After I spent all my time studying for the big exam, I am finally done and can relax a bit before the exams start up again. What is a better way to do it by watching Shinryaku! Ika Masume. Like the last two episodes, it continues with the summer fun. In this particular episode, it focuses on ghosts, killer orcas (or dolphins) and a surfer who are scared of non-humans.
It seems that every anime has to have its own “test of courage episode.” If Sora no Woto, K-ON, Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Kimi ni Todoke has one, why not this show? Well, the test was not fun for Ika since she does not believe in ghosts. The irony is that she turns into one of them by using her lighting ability and scares the shit out of the others. In the end, she finds her way out of the forest with the help from the ghosts. It was pretty ironic since ghosts are typically stereotyped as a bad thing when in reality, they could do some good.
In the second part of the episode, it is all about swimming and killer whales that Ika is so scared of. I have to admit though; I never got the hang of swimming. I would keep doing the beginner lessons and I never get that far. Eventually, I gave up on swimming and never touched it again. Yet, there are some people in the Anime Blogosphere that are begging me to go to the beach for a swim. Do they know that I cannot swim even to save my life? Of course not!
Then again, I could feel good about Ika not being any better at swimming than me since she can hardly use her legs and arms to swim like normal people. How pathetic!
If you knew already, Orcas or killer whales are part of the dolphin family. They are mostly friendly unless you anger or mistreat them. The Seaworld incident is a big example of that and it proves Kanata’s famous statement that “dolphins are very SCARY animals that will even eat humans.” Unfortunately, Orcas and sharks like to prey on squids. This is a good reason why Ika would be afraid of them even though they were INFLATABLE whales and sharks!
Lastly, we have a surfer named Nagisa who decides to work at the food stand. Well, Ika loves to scare the shit out of her. Then again, who would not? Also, this could be considered as bullying since you are deliberately intimidating a person. With the fear of Nagisa quitting because of Ika, the other two girls teaches her a lesson not to scare her ever again…
In the end, this was a pretty fun episode and pretty much convinced me to continue. Even though the summer theme feels out of place, it makes me wished that it was still summer.
So far, this is one of the few shows that’s gotten me to smile week in week out because of the comedy it brings to the table. Sure, the gags themselves aren’t anything ingenuous but it succeeds in bringing in the laughs. So far. it’s gone 3 eps in being able to entertain and hopefully won’t be running out of steam anytime soon.
Hopefully the show won’t make the jokes get stale too quickly… like Working!! for example. I think the jokes are funny since Ika is so naive and everyone likes to abuse/scare the crap out of her (the floating whales for instance).
The introduction of a new character like Nagisa was not something I expected, usually in anime supernatural and otherworldly creatures either get accepted as commonplace without much hassle or are already a part of it when the story begins. Seeing as how in this show everyone got over the whole “wow she’s a dangerous squid humanoid” moment quickly I thought it was going to stay that way. The fact that it didn’t made for an amusing twist.
“Shinryaku! Ika Musume” would rank pretty high on my favorite comedies list if I had one, right below “Lucky Star”. Nice mix of non-perverted slapstick humor and moe, all wrapped up in not too flashy but constant quality, neat looking animation.