Shinryaku!? Ika Musume - Episode 8

Hurray! All caught up now!

Episode Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (4/5)

Another typical Ika Musume episode. In terms of strength, I found the first story the best due to all the misunderstandings involved. The weakest one would be the second story given the fact that it's virtually an exact replica of the story in season one where Sanae tried to give up on Ika Musume. The third story fell in the middle with amusing drama but content that felt a bit too dragged out. And with that, I am finally caught up with Shinryaku!? Ika Musume. A status update on other reports will be posted soon since there's a lot of stuff on my review backlog.

留守番しなイカ!？ (Won't You Watch Over the House!?)
The story starts with Sanae talking about installing security cameras due to the increase in burglars recently. Fast-forward a bit and Ika Musume is left with the task of watching over the Aizawa household after Takeru leaves for a school trip since and Eiko and Chizuru leave for work. But before the two sisters actually "leave" they test Ika Musume by pretending to be a shrimp salesperson and asking for the door to be opened. As expected, the thought of shrimp makes Ika Musume forget about her duty, causing her to open the door without hesitation, disappointing the two sisters who were still outside. After Ika Musume promises them that she won't open the door to anyone, she walks back into the house, closes the door, and starts doing things that she had always wanted to do (eating, watching TV and playing games without any limitations). However, she soon gets bored and falls asleep. Upon waking up, she goes downstairs and sees a burglar. Being the clueless squid girl that she is, Ika Musume comes up with the conclusion that the man was Chizuru's father. Surprised, the man decides to play along with it while looking for an opportunity to not get caught escaping. The misunderstandings continue as Ika Musume serves the man some water before suggesting that they play a game together. Even when the man made the fatal mistake of assuming Ika Musume was also part of the Aizawa family, the squid girl was still oblivious to the fact that he's not Chizuru's father. The current misunderstanding then lead to another one when Ika Musume declared that she is here to invade the house, making the robber think that the two of them are on the same page. Ika Musume then tells him of her "invasions" (see Episode 7) which "sound" impressive. He then asks to join her "organization" (i.e. the Invasion Club) but is not accepted since Ika Musume has yet to ask the others for their approval. The doorbell rings shortly after and Ika Musume responds harshly, thinking it was another fake shrimp salesperson. She clears up all the misunderstandings by revealing that her job was to guard the house before leaving for the Beach House Lemon to inform Chizuru of her "father's" arrival, giving the man the perfect opportunity to escape. However, despite the fact that it took some time for Ika Musume to and from the Beach House Lemon, the security cameras that Sanae had installed inside the Aizawa residence came in handy as Ika Musume, Eiko and Chizuru return to their house just in time to see the burglar getting arrested. Although they were saved from being robbed, I can't help but believe that Eiko and Ika Musume are extremely scared to go inside the house, now knowing that Sanae can see their every movement.

断たなイカ!？ (Won't You Cut It!?)
After bidding a couple of customers goodbye, Ika Musume sees a trail of shrimp leading somewhere. Because of her shrimp obsession she ends up falling victim to the trap set up by the three MIT idiots and is only saved by Eiko who threatens to call Chizuru. After being set free Ika Musume vows to give up shrimp. However, she is unable to get past her first test when Chizuru dangles some fried shrimp in front of her face, later that evening. The next day, Ika Musume starts to slowly give up on shrimp - from throwing away one leftover shrimp from a customer to not purchasing any of the shrimp specials at the supermarket, and even passing on Kiyomi's offer of chili shrimp. However, this resulted in Ika Musume losing sanity as she starts trying to eat pictures of shrimp on paper and the TV. When she finally realizes that she can't live without her shrimp, it was too late. The shrimp specials at the supermarket were all sold out, there was no more shrimp at the sushi restaurant and diving into the ocean only resulted in being caught by a fishing net. Things became so bad that she started having hallucinations involving shrimp. Fortunately, this problem was solved when Chizuru gave some shrimp gyōza to Ika Musume. Despite complaining about how horrible they were, Ika Musume quickly (and happily) devoured them.

熱中症じゃなイカ!？ (Isn't That Heatstroke!?)
Ika Musume seems to be getting sick a lot recently. First it was the cold in Episode 7 and now it's a heatstroke. To make matters worse, Sanae also ends up getting heatstroke, meaning that Ika Musume will be alone with her in the beach's first aid house until one of them gets better. Although the doctor said that heatstroke will subside in about 30 minutes, the anxiety and stress coming from not knowing what Sanae is capable of doing causes the Ika Musume's recovery process to slow down drastically. Later on in the day, Eiko comes by to give some water to Ika Musume before returning to work. Instead of drinking it to hydrate herself, Ika Musume decides to use it as a weapon to defend herself if Sanae ever wakes up. All of a sudden, Sanae sit straight up in her bed with an intimidating look in her eyes, scaring Ika Musume unconscious. When she finally regains consciousness, she sees Sanae up and well, freaking her out a bit. Luckily, Sanae reveals that she doesn't believe in taking advantage of someone in a helpless state and gives Ika Musume a bottle of water in order to help speed up the squid girl's recovery process. However, when Ika Musume asks what would happen when she recovers, a dark aura starts surrounding Sanae before she tells Ika Musume to get well soon. For Ika Musume, who wanted to hurry up and recover as soon as possible earlier in the day, taking a long to recover doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore.