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「Englishじゃなイカ!?」 (English Janai ka!?)
“Isn’t That English!?”
At first, I didn’t mind how they brought in an English voice actress to voice Cindy’s English lines, but boy did that change in a hurry in the latter parts of this skit. I couldn’t help but wince at the sound of it, which is why I’ll never watch dubs. Nine times out of ten, the acting simply sucks. It’s as if they just plucked someone off the streets and got them to read a script — and read it very poorly at that.
The voice actress in question had her name written phonetically as 国分絵麻 in the credits, which is apparently read as “Kaakubii Ema”, i.e. “Emma Kirkby” (no relation to the renowned soprano singer). If I had any say in this, I would’ve just let Nabatame Hitomi voice Cindy’s English lines to the best of her ability, seeing as Kanemoto Hisako, Tanaka Rie, and Ootani Miki did perfectly fine as Ika, Chizuru, and Takeru respectively. Heck, they did better than fine, especially Hisako who “weaboo’d” it up with Ika’s “de geso” in a way that was actually funny. It was right up there with Eiko’s “Me, toilet, go.” (Gotta love Fujimura Ayumi.)
I’ll never understand why the producers went out of their way to get a native speaker for Cindy when they couldn’t even be bothered to spell check the English subtitles. If they were banking on Japanese audiences to not pick up on all those mistakes, they probably could’ve gotten away with any mispronunciations by Hitomi. Also, I know I shouldn’t read into this too much, but why in the world would Cindy misunderstand Japanese as English when she fluent in both languages? It doesn’t make any sense! I probably would’ve overlooked that if it didn’t come in the form of some cringe-worthy English dubbing, but since I couldn’t, all the jokes were pretty stupid to me.
* I don’t really trust the spelling of Cindy’s name in the subtitles, but I’ll go with “Cindy” from now on. Back in season one, it was written as “Cyndi” on the official website so that’s what I went.
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「止めなイカ!?」 (Tomenai ka!?)
“Won’t You Stop!?”
Saying that Ika got carried away with tickling is an understatement when she’s picking a fight with Chizuru. I’m with everyone else about wanting to see Chizuru laugh helplessly, but I’m not stupid enough to actually try and tickle her. I’ll just pretend her ticklish spot is behind her ear or underneath her feet and let my imagination do the rest. (*Ah, that’s pretty cute.*) The hiccup stuff felt tacked on and random, but I didn’t mind because Sanae already stole the show when she spread herself and asked to be tentacle raped. She said “tickle” but we all know she was thinking “tentacle rape”. I’m a bit surprised she only tossed her shoes and didn’t strip down completely. Oh Sanae, you still rock either way.
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「流れなイカ!?」 (Nagarenai ka!?)
“Isn’t It Washing Away!?”
Mini Ika Musume already? Wow, they just sort of ninja’d her into this skit — not that I’m complaining of course. I got a pretty good laugh at how Takeru’s friends took out their own bamboo-reed boats to make sure Ika’s wins, especially with Takeru’s reaction, so I kind of wish they ended things off on a tearful note instead of slipping in the Lenon beach house at the end. That randomness ruined what would’ve been a perfect follow-up to the heartfelt fifth episode from season one. So close!
* The ending sequence this episode featured the token blond-hair blue-eyed foreigner.
Preview
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Is it me or does it seem that Ika-musume is losing its fun… also talking about voice acting, Ika-chan’s voice actor sounds really different. Also for some reason her voice sticks out like a sore thumb and seems like Cyndi’s, just a bit emotionless.
But anyway, I love the little mini-ika bits. So cute!
By the way, I’m guessing you discarded the film strip layout? [I don’t mind how you write your reviews I was just wondering]
I’d agree this episode was a step below the others, but this is just one episode. I still think Shinryaku’s one of the best anime this season
This episode was okay overall in my opinion.
The first segment seems forced. But if you look from the perspective of Cindy switching modes between Japanese and English, it sort of made sense. In the end though, the laugh is not so much on Cindy but more on Eiko. Not that I enjoy Eiko jokes that much :(, but this one seem to work better than most. Even though it was cruel IMO.
Second segment felt like it could do more with it, I was a little disappointed that it ended with just that. Having Chizuru in action is always a win for me though.
Third segment was fun, Lemon Lennon ftw XD. Mini-ika was a surprise. I didn’t really enjoy the boys pandering to Ika’s whims. Somehow that didn’t work for me.
My take on it was that Cindy was intentionally misinterpreting Eiko’s phrases to get her to realize the actual way to learn English. But whatever. Nevertheless, it’s odd that Takeru of all people in that room would learn English that quickly!
Yeah, the “learning English” skit was pretty awful…vague sentences, weird un-American diction, you name it… I wouldn’t be surprised if the script for the English lines was actually written by some Japanese employee in the studio with an elementary command of of English- emphasis on elementary; resulting in the weird diction, bad grammar, etc.
And they only made it worse by getting “Emma” the native English speaker to read right off of that bad script. I wager that the English subtitles are a copy and paste job; i.e. that’s how the script looked like when it was written, and they simply copied and pasted it into the sub program. Anything spoken correctly wherever the subs went wrong was probably “Emma” compensating for the shitty script…
The lesson, I guess, is that if an anime studio is even going to bother getting a native English speaker to voice something, it should at least get a good one- and also get him/her to write the English portions of the script, so the grammar and sentences don’t end up all weird. If a studio isn’t willing to go to these lengths, then it simply shouldn’t do it at all…
In the end, I still did find it funny, but for all the wrong reasons; i.e. so bad that it’s good. XP And seeing English sentences written with Japanese diction and Japanese logical flow was pretty interesting- it’s amazing how language can shape the way people think…
Jejemons
Whoah!! … Ika Musume’s so huge it even made John Lennon come back from the dead and Yoko Ono get plastic surgery just to make cameo appearances!!
ah Chizuru’s murderous aura is always going to be creepy xD. Well I do agree that the English voice was rather unfitting but come on man the joke wasn’t that bad, especially when we got to watch Eiko feel so stupid for being the only one who couldn’t speak English in that house.
“I couldn’t help but wince at the sound of it, which is why I’ll never watch dubs. Nine times out of ten, the acting simply sucks. It’s like they just plucked someone off the streets and got them to read a script — and read it very poorly at that.”
You know that’s not how dub casting works. These days, highly trained and carefully selected professionals are hired in dubs, and they IN NO WAY utilize this flat, uninterested performance this English-speaking actress showed!
Dear lord, English voice actors are gawd awful. Cindy’s voice actress was totally phoning it in.
As someone who watches and ENJOYS many english dubs this “skit” in no way represents an actual dub. Even I thought cindy sounded god awful. I can understand why they did it. I couldn’t help but laugh at Jennifer from C (the money and soul of possibility) as she tried to speak in english. And I doubt they wanted the same reaction. I appreciate them trying to have an actual english speaker but you have to know their talent they can pick from is going to be terrible over there.
I am actually interested in seeing how this episode gets dubbed. Unfortunately squid girl was picked up by media blasters. Btw it is good to see the majority of the anime community still hasn’t gotten past the 1999 fad of hating dubs simply because they are dubs.
I don’t hate them indiscriminately, as there are some decent dubs out there that I didn’t mind. Dragon Ball Z was one of them, and Cowboy Bebop had a very good dub too. (If we’re talking video games, Metal Gear Solid is a very good dub too.) The problem is that they’re a rarity and I’m not willing to sit through a bunch of bad ones in hopes of being pleasantly surprised.
Media Blasters only distributes this. The dub is recorded by BangZoom Entertainment, who are much better.
Agreed with MGS! it’s English dubbing at it’s finest! Not to mention the story kinda fits in English better.
This may sound nutty, but I get more out of listening to the Japanese than listening to a
dub’d version. Even I don’t understand Japanese (yet), there’s something about the structure
and placement of the emphasis that adds – and the voice actors, too. Chobits is an example
that has been dub’d – the English is terrible. It’s not that it’s poorly pronounced, but it
lacks the impact and feeling that the Japanese put into it. No heart. IMHO.
Demo…
One has to wonder if the terrible English isn’t a parody for the Japanese to hear an American
speaking Japanese poorly… I mean, it’s like nails on a chalkboard hearing this English!
Any ideas, anyone?
Yeah, some of the dubs are good but most of them are bad.
And if you’re talking about games’ dubs. Most of them don’t even fully dub the game. Tales series and Atelier series dub only the important ones (story-related stuffs) and leave out the rest of the voices as voice-less texts. I think only companies that fully dub their game (and actually doing a good job at it) are the one that published their own game outside Japan like Capcom and Square Enix for example.
This season just isn’t quite as funny as S1 so far.
I really hope they adapt chapters 69 and 75 this season.
This episode felt disappointing when compared to the others.
But you just can’t go wrong with Mini-Ika.
The first portion was actually fine but it was spoilt by the english stand in as she really doesn’t convey emotions well. The alligator part was the lowest ebb since anyone would have come to the conclusion that there was no alligator (unless they saw it themselves).
Sanae’s position in the second portion was the highlight since it was really so ridiculous and the lead up to it, with her throwing her sandals, made you guess what she was going to do for a little while.
The third portion was actually quite cute. I think it would be a fun game to make leaf boats then try and sink them with rocks or hit them with super soakers. Great 3 dimensional training. The change over to mini-ika wasn’t done very well but ignoring that mini-ika’s adventure on her boat was very enjoyable as was the ending of Seahouse Lennon (especially since it was after Ika had finished pondering on life)
In defense of the English skit, they did make several okay play-on-words, which I found clever. Too bad the skit got ruined from bad voice acting, and just how forced it felt, considering Cindy is fluent in English and Japanese and therefore should be able to tell the difference between AlligaTOR and arigaTOU.
Okay, I understand that the English script was terrible for act 1, but regardless I’m really happy to see anime embracing foreigners for role appropriate positions. Hearing obvious non-speakers muddle their way through a foreign script is terrible and jarring. That being said it has/can be done better (look at East of Eden for example). None the less there are a lot of factors to consider, like budget, time, actually having someone proficient in English available to check scripts. So all in all I’m going to give them a 3/4 stars for trying.
Okay so I may be a big Ika Musume fan but don’t think I’m a blind fan(I wish I could say so about this site too). I admit the English jokes were awkward, but I still found them pretty funny, and not in an unintentional way like some probably did. Also, I even thought about some of the jokes since a long time ago, if you know a little bit of Japanese and speak English I’m pretty sure you will think about the “bimbo” one. It’s not that out of the blue. But yeah the “Arigator” one and Cindy’s reaction was just stupid. Pretty much what Soiyeruda said already.
Speaking of Cindy the fact that they brought another person to dub her while the others kept their voices is weird indeed. Maybe there’s a specific reason we don’t know about… I hate to say it because I don’t believe Ika Musume being “educational” as some like to say(in a bad way) but I think the production team wished to bring a English speaker for Cindy as she was the one teaching so they would be sure there would be no mistakes or something. But that’s just a hunch and it doesn’t justify the fact that there’s typos in the subs. I really dislike dubs too, and that one was bad and flat like most of them. The majority of French dubs are bad too, and I’ve always been avoiding to think about it but after seeing this, maybe the Japanese companies doesn’t care actually if the dubs of their localized products are bad?? After all, they did such a bad job themselves… I’m thinking too much about this though, I think what happened in this episode and dubs for localization are totally different matters.
Ika Musume tickling people was just hilarious. Also is it me or when Chizuru threatened Ika after she tried to tickle her, when she moved her arms, wasn’t those sounds effects directly from Hokutou no Ken?? I saw too many old things related references in Ika Musume to think they didn’t know what they were doing.
They were also playing virtua fighter in the second skit on a console looking like a Megadrive with a 32 X or something.
I got the impression that the main part of the joke about “Cindy” was that she so obviously was pasted in even to native speakers–so much so that the replacement actress “didn’t understand” the Japanese of the characters, in spite of the prior fluency under the normal actress. So it was meant as a meta-gag to the Japanese viewers about the sudden voice replacement itself. Also it may well have been making fun of Japanese perception of bad dubs at the same time…
Seriously? I thought Cindy speaking like an electronic dictionary made it more hilarious. I took it as a gag where they intentionally made Cindy sound as bad as possible. I’m surprised that so many people took so seriously. I wish Ika-musume spoke more english, since it sounded adorable lol.
Guys, this Show is not for Education. It is for Fun. So the English part was for Fun, and give the Audience a glimpse of English, and how “English” Japan Vocals can sound, in the funny way of course. SO, keep your Horses down, and Enjoy the Show… (But seriously. How can you misunderstand spoken “really” for written “ready?” dear Subbers… Next Time ask a Fan-Subber
…and you will sound that funny, too. If you try to speak Japanese/Nippon… 🙂 So Enjoy the Fun. Keep the Serious Laws out of Anime.
Tip:
If the Seiyus, want to speak the “USA “R””.. Ready to RRRRUUMMMBBBLLEEEE!!! (like the Box fights)…
a Hint: “Arrigato!”.. Try to put more “force/weight” in this R. and you come near to sound like an USA “R” 🙂
Why speak american english when you can speak the Queen’s English since its hard to be more english than the English :p
Anyway, joking aside, the english spoken was fine. The replacement VA however need to attend a seiyuu course to add emotional inflections. The contrast with Ika, Takeru and Chizuru more professional voice acting was just so miles apart
You want really good “British English”? Play Xenoblade for WII, the EU Version of course.
Part1:
Cindy sound someone from pokemon though I found out it as true. Thx Divine.
English sure is fun when other language is applied.
Part2:
Ika must seen the light before death in this episode.
Part3:
SOME MAKE A TAMIYA LIKE RACE anime for tihs.
“At first, I didn’t mind how they brought in an English voice actress to voice Cindy’s English lines, but boy did that change in a hurry in the latter parts of this skit. I couldn’t help but wince at the sound of it, which is why I’ll never watch dubs. Nine times out of ten, the acting simply sucks. It’s like they just plucked someone off the streets and got them to read a script — and read it very poorly at that.”
You see, that’s what happens when the Japanese are in charge with the English voices. DO NOT use that segment as indicative of how English dubs are made in the U.S.
Truth told, most actual English dubs are pretty damned horrible as well. Some are decent. Few are great.
Chalk it up to anime still seen as very much a niche market. Growing, but still a minority.
It was so funny, when she asked Chizuro if she spoke English, and the animators
drew everything perfectly, but she used the wrong English answer! She replied
“A little bit”, but the correct response with the hand gesture was “poco a poco”.
A hard-core idiom-ism, was that!
I loved the sound alike part of the episode – “bimbo” was funny. But did the subbers
need to explain that to the English viewers – I was rolling on the floor!
Although I don’t speak Japanese, from reading here I’ve learned that the Japanese
enjoy these type of word games/play on words in their own language. I suspect they
may have been experimenting to see if they could achieve the same effect with English…
Not as Horrible a skit as I thought it’d be… 🙂
In general, Japanese word play jokes tend to not be very funny. Funniest one I’ve heard involved a skit using a different pronunciation of Wonder Woman, changing the spelling of ワンダー (Wondaa, wonder) to ワンドル (wandoru, one dollar). The man, dressed as “One-dollar Woman” tried to defeat villians by offering one dollar bills.
huh…I thought the english jokes were funny…I mean it was clever…what’s wrong with u people? No sense of humour? Look at it again if you don’t believe me. And compared to the engrish of other shows…at least they bothered to have a proper english dubber dub cindy instead of using bloody engrish 😀
She ‘misunderstood’ because she realizes the red head sucks at English and thought she was trying her hardest to speak it like everyone else in the family could.
I normally agree with most of what Divine says, but I take offense to the English dubbing comment.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but this “every English dub is awful” mentality severely irritates me.
The majority of English dubs nowadays are perfectly fine. Not all are masterpieces that cause the angels to sing, but I can’t really remember the last honest to God horrendous English dub I saw (well, Bible Black, but ya know).
And the English voice actors are in no way taken off the street and plopped into the studio. That’s absurd and incredibly disrespectful to the many great English VAs out there.
Oh my God THANK YOU!
There will always be exceptions, but there’s no denying that the overall quality of English dubs is a lot lower than the Japanese counterparts that have to go through a rigid seiyuu school and desperately try to break into the industry afterward. It’s pretty cutthroat as well, since most graduates can’t even find a job. Last I heard, the percentage that actually do make it as a seiyuu is less than 5% a year or so. Not only do you have to be able to read lines well and have a pleasant/distinct voice, but you have to be able to actually act too.
While seiyuu aren’t paid as “stars”, they’re treated more as such by appearing on TV programs and whatnot. Compare that to voice actors here, whom most people can’t even put a face to a name. The voice acting industry in Japan is on a whole different level in terms of quality acting and viewer reception.
Also, I did purposely say things in a way that I didn’t shun English dubs altogether. “Nine times out of ten…”, “It’s as if…”, etc. I mentioned Metal Gear Solid in another comment and I have to say that I almost prefer the English dub over the Japanese one. You can really tell they took the time to get the lines done right. David Hayter is pretty awesome.
Okay, but it’s debatable how popular English dub actors can be in order for an audience to “put a face to a name”. Most of the fans of anime here have all seen photos and videos of every single one in the business and can recognize them on sight. Then again, anime fans are a minority.
Maybe because English is not my first language but Cindy sounded ok for me. The fact that everyone but Eiko was speaking english made the joke work.
But damn for Eiko´s engrish: How menu please? Me, toilet, go.
Dubs in Latin America are going downfall, not emotion at all. Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Hell Teacher Nube, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya were great dubs (they dubbed most of the openings/endings and got them right). Watched Dragon Ball Kai and oh boy! you can just put me reading a script. I got word that “The Lost Canvas” is a good dub, though.
“Maybe because English is not my first language but Cindy sounded ok for me. The fact that everyone but Eiko was speaking english made the joke work.”
A valid point; perhaps one of the reasons why production studios don’t care about procuring quality English voice actors or writing good scripts for brief English voice-overs is because your average Japanese person (their primary viewer demographic) wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between good/bad voice acting or good/bad grammar/diction anyway. I sure as hell couldn’t tell the difference between good/bad voice acting in Japanese until my command of the language reached a functional elementary level, and I still can’t tell the difference between good/bad diction…
It’s certainly no excuse for crappy quality, but I can see why an anime studio would think that doing a one-time English skit as cheaply and simply as possible was in it’s best interest…
I actually enjoyed the english episode, unlike everyone else complaining about it. It was funny watching Japanese being interpreted as English due to Eiko’s lack of English abilities.
Plus the VA’s for the blonde girl was pretty fluent. You can tell the rest of the cast had slight accents.
I loved this weeks episode! Lenon beach house ftw!
A good episode overall, laugh at how part 1 turns out. Part 2 is good. Part 3 is mini-Ika Musume overload.
First skid is quite funny, love Eiko’s imagination on the “You are O-BA-KA!” part. Second and third skids are not as good, imo. But they’re still enjoyable.
https://randomc.net/image/Shinryaku%20Ika%20Musume/Shinryaku%20Ika%20Musume%202%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
“I’m ready for you, Ika! Hop on. <3"
Mini ika. That was so nostalgic it wasn’t funny.
I kind of agree about the English episode — one thing I prefer about the manga is that because the stories are only 8 pages long they don’t drag on for too long. The manga version of the English story doesn’t have any of the puns in it; Chizuru doesn’t speak any English either. Eiko just gets pissed off that Ika-musume is better than her and says English is banned. They point out that her shirt has English on it and she rips it off, then they point out that “eiko” and “eigo” sound really similar and she runs into her room and slams the door.