ID: INVADED

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MUSIC MysteryMr.Fixer
ONA ComedyID: INDEED
MANGA ActionID: INVADED #BRAKE BROKEN

REVIEWS

• 

  ItIsIDio

  60/100
  A high volume of intriguing ideas. A high volume for which there wasn't enough time to properly convey from the start.

  Entertain me for just a few paragraphs. Imagine you have a box. The box is fairly small, and you don’t have the space to fit a lot of things into it. Despite that, you have a bunch of different colored building blocks that you’d like to pack up in said box. Your inner child takes over. At the start, you start building a tiny world piece by piece. You have an idea of how the world should look like so you start grabbing a piece and fitting it where it would fit best, creating a bunch of incomplete structures. The incomplete world intrigues you, as the way you have placed them in the box, gives you many possibilities of giving the world a different shape each time you place everything differently inside the box, with every new piece added giving even more possibilities. You keep changing the shape of the world, to get a grasp of what you should be doing next. Each time you look at the world, you experience an entirely different scenario which brings you some satisfaction and fulfillment over what you have given shape to. Over time, you keep thinking of different structures that could reshape your world and make it more complex, and you need more and more pieces to create them, so you keep adding said pieces. Each time, the world you build simply becomes more, and you find each scenario more satisfying than the last.

  “Hey, you’re starting to run out of space.”

  You were having a lot of fun doing this, but at last, you need to come up with a solution to fit everything together. All of the buildings you have created and the shape of the world you have at the moment, is now an obstacle to the goal you have started with: to place every single building block in the box. So, while not trying to break any of the structures you have created, you start adding the remaining pieces within the box. You keep adding each piece, and in no time whatsoever, you are done. And would you look at that, every piece fit perfectly, as soon as you stacked them together. There’s no more space left for anything.

  Quickly, you are disappointed by a realization. There’s no remnant of the world you have created. The only remaining shape is this cube made out of different colored building blocks.

  This whole metaphor is how I view the execution of the show.

  Lets stop speaking metaphorically for a while. This show explores a tool that creates and stores the unconscious data from a killer’s mind tied to any of the murders they have committed. The way in which it stores this data is messy, and in order to uncover what happened, you need someone that can interpret this data through their deduction skills and being able to explore the world. In this manner, this tool can be used to explore their unconscious in order to reveal key details about their identity, the methods with which these murders were executed, the motivation behind them, their location and even other information that at first sight might seem trivial. However, said tool, while insanely useful, is a mystery within itself. It seems to only allow only people that have committed murders to use it and browse through its database of worlds. Not just anyone can enter it. These worlds also all have some constant elements, which seem to tie them together. While it is definitely a murder mystery, these mysteries are subservient to figuring out how this tool works, as this is what the show focuses on presenting.

  On that end, the show starts off great. Something that it does very skillfully from the very beginning is establishing how the world works, and presenting only as much information as the viewer needs to strike a balance between understanding the world they are looking at and leave enough room for questions for the viewer to continue asking “How does this work?”. It seemed like from the start, the world had a clear idea under what rules it was operating, and any time that you would think that something doesn’t really add up, the show was completely ready to affirm that your question was correct to ask, and that you deserve a proper answer for asking it. It knew exactly how to present enough information to keep you intrigued and still understand the natural flow of things within itself. As the show progressed, it kept shaking things up through presenting more and more about the system they are using to catch these criminals works, as well as some questions to keep you thinking. A large part of the success of its early execution is due to it figuring out very early, exactly how everything fits together.

  How does it do what I have described in the previous paragraph exactly? Well, I’ll let you know how the first episode starts, but fair warning, the more information you have of what exactly unfolds in each episode prior to watching the show, the lesser your experience will be. I have given you plenty of information for what I’ll say in this paragraph to not matter at this point, but continue to read this paragraph at your own risk, because it still might influence your first impression. The first thing you witness, is a guy waking up in a bed to see that his body is breaking into pieces as he screams terrified out of his fucking mind. Confused as to who he is and how he can be alive while his body is broken into pieces, he starts piecing himself together, both mind and body, and notice that while his body is broken apart, every piece is still connected, and he can fuse them back together or separate them to extend his reach. Still, he’s still missing part of his arm so he cannot be completely whole. He noticed that everything around him is the same, with the entire world also being broken into pieces. Random buildings and parts of the world simply keep floating around him. At some point he notices he is not alone, as he sees the legs of a girl, in a room right above him, so he uses the wonky physics of that world to get to that girl. Once he does, he sees that she is just a corpse that has been recently murdered, but that is enough information for him to cause him to realize a bunch of information about the situation. Her name is Kaeru, and his name is Sakaido, and the reason he was placed in that world is to solve the mystery of her murder. Immediately afterwards, it is revealed that a team is supervising this entire thing, and extracting data from Sakaido’s deep dive into this world, in order to obtain information tied to a murder that has occurred in reality, that parallels that one. And then we go on exploring.

  There’s a very specific reason I think this introduction works really well, and that is the fact that show knows how to exploit the fact that you lack so much information about it. The show could’ve very easily revealed first the role of the tool they use and how it works, and then show you the scenario described. While that sounds just like I am stating the obvious since the show’s genre is Mystery, the reason I am pointing this out is because the show didn’t choose to focus on supporting you in solving the mystery alongside it and maybe perhaps solving it before it has a chance to do so. You’re forced to keep up with the show. It would’ve been sufficient to just show you all the information you need, strictly focusing on the mystery behind how the current victim died. It instead tried to present the mystery in a way, where you are directly experiencing the confusion of not having the information required to properly understanding this situation. This achieves two things. The fact that the outlandish world you are presented feels like an enigma so you are motivated to understand how it works and the fact that the viewer instantly is aware of the fact that there are a lot of things they have yet to know, so that will cause them to pay close attention to all events that unfold. It’s a very efficient way to hook someone in. And that’s how things keep unfolding and being presented to you…

  …Until a certain point.

  What caused the show to be really solid so far and hooking me in so aggressively, was the fact that since its start, it knew exactly what building blocks it was using, and I was only allowed a glimpse of the box each time the world got a new piece added to its structure. And this happened because it figured integrally prior to even being presented what the world is and how it operates. But while this has helped it greatly at the start… it completely betrays the show at the end.

  You see, because it was so determined about showing the viewer exactly what it is, eventually it realizes that it will run out of time, so the show had a choice. Present as much of the information as fast as possible at the risk of doing it sloppily, but the viewer will have a full picture of what exactly they have watched, or risk to never show the genius behind its execution and this world to remain forever foreign to its audience. It has chosen the former.

  So, after that certain point, instead of being presented information so you can understand what happens next, you will be presented information so that things can happen next. You’re presented with a high volume of ideas and details about the world that, if given enough time to be executed properly, they might’ve been interesting to witness, but at the pace they are presented, as things get close to the end, they start feeling convenient and only there so that the remaining events can unfold. These ideas aren’t particularly unheard of, so just having a lot of elements going on within the story isn’t enough to lift the show to be of high quality. None of the information we are revealed is earned. They have very little to no setup, and is presented to us just so that things can keep moving along. Which is not at all how the show did things until a few episodes ago. There’s no reason to be curious any longer, and that makes the events to be witnessed… without any worth. The highest merit of the show was the way in which it conveyed information. Which it has chosen to discard in order to reveal everything about itself.

  I don’t understand that decision, since this very show has made me realize how important and how much more depth something can have, because you know that some details are missing. Withholding information is a great tool, a tool I have noticed the show using. And it could’ve kept using until the very end, at the risk of the world feeling foreign, but also keeping a lot of depth and mystery still inside it. It wouldn’t have lost any intrigue. The problem is, this was a sci-fi mystery. The world feeling foreign, is something entirely warranted. If the show didn’t have enough time to reveal everything about itself, it shouldn’t have, and instead it could’ve used its remaining time, to create an even bigger mystery, while answering the questions it still had some time for. I get that it is difficult to pull an ending of the sort, but that doesn’t change that it didn’t have time to execute all of the ideas it had, so as a result, it cheapened all of them. It wasn’t enough to place every single block inside the box. If some blocks were outside of the box, the lack of the remaining pieces could’ve given what’s inside it a different shape, and made the viewers view the content very differently. And who knows, if the box would’ve gotten bigger, every single piece outside the box could’ve been arranged inside it to give any shape and structure wanted by the creators.

  I'm afraid that when it comes to this show, this is the driving force behind it. I could speak about the characters, but the roles of the characters are strictly subservient in creating the mystery, and giving any details away would mean giving you information that could cheapen your experience. I can mention that the characters for not seeming to have much individuality or depth, aside from the closest character to a protagonist. All of them are there to serve a purpose and are a narrative tool to make that world work. Do not get me wrong, I believe them lacking depth and individuality is perfectly fine for this story, but the characters are not what you will watch ID Invaded for. The animation is also not particularly stellar in some places, but given the general pace of the show, the design of the scenario it creates more than makes up for that and the fact that is keys you in on the important details without much effort. The sound design however is solid, with some solid tracks that really build intrigue and suspense quite well. I personally really liked the protagonist's voice actor. He has this very distinct growly voice that really fits the character, and is a pleasure for me to listen to.

  The last thing I want to say prior to concluding is regarding an overarching theme. Or rather, the fact that it is difficult to grasp any. When I think about what was the point for ID Invaded's story, the answer I can come up with is to present its world and the ideas behind it. But if you ask me exactly what it is that the story tried to convey, that's very difficult. You see, there is some moral high ground to the story, and that is to not be a victim of your own circumstances and to not play a role just because it was given to you. You should always have personal agency and aspire to do so, without letting your impulses and what you are not conscious of, drive you forward. But I am not really sure any of this is earned, since by the end of the story, none of the characters really achieve that. They spout it, yes, but they definitely do not achieve it because they have been victims to the aforementioned things and suddenly no longer seem to believe that is a factor in their life. There isn't really anything that I have taken away from this story, and I believe that's also to blame of the high volume of ideas that were presented by the end, and the fact that none of them were given any value.

  To conclude, I think the decision to watch this series is best left up to how interested you are in what I have said so far about it. The first half of ID Invaded has a solid execution in presenting the world and all of its mysteries quite well. I consider that they were worth watching for me at least. But the fact that towards the end it fails to give a proper pay off might sour the experience for you if you do end up watching it. So it becomes a question of outcome versus process. Do you enjoy the series for the overall product it is, and as a result you'd only look at the cube the show builds inside the box? Or do you appreciate each of its elements separately, and can enjoy experiencing each scenario that was built in the box prior to it becoming a cube. If it's the latter, I think you can enjoy the series as it is. I certainly was entertained by it despite falling in the latter category. But if you're in the former category, I'm afraid that your experience might be cheapened, as it's one of those trends with anime that keep happening. They start off strong and are able to hook you in, but botch it as time goes on as they didn't know what they intended to be. ID Invaded knew what it wanted to be, but it had no idea how to get there in such a short amount of time, so at the very least that is to be appreciated. Still, the following hold true. ID Invaded was ambitious and entertaining. And due to its ambition, it failed in some aspects, but I appreciate its ambition regardless and that's enough to consider it a worthwhile watch for myself.

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• 

  Toaomr

  76/100
  A thrilling combination of Minority Report and Inception. The middle of the show makes the whole thing worth watching.

  Only this first paragraph is really a review, the rest is musings about thoughts I have on the show.

  A very cool show with an interesting concept and some cool execution. 3 episodes toward the middle of the show made the whole thing worth watching, and the rest was pretty good as well. The music is great, the animation is a little wonky at times, especially on some of the faces, but the wells are interesting scenery and for the most part the show looks great. The plot and mystery are thrilling and kept me hooked, so much so that I watched the entire thing in a single 7 hour binge. I fizzle out of interest with a lot of shows, but this one held on to me from the beginning. There were a few things in the beginning that I found a little ridiculous and I wasn't fully satisfied with the ending, but all in all it's a good show. I would recommend this show to any fan of sci-fi detective series or movies, as well as people who want to watch some mystery and maybe even shed some tears along the way. Only spoilers from here on.

  A few things in the beginning that made me incredulous mostly happened in the Gravedigger case. The whole idea of love and intent to kill being crossed seemed dubious at best and a bullet going through a pre-drilled hole in someone's head was completely ridiculous. Also having the Gravedigger happen to be at the copy cat, happen to be a drill hole victim, and happen to be spotted by Houndomachi is all very convenient.

  The middle: Narihisago in the second level id well was by far my favorite point in the series. The bittersweetness of him seeing his family again while convincing himself that this fake world was truly reality hit hard. The appearance of Kiki also deepened the mystery. When I was first watching it, I was hoping that her ESP was merely a part of id well and not the true mechanism of the show in reality. Although the basic principle of picking up intent to kill particles and building a map of the subconscious is pretty fantastical, I was hoping that it wouldn't lean on something purely supernatural. Also made the Minority Report similarities even more apparent. Fukuda's part in the story here is also very interesting. His arithmomania is revealed which ties together the hole in his head, his ineptitude as a pilot, and serves to further the plot.

  The end: In the end, it is revealed that the chief is secretly John Walker, which isn't really that surprising since they had cut the list of suspects to people working at the Kura and in these types of movies it is almost always the old director. The reveal of his evil schemes and intentions was disappointing to me, but not show ruining. He claims to have done what he did out of his own sense of justice, but it isn't explained all that well. I was expecting a Minority Report esque ending where he created serial killers to justify the existence of his department, which I think could've been interesting. It is also unexplained if he actually used a cockpit to link Kiki to the serial killers or how that process works. Kiki turns out to be a powerful esper with some sort of telepathic ability that allows her to project her dreams on others as well as have people visit her dreams. In the show, serial killers come to her dreams every night and kill her, encouraged and aided by John Walker. However, it isn't really explained how the serial killers get linked to her mind. Couldn't theoretically anyone be projected into her dream? Narihisago visits her dream. Does everyone in the area have the same dream, but not notice? Earlier in the show when speculating about the identity of John Walker, the Wellside operators throw out that John Walker is manipulating the unconscious of the serial killers using a prototype of the machine. In the end, he is encouraging serial killers to act of their impulse in a shared dream with an esper. I'm not really sure if that's the same thing, but it seemed odd to me. Another problem I have is why does Momoki act so weird once arrested. He knows that he isn't John Walker unless he thinks perhaps he is but only unconsciously. But then he is also adamant that the pilots should be extracted and that the scenario is a trap. That situation was confusing.

  Another issue I had was with the death of Narihisago's family. The Challenger seems perplexed with the information that he would kill a 14 year old, and based on who the Challenger is, it does seem confusing. The Challenger is a man who wants to hit and wants to be hit. He's challenged a sumo wrestler and an mma fighter. Somehow he got his hands on Kiki, which if he plans to kill her seems like it would pretty directly interfere with Walker's plans. Challenging Kiki doesn't fit with his other known kills, but that can be attributed to a desire to actually fight her after fighting her in his dreams, which is alluded to when Kiki says that he is the type who also wants to be hit and feel it, which doesn't happen in the dream. But why would he kill Muku? And why would he do it in Narihisago's house as opposed to the arena beneath his house? Without explanation, the Challenger killing Muku seems very random and doesn't really fit. Houndomachi identifies that each of the killers have a specific way of killing that has a chance of getting the killer caught. I was hoping that it would be revealed that John Walker put the Challenger up to the task of killing Muku with the intention of turning Narihisago into a serial killer that kills serial killers as a way to wrap up Walker's own method of killing, which would be to make people do things that would eventually lead to them being killed, in this case serial killing.

  The serial killers are afraid of John Walker in their unconsciousness, but it isn't really developed why they would be afraid. Unless the unconsciousness is fearful of what Walker is turning them into, but that isn't entirely satisfying. I think John Walker could've been taken in a different direction that would've been more satisfying or could have been explained better. He is one of the main mysteries of the show and the reveal of who he is isn't entirely unexpected and his motivations aren't particularly intriguing nor does the whole situation actually make much sense. If they had gone a different route with him perhaps using a more sensitive version of the device that picks up intent to kill to identify potential killers and then somehow using cockpits and the well tech to manipulate their unconsciousnesses I think that would have been more interesting. I think in this version of the story Kiki isn't an esper. Instead, she could be someone from John Walker's past that he killed that he then shares with serial killers or perhaps she is John Walker himself. Maybe she convinces the serial killers to kill her when she is in their unconsciousness which unlocks their ability to kill. The person who convinced them to do it is lost in the unconscious, but the memory of her corpse remains. I think something like that could've been more intriguing and then it also doesn't have to rely on the mostly unexplained ESP of one girl.

  The timeline is also a little confusing. Two and a half years ago, the Challenger killed Narihisago's daughter and captured Kiki. In reality, before he was apprehended, Narihisago's wife committed suicide. The investigation eventually learns who the Challenger is and Narihisago kills him to get revenge. Kiki is found in the basement, so apparently she has been in there a while at this point because she was in there before Muku was killed. Kinda confusing. Kiki is then at the hospital, and this is all before the founding of Kura. The doctor is then at the hospital with Kiki working on the well technology prototype, but before Kiki was in the hospital Walker influenced the challenger to become a serial killer, so he must have had some sort of version of the well tech earlier. Very perplexing.

  Although I have questions and the show didn't go in some of the directions I wanted, it was very entertaining and gripping. Because it was so gripping I've been thinking about it a lot, and that's probably a reason that I have developed so many questions about it. Sadly, I think many of my questions don't have answers that can be found within the show.

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• 

  PhosEnjoyer3575

  60/100
  An exciting new premise, with disappointing execution.

  The reason I decided to watch ID:Invaded was because of it's soundtrack. It completely hooked me, and so after several hours of listening to the music, I finally started watching the anime. My first impression was this: the animation is stunning, the mystery is intoxicating, and this world is completely new and unfamiliar. I was excited to see where the show would go from there, and how the characters would grow, but it didn't seem to move forward much. I will begin to discuss some major plot points that will spoil the show. Read below at your own risk.

  Sure, we had our field specialist Hondomachi go from an innocent character to a cunning and cold murderer, but I would hardly count that as character growth since it seemed like the sudden growth was caused by nothing. It was like, she was caught by the perforator and then she decided to grow up and become the cunning character she is. The only other character with any real growth is Sakaido, or Akihito Narihisago, the only reason I'm giving this show 6/10 and not 3/10 is because of Narihisago. As a detective, it's been implied that he often focused more on his work rather than his family. When his daughter falls victim to the challenger, and his wife commits suicide, Narihisago realises how he took the time with his family for granted. Eaten up by guilt and anger, he finds and kills the challenger... then ends up imprisoned. Interesting, right? Why is a police officer going to jail for killing a murderer? They never explained why, it was almost like they expected us to know why. Okay, fine. Later on however, Narihisago kills the challenger in Kiki Asukai's Id well, and it was classified as self-defence, here are the differences between those two occurences: Narihisago had no proof for the challenger being who he is when he was in Asukai's Id, his daughter was not a victim to the challenger yet, he invited the challenger to a physical fight, he got injured during the fight. Does his inviting the challenger to the fight and getting injured justify how he killed the challenger any more than when he shot him after his daughter's death? No! Moving on from this point, the death of Narihisago's family takes a huge toll on him, and he ends up working for the Kura as a "brilliant detective" and that ruins his mental health even more. When he enters Kiki Asukai's well, we see him go back to his old life, doing all the things he regretted not doing before, while still denying reality. We see him heal, grow, and become a different person from the man who drove serial killers to suicide.
  Other than Hondomachi and Narihisago, there are no characters with any real personality, I did not relate to them, I do not care about them, they just seem pitiful and bland. One might ask "but what about Tamotsu Fukuda?" (if they remembered his name, that is), and the answer is this: he is not pitiful or boring, he is just poorly written. A serial killer who drills holes in other people's heads, because he drilled a hole in his own head, because the world feels incomplete, and because he has arithmomania. How does this follow exactly? I do not know. Nobody needs to know, it's just a nice little backstory to make us sympathise with a serial killer, and to give him an advantage to other characters so he can become Hondomachi's knight in shining armor!

  Now, what about Kiki Asukai, if she's so important, how can she be so bland? Well it's because Kiki Asukai is not Kiki Asukai. She's a damsel in distress, with so much power she cannot handle. She's Lucy from Elfen Lied, mixed with the archetype of the damsel in distress, fitting for an anime that is so focused on Freud's theory of Id, but it is to be expected that a story that puts so much focus on a character must personalise that character, because archetypes do not have personality. Kiki Asukai is barely a character, even the scene where she leaves the Mizuhanome is so heavily influenced on Elfen Lied's Lucy. Of course, it is more than acceptable to be influenced, this is not plagiarism, but the fact that they did not try to be creative in how Kiki Asukai was walking outside the Mizuhanome and made it so that she was reacting exactly the way Lucy was, means the show has no originality whatsoever when it comes to Kiki Asukai.

  To conclude, the music is amazing, the animation is impressive, the idea is great, but the execution was one character away from being an absolute failure.

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