job to psychics wanting a mundane life to the perfect classmate's awesome antics and all, this rendition is not different, character jabbing and GREAT comedy to go along with it ~geso.
Shinryaku! Ika Musume is one of those comedies LA has been on LA's comedy anime bucket list for a great deal of time and really the anime didn't disappoint by the end of it. Let's DIVE right in shall we? ~geso.
Shinryaku! Ika Musume's narrative structure is that of the typical comedic set piece lasting roughly 5 minutes each, rounding up to 3 or 4 large skits within one episode, largely following Ika Musume's daily life in trying to take over the world or those surrounding her and this plot structure though simple, pays off quite well due to the comedy given ~geso.
This being a character-centralized kind of sitcom, LA might as well start talking about the characters before even talking about the comedy. Let's start with the titular character herself Ika Musume (or Squid Girl) voiced by Hisako Kanemoto, she is the narrative focus of the anime (to be expected) as we see her interacting with the human civilization as well as her plans for world domination through mundane ways made funny, Chizuru and Eiko Aizawa (Rie Tanaka and Ayumi Fujimura respectively) are both the tsukommi to Ika Musume's antics as well as keeping everyone in line, Eiko more to Ika Musume, Chizuru to EVERYONE. Sanae Nagatsuki voiced by Kanae Ito is an utter fangirl on borderline stalking to Ika Musume. Takeru Aizawa voiced by Miki Ootani is the younger brother of Aizawa sisters and is generally the character to involve Ika Musume in the mundane world domination plans. Nagisa Saitou voiced by Azusa Enoki is the only "sane" one of the cast, actually fearing Ika Musume's plan for world domination, which in turn Ika Musume likes to tease her with because she likes being feared. Gorou Arashiyama voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura is a lifeguard but has a crush on Chizuru, he normally is involved when Chizuru, Eiko or Nagisa is involved. Finally Cyndi Campbell voiced by Hitome Nabatame is an investigator trying to get Ika Musume into her lab so Ika Musume can be experimented as an alien. LA's favourite character though she doesn't get as much screentime and is an odd "main character status" but satellite character to Eiko (but later episodes gives full focus to Chizuru breaking her status as a satellite character), Chizuru was LA's favourite, well because of her being the MOST badass character in the entire series ~geso.
Really all these diverse and wacky characters really drives the comedy for this anime. Ika Musume being the centralized comedic focus of the entire anime, Ika Musume either is the catalyst starting things off like her running gag of wanting world domination, or her mundane fascination of human culture through whenever she encounters Takeru doing something, new powers or talents Ika Musume taken to either over the top results or again, her not being taken seriously, instead being used for mundane chores or Ika Musume gets involved later in other situations only to make it even crazier or evolve the other comedic skits in the process of her "intervention" ~geso.
Many of the character-focused skits do have their running gags such as Nagisa's fear of Ika Musume, Eiko's boke to tskuommi routine with Ika Musume as well as any of the other wacky cast, Sanae and Gorou's obsession with Ika Musume and Chizuru respectively and Cyndi's obsession in trying to get Ika Musume into the lab, but where it makes the comedy and running gags not as stale from it's conception onwards is Ika Musume's involvement and just making the running gags evolve along with Ika Musume's involvement with it all, from Eiko and Ika Musume's relationship grows as Ika Musume gets integrated to Eiko's home to Nagisa's relationship and how she feels about Ika Musume's presences. Add in the fact that the pre-established comedic skits LA already mentioned gets combined in the later episodes due to certain wacky characters meeting up with one another giving almost unpredictable results on the matter as well as some of the more genre-switching "silent comedy" like the Ika-tan skit to "slice of life" like Ika Musume gaining an "accidental" best friend of Kiyomi Sakura voiced by Kokoro Kikuchi (which later gets a sports genre skit) to "scary-horror" with "supernatural phenomenon" which is linked to Ika Musume's fascination of human culture taken in the more scary superstitious route (which is ironic due to Ika Musume essentially being an anomaly herself) in between the largely comedic nature of the anime and you got a really good slapstick yet wide ranging comedy about a Squid Girl who isn't taken seriously with goal of world domination with oddballs and wackjobs surrounding her. LA's favourite skits would go to anytime Ika Musume finds out a new power about herself, the entire deal with Nagisa's fear of Ika Musume (as it changes things up of Ika Musume not being the boke to Eiko's tsukommi, instead Ika Musume is the tsukommi to Nagisa's boke), the combined skits due to the obvious wacky hilarity that ensues and finally Ika Musume's attempts at world domination through mundane ways were some of LA's favourite comedic skits ~geso.
Though LA said that the comedic running gags do evolve, the majority of them goes back to status quo is some ways or another, (though in a slightly deviated stance, same skit, differing results) those being Cyndi's obsession of wanting to get Ika Musume as a test subject, Sanae's obsession with Ika Musume to Gorou's crush with Chizuru, these skits though sometimes deviating from it's typical running gags, it ends nearly the same way it does though sometimes the great punchlines does mask this, but even with that, it's easily compensated with the variety of comedic skits, newer and older or characters you just didn't expect to meet up and start interacting with one other (be it similar goals to Ika Musume or just weird meetups in general) as well as some of developed comedic skits really changing things anyways ~geso.
In terms of animation done by diomedea, the character designs are very standardized, the only exception being Ika Musume herself who has probably the most unique character designs, obviously what with her being a squid girl and all. The backgrounding is overall nothing much to talk about, but the more "overexagerrated" animations given can bring more variety to the animation as well. LA's most prominence in the animation would go to the character designs as Ika Musume herself was a memorable character designs further helped with the wacky antics she gets up to, the other cast members are rather noticeable usually because of their hair color or their wacky behaviour but nonetheless even that's helped due to their screentime and all ~geso.
In terms of voice acting, the voice acting is decent to say the least with some notable performances from Kanae Ito with her borderline yandere vocals, Rie Tanaka's dual vocals of her sweet to red-eyed with anger vocals were pretty well done. LA's favorite voice actor would actually go to Ika Musume's voice actor, Hisako Kanemoto. Why?, because of Hisako constantly being in character with her "squid" accenting of "~geso" at the end of her sentences. It may not be much and some people might found it annoying, due to Ika Musume going through several "whining moments" within the anime, but Hisako Kanemoto is the only one with this kind of accenting and her "in-character" quite honestly made Hisako Kanemoto deserves this spot, "annoying" or otherwise ~geso.
Shinryaku! Ika Musume is a very well done sitcom which is greatly helped by our titular character of Ika Musume, LA said it before but she's the glue that holds this anime together, both comedically as well as relationship-wise towards the other main cast as well, which was perfectly shown the last episode. Shinryaku! Ika Musume is one of those comedy animes where it has a simple setup but it pays off soo well due to the wacky character chemistry towards one another, the variety of comedy from straight up slapstick to character jabbing to it's great punchlines. Even though Shinryaku! Ika Musume has a bit of the "status quo is god" syndrome (and it does stay even during it's more unpredictable times), Shinryaku! Ika Musume nonetheless does evolve from it typical comedic skits, bringing us funnier comedic skits in the manner of combining skits together through it's characters or one-off skits different from it's own genre to give us something new which in itself makes it a VERY good character-centralized sitcom about one squid girl trying to take over the world ~GESO!!!!!!!!
