Squid Girl

The Lemon Beach House, run by the Aizawa sisters, is booming with customers in the middle of the summer. This peace will be short-lived. A girl calling herself "Ika Musume" (Squid Girl) emerges from the sea, stating her goal of taking over the world as a revenge on humanity for polluting the oceans. This army of one has a long way to go, though. When she breaks a large hole in the beach house, the sisters force Ika to work for them until she can pay for the repairs. Thus begins a cute comedy about the friends at the Lemon Beach House and world domination... supposedly.

Squid Girl, known in Japan as Shinryaku! Ika Musume (侵略!イカ娘, literally Invade! Squid Girl) with the subtitle The invader comes from the bottom of the sea!, is a manga by Masahiro Anbe that was adapted into a Twelve-Episode Anime in fall 2010. In North America, it was originally licensed and dubbed by Media Blasters, and was later license-rescued and released on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks.

Season 2, titled Shinryaku!? Ika Musume in Japan, aired in fall 2011.

Both seasons can be watched legally on Crunchyroll.

Tropes used in Squid Girl include:
  • Abhorrent Admirer: Though it isn't in regards to Sanae's looks, but her behaviour.
  • Accidental Hero: Instead of making an anti-alien ray gun, the alien researchers found the cure for cancer.
  • Adaptation Expansion: Typical manga chapters of Ika-Musume are only 8 pages long, so this tends to happen in the anime in addition to the Three Shorts format.
    • In the manga version of "Won't You Study?", Ika gives Eiko her "simplified" calculation method immediately after Eiko begs for it and the chapter ends shortly after. The anime adds in a scene where Ika is running Eiko ragged in the restaurant and trying to show off her math skills.
    • Special mention goes to the Sick Episode (Episode 8-1 and Chapter 103), which not only blended another Sick Episode, chapter 70, into the anime version, but turned the manga's ending into an entire episode, namely 8.2.
    • In chapter 49, "Won't you lose weight?", it's discovered that Ika actually weighs quite a bit more than she appears. Eiko forms a few theories as to how, but the actual reason remains a mystery. When this got adapted in episode 2.3 of the second season, the question was answered: Ika's bracelets are devices that allow her to freely manipulate her body weight, usually increasing it to counterbalance herself when she lifts heavy objects with her tentacles. However, she can also decrease her weight to the point that she can fly by spreading her tentacles like wings.
  • Alertness Blink: In the opening and episodes alike.
  • All Just a Dream: The "Won't You Keep It?" segment was Sanae's dream.
    • And in S2 E6, Mini-Ika's adventure is all Goro's dream.
  • All Part of the Show: during the Nohmen Rider stageshow, Chizuru is disguised as Nohmen Rider Hannya, allowing her to bust out her Crazy Awesome moves in full view of the public. The Nohmen Rider Hannya disguise reappears in episode 12, but that time Eiko is wearing it (as can be seen from her hair color and hairdo.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: invoked in ep. 11 when Ika and the family hike up a mountain, encountering animals that keep getting scared off by bigger or more dangerous animals, culminating in a king cobra. Amazingly, it doesn't bite Ika - it curbstomps her.
  • Amplified Animal Aptitude: Alex, Sanae's dog, seems to understand human speech quite well.
  • And Then What?: Brought up in Episode 5.2 of Season 1, and again in Episode 12.1 of Season 2.
  • Anime Accent Absence: Eiko tries several languages with Cindy, until it becomes clear that she can speak Japanese flawlessly.
    • Despite their own fluency, however, her scientist colleagues avert this trope—the voice actors try to give their characters stereotypical "American" accents.
    • Lampshaded in Vol. 7, where Ika Musume questions Cindy's English abilities. Cindy tries to defend herself, but is horrified to realize that her English has developed a Japanese accent.
    • When Takeru askes Cindy to teach him, Eiko, and Ika English, she's able to speak without even a hint of an accent. Same with the foreigner that started the whole conversation. Takeru, Ika, and Chizuru all have noticable Japanese accents when speaking English.
  • Apathy Killed the Cat: Eiko is the one who most actively challenges Ika, but she's more concerned about getting work done. Takeru considers her a playmate. Chizuru cares about her getting work done. The fact that she's a talking squid girl is of no importance. Nagisa is the only one that seems to care that Ika's something not seen in this world.
  • Art Shift: Episode 10 includes plenty of these, especially when Ika Musume draws. Takeru gets one when he sees the "mother of all teru-teru-bouzu" as well.
    • Also parodied: Takeru draws Ika Musume exactly as she appears on screen, then complains that it looks too much like a manga.
    • Eiko has a slight Art Shift whenever Chizuru forces something covered in Ika's ink on her and she finds it to not just be edible, but actually really good.
    • Ika Musume, whenever there's a full-screen portrait of her being scared shitless by Chizuru.
  • Ascended Meme: "You gotta be squidding me!" actually made it into the dub.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: Takeru after putting on makeup in episode 9.
    • Also Nagisa when she dresses up as a boy, leaving a huge impression on the female customers.
  • Badass Adorable: Ika-Musume when she actually tries, Chizuru as natural as breathing air.
    • Which is suspicious enough to Cindy and her team that they try to get a lock of Chizuru's hair for analysis.
  • Badass Arm-Fold: Ika sports one of these in episode 1, complete with manic grin and red-and-black cool-looking background.
  • Balloon Belly: Ika-Musume gets this when she gorges on food (usually shrimp).
    • Eiko gets this in the manga after gulping down the contents of a cart of drinks.
  • Baseball Episode: Episode 10.3, where Ika temporarily joins Kiyomi's baseball team.
  • Battle Aura: For building sand castles.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Do not mess with Chizuru, her family, or her store. She will hurt you. It wasn't until the scientists turned the store invisible by accident that everyone else realized what Ika feels from Chizuru on a daily basis.
  • Bifauxnen: In chapter 148/Episode 2 of season 2, Eiko makes Nagisa dress up as a guy to attract more female customers.
  • Bishie Sparkle: Chizuru turns up the sparkles to convince Goro to watch Takeru for her. It works.
  • Bland-Name Product: In episode 9 Ika and Kiyome play Stocking Fighter IV and Ika picks Dhalsim-expy Mr. Yoga.
  • Blatant Lies: When Ika gets amnesia in episode 7.2 in Season 2, Cindy and Sanae concoct a made up story of how she's an alien (Cindy) and fell in love with Sanae at first sight (Sanae). Ika nearly falls for it until Eiko tells them to stop trying to screw up her memory.
  • Blue with Shock
  • Bowdlerise: In the manga, when we first see Chizuru get serious, she cuts off Ika's tentacles with a knife. In the anime, she does it with her bare hands.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Cindy narrates the beginning of episode 10's second skit. She's talking to someone and is staring at the screen most of the time.
    • Ayumi is really shy so she doesn't talk much, but then there's one panel where she fills it with text.

Ika: It's like she is trying to make up for lost time in one panel.

  • Brought Down to Normal: Ika in episode 12. In the manga version of this story, Ika's abilities are restored when she is "attacked" by an orca float.
  • Camera Fiend: Sanae has entire photobooks of Ika, and more or less holds her hostage to get more. The so-called invader is powerless against this.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Ika Musume is not a fan of the "winning the people's hearts" method of world-conquering, and considers being fearsome and terrifying to be job requirements. Nothing depresses her more than people thinking she's nice, and consequently she has a soft spot for Nagisa (who's scared to death of her).
  • Catgirl: Cat Squid Girl, actually. Behold!

Eiko: How odd... (because of the squid portions)

  • Chaste Teens: Aside from Sanae and Goro, none of the main cast seems all that interested in romance.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Ika mourning over an empty squid hat is justified - because it's fatal.
  • Chew Toy: Ika during the mountain episode, literally. A ridiculous amount of animals come to her because they want to eat her tentacles. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Sanae attempts to give up on Ika, and the results are not pretty. She starts seeing Ika everywhere she goes...
    • Used again when Ika tries to give up shrimp.
  • Companion Cube: Ika's Umbrella in Episode 8. She doesn't give it up, however, in the Couch Gag.
  • Combat Tentacles: Ika's... hair/tentacles/whatever are quite strong and versatile; they're able to punch through concrete, move fast enough to break the sound barrier and extend to ridiculous lengths, yet also precise enough to thread needles. Additionally, just like a normal squid, she's able to regrow them in the event that they're chopped off, albeit much faster.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: In universe example: When Eiko sends Ika Musume and Nagisa on a shopping trip together she states that she hopes it will help them get along better (make Nagisa see Ika Musume isn't scary) Chizuru says "I thought you sent her along because it's funny".
  • Comically Missing the Point: In the jellyfish collecting contest designed to clean the ocean of jellyfish, Clark wins by collecting one jellyfish, and creating dozens more with a duplication ray.
  • Cosmetic Catastrophe: A tiny bit of makeup flatters Ika very nicely, but then she tries to figure out whether makeup can also make her look more menacing...
  • Cosplay Otaku Girl: Sanae loves putting Ika in all kinds of different costumes.
  • Couch Gag: What will show up on the beach with Ika in the closing credits this episode?
  • Creepy Doll: The alarm clock doll that Eiko takes out of storage. It sits directly in the Uncanny Valley and refuses to leave. Even Eiko gives it away at the end, for its broken friend scares her even more.
  • Credits Running Sequence: season 2's ending has Ika walking on the beach (while the first season was static with her watching the ocean), and there will be some event from the episode that makes its appearance in the sequence. The ending of Episode 6 replaces Ika with Mini Ika.
  • Cry Cute: Ika-chan was weeping for a paper hat that looked like a dead squid as it flowed out into the ocean... the family just didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't a "comrade" of hers.
    • Or whenever Chizuru scares her.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Chizuru vs something. Chizuru always wins.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Common in the cast, Ika chief among them.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy: Takeru
  • Cute Squid Girl: Ika Musume herself. It's hinted there may be others around with a similar background.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Eiko around Alex, Sanae's pet dog. Then there's Sanae around Ika, though that soon evolves into something else...
  • Dance Party Ending: The final credits of Season 2.
  • Debut Queue: Each episode in Season 1 introduces a new character or two.
  • Didn't Think This Through: At the volleyball tournament, the scientists show off their newest gadget: an incredibly hard ball, designed to be completely impossible to receive. Which means it's also impossible to serve.
    • Ika manages to "conquer" the local high school by tying up the principal. She then commands the students to be her soldiers so she can conquer the world! Unfortunately, the only thing she has planned after she conquers the world is...eating as much shrimp as she likes. Which she already does anyway.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: An in-universe example. During a stage play Ika gets the crowd to cheer for the villain (a squid monster) instead of the hero like the makers intend.
  • Dream Sequence: The Mini-Ika episodes turn out to be these, the first of Sanae, and the second of Goro of all people. The home-release-only episodes have one that isn't shown to be a dream sequence and one that is - Sanae, again, and Ika Musume promises that if the circumstances arise in their world, she'll make it real.[1]
  • Dynamic Entry: Flawlessly performed by Eiko to stop Ika's invasion of the school.
  • Easy Amnesia: Ika gets this in Chapter 106 (Season 2, Episode 7.2 in the anime) by falling down the stairs. She gets better at the end of the chapter by trying to remove her hat.
  • Epic Fail: episode 11. Ika gets her ass kicked by a creature without legs.
    • In the first segment of the second episode of the second season, Ika tries to play soccer, but she can't even do the simple act of kicking the ball! In order to win the game, her teammates make it look like she kicked the winning goal!
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Ika Musume seems to be admired by Sanae (Ika's cuteness) and Cindy (Ika being an "alien") too much.
    • Season 2, Episode 9.1 (Chapter 69 in the manga) does not help either!
    • Nagisa is a minor case; all she needs to do to attract female customers is just sweep her hair back.
  • Evil Counterpart: In one of the DVD shorts, Mini!Ika is attacked by Dark!Mini!Ika, a wandering squid girl who enters into the house through the open window. It turns out to be inverted. She was just looking for food, and aside from being very competitive, is actually very nice.
  • Evolving Credits: After the first episode, the ending credits changed slightly in each episode, featuring something seen in the episode.
  • Exact Words: When she sees the preferential treatment Alex is getting for being cute, Ika demands "You will treat me just like this creature!". Gilligan Cut to Chizuru putting her on a leash.
  • Expy: A large proportion of the A Certain Magical Index fandom have noted Ika-Musume's similarity in appearance and personality to the titular nun Index. For example. This similarity turned into an Ascended Meme with the third episode of "A Certain Magical Index-tan" (a DVD extra of A Certain Magical Index), where Index got replaced with a chibi version of Ika Musume.
  • Eyes Always Shut: Chizuru. Beware if she opens them.
    • It's shown in chapter 76 that she has bad eyesight, so she's always squinting. She gets contact lenses, but gives them up when she realizes that having her eyes open all the time makes everyone else nervous.
      • There's also one brief exception in season 1 when Chizuru gets an idea and her eyes open right before the scene cuts away. Though only the viewer sees this.
  • The Faceless: Ayumi is an interesting twist, bordering on double subversion: she's not always seen in an Ika Musume mask, but she displays less of her personality when she's not wearing it.
  • Face Your Fears: In Season 2, Episode 11.3, Ika overcomes her fear of Chizuru, accidentally ticks her off again, and gets dragged by her to a room while showing NO signs of fear.

Ika: Oh? About what? (while being dragged by Chizuru to a room)

  • False Dichotomy: When Ika gets amnesia, she's told in succession that she's an alien, Sanae's lover, and Eiko's little sister. She decides the first two aren't right, so by process of elimination...
  • Fan Disservice: Chizuru stripping the three male scientists.
  • Fan Nickname: Tako-Musume, for Tanabe Kozue (see There Is Another).
  • Fan Service: Appears to be actively averted. The show takes place on a beach and has a largely female cast, yet none of the main cast are shown in a suggestive way—just a few side characters in bikinis now and then. It's rather refreshing.
    • Here's Ayumi. Fanservice is still rare and not the focus.
    • Cindy provides the obligatory Foreign Fanservice, of course.
    • Season 2 probably uses this trope a bit.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Subverted with Nagisa, who makes a surprisingly good vegetable soup. She ends up trying to hide it, but not because of femininity.
  • Feud Episode: Season 2 Episode 12.2: Isn't That A Festival? Ika and Eiko have a falling out and the rest of the sequence focuses on their making up. It's also the season finale.
  • Flanderization: While Ika is usually portrayed as intelligent, but easily distracted (because of her curiosity about life on the surface world), season 2 seems to have started making her more Keroro Gunsou-like. For instance, in episode 9-2, Ika is blatantly portrayed as Completely Missing the Point of using a bag and planner.
  • Flash Step: Chizuru demonstrates this ability when angered by Ika in Season 2 Episode 11.
  • Flat Earth Atheist: Squid Girl doesn't believe in ghosts, even though a horde of them helped her find her way out of a graveyard once (then again, she didn't even know what a ghost was at the start of the episode, so she thought they were just weird-looking humans.)
  • Follow the Leader: to Keroro Gunsou, down to having Expies of Fuyuki, Natsumi and Aki. And a Verbal Tic, de arimasu. Interestingly, Keroro sometimes features an underwater civilization that could execute a far more effective invasion if need be.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Season 2 Episode 5 Part 2 - Kiyomi's 'hidden' wish is never said out loud, but the camera briefly shows it to you before she snatches it away and destroys the wish. It's for a bigger bust.
  • Friend to All Children: Ika gets along really well with Takeru and the other kids at the beach.
  • Fun Size: Mini Ika Musume. Tastes Like Diabetes indeed.
  • Fun with Foreign Languages: Season 2, Episode 4.1, particularly the hilarious In My Language, That Sounds Like... thing between Cindy and Eiko.
  • The Gadfly: Chizuru.
  • The Generic Guy: Takeru. According to Ika, anyway.
  • Genius Ditz: Ika Musume is able to use a cellphone and camera without reading the manual or hearing an explanation on what they're for or how they work. She's able to perform high-level math as well without batting an eye, not to mention being able to pick up Japanese (and later English!) in minutes.
    • She's one hell of a drummer and baseball pitcher too. So far (much to her annoyance), invading is the only thing she really sucks at.
  • Genki Girl: Ika and Sanae.
  • Godiva Hair: at one panel when Ika took a bath.
  • Gosh Hornet: When Ika hits a sunflower in chapter 141 and a bee stings her nose.
  • Gratuitous English: The alien researchers from America speak broken English.
    • In the very first episode of the anime, when Ika Musume is explaining her tentacles' abilities to Eiko:

Ika Musume: Speed! Power! Reach! Delicacy!

    • In Season 2 Episode 3.3, when Goro suggests Ika Musume become a lifeguard, the picture demonstrating her tentacles being used includes the word "speedy" as an Unsound Effect.
    • Season 2, Episode 4.1 is basically one big Gratuitous English moment.
    • From the "On the Next..." section at the end of Episode 6 of Season 2:

Cindy: Thank you for watching!

  • Greater Need Than Mine: Goro. He urged Ika Musume to save a kid that drifted too far off, even though he himself was drowning.
  • Green Aesop: Don't pollute the seas or some squid girl might try to take over the world.
  • Gretzky Has the Ball: Ika in Soccer.
  • Hopeless Suitor: Sanae with regard to Ika.
  • Hot Scientist: Cindy
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Alluded to; when you think about it from her perspective, Ika Musume's so-called invasion is quite justified when you have to watch your loved ones literally choke by our garbage every day.
    • Or the fact that Japan is well known for overfishing their waters. That said the show is more Humans Are Flawed: everyone is good, they just shouldn't dump trash in the water. Part of Ika's character development as the show goes on is her own realization of this.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the episode/chapter titles are in the form of questions, ending with, in Japanese, "-nai ka", which signifies a question in the informal mode, with the "i ka" in katakana for emphasis. This makes for a pun with "ika", which by itself means squid.
  • Idiot Ball: Cindy carries it for a little while in S2 4.1 when she fails to realize Eiko is still speaking Japanese instead of English and the In My Language, That Sounds Like... phrases get more and more ridiculous. It's still hilarious though.
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me: The beginning of "Won't You Keep It?". Sanae tries to do this on a regular basis to Squid Girl, but always gets punched away.
  • Important Haircut/Bob Haircut: Ika in episode 12. Interestingly, she cuts her tentacles at the same angle as Eiko's hair.
  • In-Series Nickname: The Three Stooges, for the MIT guys. Even Cindy herself calls them that (in English!).
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Ika Musume-chan.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Averted. Sanae wanted Ika to be this, and was very disappointed to discover that, yes, she does wear something under her dress. And not even panties: she wears a modest one-piece swimsuit so that nothing is exposed when Sanae gets a peek.
  • Insult Backfire: Calling Ika "fearsome" and "dangerous" is exactly what she wants. This makes her attached to Nagisa, which only scares Nagisa more.
  • Kimodameshi: Happens in episode 3.1 of Season 1, complete with Ghost Lights.
  • Last-Episode New Character
  • Laughing Mad: Eiko, when she finds out Squid Girl is far, far better at math than her.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Nohmen Rider. Ika, of course, roots for the Dr. Shinigami-like squid monster.
  • Light'Em Up: Like certain species of squid, Ika's able to make herself luminous.
  • Loophole Abuse: In one episode, Ika plays soccer with some of Takeru's schoolmates. However, she doesn't know how to play, and when she's told she can't use her hands, she resorts to using her tentacles instead, which to the kids still looked like she held the ball in her "hands".
  • Love Dodecahedron: Sanae loves Ika, who loves Nagisa (in a terror-inducing kind of way), who has a crush on Goro, who is in love with Chizuru.
    • And then Kiyomi and her friends enter the picture, too.

Eiko: I don't even want to imagine the relationship map for this.

  • Machiavelli Was Wrong: Inverted in that Chizuru is able to keep Ika's world-conquering ambitions down simply by looking at her. It's supposed to be a comedy/slice-of-life series, so it doesn't focus on the fact that Chizuru is controlling Ika through fear alone.
  • Mad Scientist: Cindy's colleagues. Ayumi's father has several Mad Scientist traits, too. He eventually teams up with them to build the ultimate robotic Ika Musume, as seen in Chapter 181 (Season 2, Episode 11.2 in the anime).
  • Meganekko: Kiyomi Sakura.
  • The Men in Black: In chapter 170 (Season 2, Episode 6.2 in the anime), Sanae becomes Ika's Secret Service. The chapter ends with Sanae beating herself up over it. Literally.
  • Modern Major-General: Ika seems able to do nearly anything... except the thing that matters most to her: invasion. The huge global population, tentacle-severing karate chops, and status quo make her invasion dead in the water.

Ika: "Why do I have to be good at everything but invading, de geso~?!"

  • Multi-Armed Multitasking: Ika appears to specialise in this with her tentacle hair.
  • Mundane Utility: Ika possesses ten tentacles with super strength, super speed and super dexterity. They come in really handy in her job as a waitress. Oh, and the squid ink she can produce makes a formidable pasta sauce.
  • Mundane Object Amazement: Being an invader from the sea, this is to be expected. Especially in the last segment in Episode 8.
  • Name's the Same: Cindy's last name is Campbell.

Ika-Musume: "Your tentacles become grotesque shapes and attack people around you indiscriminately de geso!"

  • New Age Retro Hippie: After following her bamboo boat along the river all the way to the sea, Ika ends up at the Lenon (sic) Beach House.
  • Nice Hat: Ika has a white hat that resembles a squid's head, but it may be more than that. Episode 6 states that if it is detached from her head, she'll die.
    • It's shown that she really will die if it's removed in Chapter 106 (Season 2, Episode 7.2 in the anime) because, for all intents and purposes, it's part of her skull. She tries to forcibly pull the hat off, which works about as well as a human trying to tear off his own scalp. Eventually she creates a small rip (the anime shows blood coming from the wound), the shock of which was enough to clear away her Easy Amnesia.
    • She wears a more conventional Nice Hat over her squid hat in Episode 3.1 of Season 2 (Chapter 167 in the manga, which also shows the MIT trio wearing UFO hats).
    • Also, Goro's lifeguard hat.
  • Nightmare Face: Chizuru when she opens her eyes.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Harris looks a lot like Barack Obama.
  • No Dialogue Episode: Episode five's third short is, except for a short dialogue between Sanae and Eiko, a single line of narration, and a few "geso"s, done entirely without dialogue. This makes the entire short ten times more effective than it would otherwise be.
  • No Name Given: Ayumi's father.
  • No Social Skills: Ika is a Squid Girl and grew up in the ocean. The human world is right outside her experience.

Ika: "What's a military?"

  • Nosebleed: Sanae frequently gets these when she's around Ika. Whether it's brought on from physical punishment or just being a pervert, it's often lampshaded by others.
  • Oddly Visible Eyebrows[context?]
  • Oh Crap: When anyone realizes just how fucking scary the supposedly sweet big sister Chizuru can be.
    • Nagisa on first seeing Squid Girl.
  • One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Ika and Goro both consider themselves "protectors of the sea", and thus form an uneven alliance, as their motivations (world domination vs. saving people) are rather different.
  • Only Sane Man: Nagisa considers herself to be this, seeing as she's the only one in the whole beach to consider Ika-chan as actually threatening. Understandable, as she's never seen Chizuru in action (she finally does at the end of episode 9, and her reaction is what you'd expect). Narratively, though, Eiko fills the role more obviously; she's incredulous about Ika's origins at first, she's often the one who has to rein the other characters in (Ika and Sanae in particular) and her only "quirk" is her hot-ish temper (and really, given how Ika acts, can you blame the poor girl?)
  • OOC Is Serious Business: When Chizuru opens her eyes, expect to get your ass handed to you.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: They're not trying to spirit you away to the afterlife, they're just showing you a way back home.
  • Pac-Man Fever: An odd mix. Eiko's game system is a cartridge-based one, with plenty of Shout-Outs to actual 16-bit era games (especially Sega games,) but it also plays a Bland-Name Product version of Street Fighter IV.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Literally. Takeru pretends to be Squid Boy with a disguise consisting of a paper hat and coloured strips of paper. Ika falls for it. Even when it's removed.
    • Chizuru in episode 12 after Eiko crashes into her. She then switches places with her and dons a wig and the Noh Mask Rider Hannya mask—with her real hair hanging out quite obviously.[please verify]
  • Parental Abandonment: Chizuru, Eiko and Takeru are siblings and live together, but their parents seem to be nonexistent. So far it has not been mentioned if they are away or dead, but Chizuru says in the fifth volume of the manga that nobody uses their bedroom anymore. They appear in a Happy Flashback Eiko has in Chapter 79 (Season 2, Episode 9.3 in the anime), which makes her cry.
  • The Peeping Tom: The burglar from Season 2, Episode 8.1 (Chapter 127 in the manga) was captured because Sanae saw him through one of the surveillance cameras she had set up at the Aizawa residence without them knowing.
  • Petting Zoo People: Ika herself. Also, the apparent octopus girl Ika meets at the beach.
  • Phenotype Stereotype: Cindy.
  • Playing House: Season 2's episode 9.1. Ika plays house with a neighbor girl who seems to think daily life is filled with drama.
  • Please Wake Up: End of "Won't You Keep It?"
  • Poor Communication Kills: Eiko in Season 2's episode 4.1, where she unintentionally insults Cindy, and later scares off an English speaking guy due to her use of Japanese which sounds like English words.
  • Prehensile Hair: Ika's hair... or tentacles, whatever they are. They're also rather expressive.
  • Princess Curls: Ika acquires these after one of her makeover sessions.
  • Pungeon Master: Ika/Squid Girl herself; this is exaggerated in most translations and the English dub. She doesn't do it on purpose so much as she actually thinks that's how things are pronounced. Eiko and the others quickly notice it's part of her mannerisms.
  • Real Place Background: The restaurant is located on Yuigahama beach in Kamakura.
    • In both the manga (Chapter 147) and the anime (Season 2, Episode 6.1), they visit Kamakura's Daibutsu.
  • Recycled in Space: Inverted. This show is basically Keroro Gunsou without that pesky "space" thing... Also, Squid Girl's presence is public knowledge.
    • This anime can be considered as Japan's own SpongeBob SquarePants, with the setting taking place on land and most of the creatures being replaced with humans. Except for the whole "becoming a network's cash cow and extending it for a bazillion seasons" thing.
      • Ika Musume herself can be considered as Japan's gender-flipped and moefied Squidward Tentacles.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: In their pursuit of extraterrestrial life, the MIT scientists have cured cancer and created a universal translator. Unfortunately, in their single-minded pursuit of the bizarre, they don't give a crap about either of these discoveries.
  • Relax-O-Vision: In Season 2, Episode 8.3 (Chapter 156 in the manga), Ika suffers a heat stroke and can barely move. While she imagines what Sanae could do to her in that incapacitated, defenseless state, we are shown this instead. Fortunately for Ika, Even Sanae Has Standards, and she actually refuses to take advantage of the situation.
  • Remembered I Could Fly: Ika Musume almost drowns and gets rescued by Goro. Eiko asks why she drowned, Ika Musume explains that her tentacles cramped because she forgot to stretch. After more prodding she remembers that she can't drown, because she's a squid.
    • And Season 2, Episode 2.3 (Chapter 166 in the manga) reveals she can "fly" anyway.
  • Required Secondary Powers: It's eventually explained that the whole reason Squid Girl can pick up people and other heavy objects with her tentacles without losing her balance is that she can alter her weight with her bracelets, becoming heavy enough to anchor herself.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Mini Ika Musume in 5.3 and 10.2; both are products of Sanae's imagination. She appears again in Season 2, Episodes 4.3 (as a product of the imagination of Ika herself) and 6.3 (as a dream of Goro, who doesn't understand why).
  • Series Hiatus: Season 2 barely started before the show had to be placed off the air for two weeks, citing "a situation with the studio", to the disappointment of many.
    • Worth noting: Two of the TV networks broadcasting the second season started two weeks late and did not go on hiatus at all; the overall effect was that the subsequent episodes premiered on the same day on every station.
  • She's Got Legs: Sanae, apparently, as shown in episode 11.
    • Ika as well, as shown in episode 3.
  • Shipper on Deck: Nagisa wants to pay Goro back for saving her life by trying to hook him up with Chizuru. It seems to succeed ... at first.
  • Shout-Out: When the scientists accidentally turn the store invisible, they bring about the wrath of Chizuru. They try to protect against her attack by shielding themselves. Harris erects an AT Barrier, Clark brings out Link's Master Shield, and Martin throws up a tortoise shell. Naturally, none of them work.
    • Perhaps her martial prowess is a shoutout in itself? Cutting flies and tentacles barehanded? Sounds supiciously like she is a Genyu Ken practitioner.
    • In episode 11.1, Eiko brings a doll out of storage because it's picking up in value as a collectors item. It was part of a pair of doll toys known as Johnny Depp.
    • Episode 7.1 of the second season starts with Squid Girl playing Golden Axe, and in 7.2 she's playing Bonanza Bros.
    • There's also a Bland-Name Product version of Street Fighter IV, as well as "Hedgehog Kart."
    • In the background of Takeru's elementary school classroom, you can see Aho, Sethi, and Ullman's seminal computer science book "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" (first edition). The other books on the shelf are apparently also computer science books.
  • Sick Episode: Ika falls ill to a Squid Girl disease. Symptoms include nausea, headaches, flushes in the face, fever, delirium, and death...ly cravings for shrimp.
    • A later episode has her and Sanae suffering heat stroke, with Squid Girl worrying that Sanae will recover before she does and take advantage of her in her weakened state. She doesn't.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: Sanae with regard to Ika.
  • Slice of Life: Slice of Squiddly Life.
  • Smurfing: The Crunchyroll subs use this with "squid" (and give her exclamations like Squidzooks, holy tentacles, and many others) to try and convey the rather punny nature of the titles and Ika's speech.
    • The English dub takes this to an extreme propensity for ocean life puns. Words like "Squidy", "Krakken", "Tentacular", "Kelp", "Gilly", "Ink", "Clam", "Beak", "Jet", and numerous other words will find their way into Squid Girl's regular vocabulary. Even when you can tell the context is meant as a swear. For example, Squid Girl never says "Invasion". It's always "Inkvasion".
  • Sneeze Cut: In episode 11.3.
  • Something Completely Different: Episode 5:3, a No Dialogue Episode about Eiko and a Fun Size Ika Musume. Which was all just Sanae's dream.
    • Happens again in episode 6.3 of Season 2.
  • Spit Take: Eiko does this without even drinking anything in episode 5.
  • Squid Out Of Water: the premise.
  • "Squii": Or in Japanese, "gesho".
  • Stalking Is Love: Sanae shows her "love" for Ika Musume by collecting an entire album full of photos of her. Goro also collects pictures of Chizuru.
  • Status Quo is...Chizuru: If she has anything to say about it, Ika will never work off her debt, and thus never begin her invasion of Earth. Chizuru will see to it that Ika spends the rest of her natural life helping out at the Lemon beach house.
    • This also extends to most of the characters themselves, such as Sanae tearfully letting her obsession with Ika go, only to revert right back to it before the end of the episode. And later Ayumi learns to be more confident thanks to a pair of brass knuckles Chizuru let her use (causing men to be really fearful of her), only to have her dad immediately shoot her confidence right back down towards the end of the episode.
  • Surprisingly Good English: Ika picks it up very quickly in episode 4.1 of season 2; Eiko seems to be the only one that struggles with it at all.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Sanae in episode 1 of season 2.

Sanae: I'm not a suspicious person! I wasn't trying to eavesdrop on your conversation or anything! Not at all!

  • Take Over the World: Supposedly Ika's goal. How she's going to achieve that is another matter. Eiko informs her on what "taking over the world" really entails.
  • Talking to Himself: Ika and the Ika cyborg that she battles are voiced by the same seiyu.
  • Tanabata: Ika tries to exploit it for as many wishes as she can. Kiyomi doesn't tell anyone, but she wishes for a bigger chest. In the end, Ika ultimately decides that after she finds out that some people (Chizuru, Sanae, Cindy, Harris, Clark, and Martin) wish that they have her, she wants to be safe.
  • Tentacle Rope: Ika does this to Eiko when she wanders into Eiko's room and falls asleep there.
  • Teru Teru Bozu: These and Ika's art skills are the focus of episode 10.1.
  • Test of Courage: Ika is not afraid, because, not being raised in human society, she has no idea that she's supposed to be scared. Goro, however, is terrified.
    • They take another one in chapter 100 with the party consisting of Eiko, Ika, Nagisa, and Cindy, this time in a tunnel instead of a graveyard. Unfortunately there are a whole lot of problems with this venture (Eiko insisted on taking only one flashlight which runs out of batteries, Ika Musume's light is too bright, etc.) so they call it off. Only problem is, Cindy's missing. Cue Cindy surrounded by ghosts. Cue Color Failure for everyone else.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: In the second episode's second segment during the second season, "Shinryaku no Susume" (the first season's opening theme) can be heard on the radio at the Lemon.
    • Kiyomi sings it at a karaoke in Season 2, Episode 7.3, too.
  • There Is Another: Mysteriously in the manga chapter "Can I Bother You?". In the anime, it's episode 12.
  • Three Shorts: This is because the original manga is basically a "gag-a-day" comic, with very short chapters (usually less than ten pages long).
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: Ika's "takeover" of Eiko's high school is the closest thing to actual invading she's accomplished. Though it also reveals that she hasn't thought through what she intends to do after her invasion succeeds.
  • Tickle Torture: All of chapter 81 (Season 2, episode 4.2 in the anime). Ika is eager to take it to extreme levels, but forgets that conquering humanity with tickling doesn't work if you're more ticklish than everyone else.
    • She doesn't realize this until she attacks Chizuru, of all people—only to be told "You missed my weak spot."
    • She already used it on Eiko in episode 7, as well as Cindy and the MIT trio in episode 11 of the first season of the anime, so this has become an Adaptation-Induced Plothole.
  • Time Skip: In the final episode of season one, a year passes after Ika "returns" to the sea. Of course, she comes back.
  • Tomboy: Nagisa
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Sanae
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Ika loves shrimp, much like an actual squid.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: Used In-Universe in episode 10.1 when Eiko gets Ika Musume to draw a self portrait.
  • Unexplained Recovery: The beach house Lemon is destroyed at one point, but it's back next chapter no worse for wear. There's no explanation given unless you count the omake...
  • Unusual Euphemism: The subtitles for the anime give Ika quite the potty mouth.[please verify] However all of her curses are squid puns (ala Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and turtle puns) so the show still remains relatively tame.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: None of the customers of the Lemon Beach House seem to mind getting served by a half human / half squid hybrid creature which carries their food and drinks with its tentacles.
  • Verbal Tic: Ika frequently ends sentences with "de geso" ("geso" meaning "squid tentacles" in culinary terms) and "janai ka".
    • And in episode 12 she changes it to "dawa".
      • In the dub, she loses her squiddy mannerisms, and "dawa" is changed to "You Know?" Lampshaded by Eiko later in the episode.
  • Villain Protagonist: Though it's very easy to forget, considering just how cute Ika Musume is.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: It's eventually revealed that Squid Girl can vomit ink at will. Played for Laughs whenever it happens.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Goro. Justified since he's a lifeguard.[2]
  • Walking Swimsuit Scene: Cindy and Tomomi, as well as others; justified since this is a beach series.
  • Waterfall Puke: Played with. Though not actually vomit, Ika-Musume replicates the visual perfectly when she horks up some ink to make squid ink pasta.

Eiko: "How can you eat that after watching her vomit?"

  • What Could Have Been: Invoked in ep 5-3, which answers the question of what would happen if Ika and Eiko had initially gotten on better terms. The answer? It ends in a Tear Jerker as Ika will most certainly outlive any human.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Takeru and Nagisa, apparently.
  • Why Did It Have To Be Orcas and Sharks?: Ika is terrified of her greatest natural predators, even in inflatable toy form. Also the banana in inflatable toy form, since she's never actually seen a banana.
    • She's also scared of Chizuru (but she has very good reasons to be).
    • Goro's not afraid of near-drowning—as a lifeguard, he takes risks regularly—but he is absolutely terrified of ghosts. Although it takes a lot to get him to admit it in front of Chizuru.
  • Wingding Eyes: A common reaction of both Cindy and Sanae to Ika Musume, and a common reaction of Ika Musume to shrimp.
  • Work Off the Debt: Even after the wall is repaired, Ika will still have to work 5 or 6 years to pay it off. She did find a large bill, but Chizuru persuaded Ika to use it on a shopping trip, keeping her in Lemon's employment.

Ika: "What kind of lame wage are you paying me, de geso?"

  1. ↑ The dream ends with a giant Ika Musume stepping on Sanae.
  2. ↑ Coincidentally, Gray, who's also included in this trope, is voiced by the same voice actor.
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