Ika Musume is back after taking a second break. Guess whose back?
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Shinryaku?! Ika Musume – Episode 6 – Adventures of Mini-Ika
Diomedea
Shinryaku?! Ika Musume – Episode 5 – Fighting Boredom and Extreme Test Drives
Ika Musume is finally back after a week of hiatus, thus brightening our day with more hijinks.
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Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – Episode 4 – Fun with English and The Reappearence of Mini Ika
Guess whose back?! Now with 200% more English!
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Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – Episode 3 – That Mysterious Dance
Oh god, what are the children doing? It looks like an act of brainwashing for an evil plan or something. Either way, you better run for it before they take over your mind!
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Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – Episode 2 – Thinking with Weights…
Now you playing with weights! Sounds pretty fun, right? It sure does!
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Shinryaku!? Ika Musume – Episode 1 – Return of Chizuru’s Status Quo!
Finally, the second season of Ika Musume has invaded the blogosphere with the first episode. Of course, if you interested in watching this show and haven’t watched the prequel, I highly suggest doing so before jumping right in or you can get lost pretty easily.
Like in my previous posts of this show, I will split the post into three parts on each sketch showing by brief thoughts about it.
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Fall 2011 Preview – The Season of Sequels (Updated)
Fall 2011 Anime Season is just around the corner with a few starting in September. If you have noticed already, this fall is full of sequels since there are many continuations and prequels that are airing. Out of the list of shows, I chosen four shows (besides The iDOLM@STER) I will be covering for the season.
Also, Melative will provide all information for the shows listed here (maybe incomplete).(Image Source)
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Final Review
Shinryaku! Ika Musume is the second most enjoyable comedy show besides Milky Holmes from the fall 2010 season. The show involves a squid in human form with the desire to invade human kind. Popular culture depicts squids as villains and typically uses their tentacles in a naughty manner. On the other hand, a human form of a squid is really cute and seems so harmless that everyone abuses him/her. Humanity in the past and present continues to be a big jerk to mother nature. This is proven with the BP Oil Spill, the biggest man-made environmental disasters that most people have already forgotten. Regardless, I really enjoyed the show with the character driven comedy and watching Ika do really funny things that it gave me a smile. (Image Source)
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Episode 12 (END)
Sadly, this is the last episode of Ika Musume. Even so, there are still some really fun moments before the drama kicks in the second half.
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Episode 11 – Possessed Dolls and Beware of Chizuru
It seems that Ika still can’t figure out how to take over mankind. Instead, she has nightmares about a really grotesque old doll. Also, the scientist whack jobs make reappearance and the crew takes a hike to the summit.
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Twelve Moments in Anime 2010 – #11 – Sola and the Pool Episode
In our second moment of Anime in 2010, we are going to take a look at Sola and the fanservice/pool episode (Image Source).
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Shinryaku! Ika Masume – Episode 10 – Let’s Play Ball!
Since Ika unable to invade mankind, she plays baseball instead to help her best friend’s softball team. Also Teru Teru Bozu and Mini Ika make an appearance again.
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Shinryaku! Ika Masume – Episode 9 – WHY SO SERIOUS… and Fun with Makeup.
Once again we get some more funny antics with Ika with doorbells and makeup. Additionally, the childish scientists make an appearance again to eliminate Ika with their invisibility gun… Sadly, they angered Chizuru instead in the process.
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Shinryaku! Ika Masume – Episode 08 – Ika can fly!!
After Ika was abused in the last episode, she finally gets to relax and have fun a bit. Maybe not since she gets sick in the first part, but after that it became a really enjoyable and hilarious moment.
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Episode 7 – Ika’s Bad Day…
As shown in the last episode, Ika is a genius at math. Sadly, Ika seemed to lose her person to prey on. In addition, the American alien scientist takes her away since Ika messed up. I guess Ika is having a really bad day with this.
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Fall 2010 Midseason Impressions
Since it’s the midpoint of the season, I would like to share my overall thoughts on what I have seen. This midseason impressions post should give you a good idea on what score I will ultimately give the show as the season finishes. [1. Original Image]
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Episode 6 – Ika a Math Genius
With the intelligence that Ika has, I think she can solve the entire world’s engineering problems out there like building a better and safer oil-drilling platform. Then again, maybe not since she wants to take over the human race for the horrible things they did…
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Shinryaku! Ika Musume – Episodes 4-5 – Shrimp Obsession and Mini Ika
I neglected Ika-chan since I was so occupied with Zakuro. Also, my main laptop, Fujibayashi Kyou broke while I was at college. Since I got a replacement last night, I decided to watch the two episodes I have left sitting.
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Taste Test Part III – Shinryaku! Ika Musume
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.
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Taste Test Part II – Shinryaku! Ika Musume
Shinryaku! Ika Musume is still one of those shows that I enjoy the most besides Ore No Imouto. It works since it uses the same proven formula, have a cute girl doing cute things and throw some funny jokes in about her. Well, In this episode, it’s all about saving lifes, celebrating birthdays and a girl who likes to dress Ika in cute outfits…
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Taste Test Part I – Shinryaku! Ika Musume
It is a known fact that human beings neglect the majestic part of Mother Nature… the sea. The sea provides us the food, transportation, recreation and natural resources. Sadly, the mistreatment of the sea from man-made disasters from overfishing and countless oil spill disasters like the Deepwater Horizon have driven this one Squid Girl into extreme dissatisfaction. As a result, she wants world domination so that human beings will never mistreat the sea.
The problem is… nobody really takes her seriously because she looks like a child…
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sola – Episode 7 and 8 – Aono vs Matsuri… over Yorito
Forget about Matsuri and like me instead…
After Matsuri’s disappearance caused by Aono’s promise to Matsuri, she finally gets her chance to win over Yorito and start life over again as she did in the past. However, Yorito does not like this and tries to find Matsuri…
Given Aono’s past of being forced to live forever because of Matsuri, it’s no surprise that Aono wants Yorito back. So, why not do some sleazy trick to persuade Matsuri to leave forever so she would have Yorito for herself? It’s a genius plan and she even goes on a date with him.
Aono actually looks pretty cute in that outfit…
Like in Episode 5, Aono gets a chance to go out with Yorito and make him forget about Matsuri. She goes to some places such as the plush shop and riding the rails. In a later scene, she loses her umbrella like Matsuri did in the first episode and gets really wet. Yorito tries to buy a towel, but he finds Matsuri and chases after her. Aono tries to prevent him, but couldn’t. She weeps while Yorito finds Matsuri in an abandoned building and reminded her of the promise she made. While kissing, he mindlessly stabs Matsuri and it gets into his dreams (and of course, Matsuri self-heals from that stabbing).
In this condition, Yorito really needs serious help…
How about brainwashing Yorito to make him forget about Matsuri and tell her that she is gone? This is Aono’s plan all along. We knew that she was up to no good by hiding everything away from Mana… Mana eventually gets back into the house and bring him back to his senses with a picture of Matsuri that one of her friends took and sent.
I never knew that Aono would be that malicious. She was always seen as a very quiet girl that doesn’t talk often. After I seen the actions from her, I was proven completely wrong. Probably there is reason she wanted to get rid of Matsuri. If Aono gets rid of Matsuri successfully, she would be cured from her “Yaka” status and could stay with Yorito forever. Or maybe, she is jealous of Matsuri since Yorito spends way too much time with Matsuri and not with herself? Whatever the reason, Aono seems to be serious in achieving her goals…
From the two episodes, I have noticed that the pacing of the story sped up in a tenfold like CCY mentioned in his comparison post:
While both are pretty slow through the first episodes and only kick in about halfway, sola feels a lot faster and feels a lot more breakneck with the plot twists.
Although plot twists like shown in episodes 7 and 8 aren’t so bad, it’s definitely not the smoothest as the excitement ends suddenly at the end of the episode. It was shown with episode 8 when Aono and Matsuri started to have their battle against each other. It makes people wonder, who will win? We will have to find out in the next episode.
And this isn’t the last plot twist, there are more plot twists coming where that came from.
Verdict:
8.7/10
Sola – Episode 6 Thoughts and Impressions
Well, we finally reveal Aono’s secret… well, not so much of a secret, but still.
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Fanservice and Nogizaka Haruka, What the hell happened?
A while back in June 2009, I wrote a lengthy editorial on how fanservice can ruin the overall story of an anime. Well, this becomes a reality with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.
I have watch both seasons and the first season was far better besides a few panty shots is that they focused on the over lining purpose of the story. Yuuto and Haruka sweet romance and also her Otaku interest. However, the second season lost it’s purpose completely. Like Kimagure said on Melative, “sweetness replaced by pointless fanservice.” The second season of Nogizaka Haruka just proved what I have said in my editorial I wrote in June of 2009 that adding lots of fanservice makes the over lining story alot worse than it would without the fanservice. All I got from this is more pantyshots, boob groping and other stuff that shouldn’t be in the anime. If I want to watch a fanservice-oriented anime, I would of watched titles like Ladies vs Butlers, Kampfer or even Chu-Bra! I bet one minute that 90% of the fanservice seen in the second season is not in the Nogizaka Haruka light novels (yes, the Anime is adapted from the light novel…)
The problem with the route they taken is that it’s completely unnecessary and the story can do better without it, besides the other flaws besides fanservice. I felt that Diomedea is trying to use fanservice to try to attract more audience to the show, at the same time, alienating its viewers who liked the first season and be constantly let down by every episode. If there is ever a third season, Diomedea better shape up and not add the fanservice and bring it back to what the story is intended to be in the first place because viewers aren’t going to take this excessive, overdone and redundant fanservice and panty shots anymore. There are already enough fanservice laden titles out there already, Nogizaka Haruka is a series that doesn’t need to go down that path too. We already have other anime that does that.