First Impressions / Shinryaku! Ika Musume

「散歩しなイカ!?」 (Sanpo Shinai ka!?)
“Won’t You Go For a Walk!?”

“It’s the squid or me! Who’s it going to be!?” I would like to believe that Alex had a real chance against Ika, but who am I kidding? Sanae would drop him off at the closest kennel if she could have Ika as her pet. The start of this skit had me thinking we’d see Alex abusing Ika at every opportunity, but their forced bonding turned out a lot funnier than that would’ve been. Color me surprised when Ika actually noticed that Alex’s attempts to act tough were no different from her own. I figured that’s the irony they were going for, but I wouldn’t have expected Ika to notice. Anyway, full-length spread of Ika in a straw hat and sandals? Fan-service janai ka!?

 

「体操しなイカ!?」 (Taisou Shinai ka!?)
“Won’t You Exercise!?

I honestly thought Ika was just going to wreck havoc on the kids’ exercise routine and that would be it. While the sight of that was pretty amusing in its own right, the easily misunderstood stretches were ingenious. I already got a good laugh out of her squirming in front of Nagisa and misleading Sanae, but damn, Eiko’s straight right to Ika’s face and Ika’s inadvertent taunting at Chizuru were too much. Hands down, funniest skit of this episode. Ika sure can take a punch. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing Eiko’s “Oi, wtf are you doing!?” outbursts either.

 

「助けなイカ!?」 (Tasukenai ka!?)
“Won’t You Save People!?”

This was definitely the least amusing skit this week. I really like Gorou’s character and the misunderstandings he has with Ika as a fellow “protector of the sea”; however, trying to get her to become a lifeguard was too “normal” to be funny. Ika even protected the kids from the shards of glass in the water and Gorou didn’t even realize what she did. I don’t mind it when things end on an uplifting note like they did here, but it felt like we were lacking a punchline after Ika saved the four kids. At least we got some squid cheek pulling.

* Note: There are very subtle changes in the ending sequence every week in connection to the episode itself. In the second episode, we had Takeru and a friend playing soccer and a bird flying in the background. In this third episode, Ika was walking Alex. I won’t be adding streaming videos for each variation.

 

Preview

35 Comments

  3. Divine, I think this style is going to work out. You can get away with having three separate pieces since the show is 3 parts. It’s very easy to read and not too much text bogged down (very Omni’sh).

    Kelfistan
    Reply

    1. Thanks for the feedback Kelfistan. The idea was to cut out all the overly descriptive impressions and just share some quick thoughts. Separating the write-ups by skits avoids all the transition prhases too. (e.g. “As for the third skit…”)

      Divine
      Reply

  5. lol I laughed my ass off the first two parts I think this is the funniest episode upto date lol i couldnt stop laughing when she smacked those kids… LOL besides the comedy the last episode ended off heartwarming and cute… I hope they keep making more ikamusume s3 s4 s5 s6 s7!

    Mitsuba
    Reply

  7. I found the first skit extremely cute since it was mostly just Alex and Ika. The second one was incredibly stupidly funny, especially all those pose names and Ika doing the crab sideways dance and smacking all the kids (accidentally). The last skit where she showed her kind side wasn’t funny but did help reinforce her character.

    Thios was a great episode. So far the series is off to a wonderful start

    Zaku Fan
    Reply

  9. One thing that seems different this year is the overuse of “squid” in conversations. I find it annoying. Squiddely, squidtastic, etc… Or “let me Ink over there and see”. They didn’t overuse terms associated with squids so much last year.

    Karmafan
    Reply

      1. More like Crunchyroll’s fault, if you must blame someone. The subber in question merely adopted their subs to a better video.

        And I like the squid puns. They give a much better view on Squid Girl’s speech pattern, which is also full of marine puns. I think it’s clever translation myself.

        Firelord
        Reply

    2. If you are watching the subs of the group I’m thinking, I suggest you switch subs. I also felt that the use of “squid conversation” isn’t really all that funny, but awkward, so I switch, and I felt I made the right decision.

      Ghostalker
      Reply

    3. I hate the squid speech in the subs! The subtitles are so much more confusing with them. I really have to pay attention to the lines which sucks because I normally just use them to get all the details of the sentence, as I understand most basic Japanese. It’s just annoying how it changes in every line when the original Japanese it’s just “de geso” or “nai ka” that makes up the puns. I just want to understand what she’s saying, not see how creative fansubber can get with the word “squid.” If it was dubbed, it would make sense, but it’s cluttering up the screen in the subbed version.

      innerchihiro
      Reply

      1. Apparently, there’s a dubbed version of Ika Musume that makes use of squid-based puns (“Inkvasion”, “What the gill”, etc.)

        It wouldn’t be as bad if they stopped interpreting Ika-chan as “Squddie.” It just sounds weird.

        Soiyeruda
        Reply

  13. Hilarious episode!

    If her tentacles are hard enough to knock down an entire group of children, then how hard/sharp are Chizuru’s hands (she can cut the tentacles like paper lol)…?

    Stereoman
    Reply

  16. I like this post format, and it seems natural as each episode is made of 3 skits.

    Actually watched this today, the morning exercices really made my day, bursted out laughing when Ika Musume knocked out the kids.

    Rockmanshii
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *