Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: ID: INVADED
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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Still holding out hope that this series turns out to be greater than a generic cliche police procedural with a twist. Otaro Maijo did write Dragon's Dentist which I loved, and his stuff usually turn out to be at least interesting. I've starving for more unique voices working in anime, and Maijo does have a style that is distinct from Urobuchi's, Okada, and Isin's.
I do like what I've seen Hondomachi's character so far. Seem to be setting her up to be another pilot with her attitude being kind of crazy enough to do it. Which will be fun. Also will be fun when Narihisago goes inside his own well, because of course he will. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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This is my favorite show of the season so far. The OST is great!
Hondomachi looks like she'll have an interesting character arc. The ending of episode 4 was rather ominous. |
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2345 |
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Well this week was very interesting to be sure, I can't say for sure that I like the show for anything but it's ideas so far.
Episode 4 was really odd to me, just because of how it was paced and what was and was not shown. episode 5 made episode 4 make a lot more sense due to it basically functioning as a part 2 to the last episode and taking that and doing basically the opposite to give a fuller picture of the case and what was going on with it. I am still very unsure if the writers have just bite off more then they could chew or if they actually had an idea of what they were getting themselves into. The episode run times and episode count are quite low, especially for a series trying to do what this show is doing so...time will tell I guess. |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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This is my favorite show of the season so far! Really hoping it doesn't turn into a train wreck.
Episode 4: I was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to address Hondomachi's age. I've been wondering since the first episode. I'm assuming it's only a matter of time until she goes into a well. |
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NeedMoreCats
 Subscriber Posts: 316 Location: Westchester, NY |
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I like this show. I think it’s twisty and inventive.The whole concept of the ID well is cool, and I like how all the dives are kinda trippy and surreal. And I think Hondomachi gets more interesting with each episode.
But there is definitely one huge thing that bothers me. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Narihisago say that, including the Pyrotechnician, spoiler[he’s driven 5 killers (I’m assuming they’re killers) to suicide since he joined Kura? I mean, he’s a prisoner. How does the organization keep letting this happen? You would think after the 4th death, they wouldn’t put the Pyrotechnician in a cell directly across from him. Maybe they’ll explain further in later episodes, maybe those first 4 are what put Narihisago in prison In the first place?] (not sure if tag was needed, but better safe than sorry) I’m also not clear on how Kura is organized and why the arrested killers are even being kept in their facility rather than getting processed through regular law-enforcement channels. Are they trying to build a stable of brilliant detectives? Based on episode 4, the whole program rests solely on Narihisago as he’s the only one currently with the ability to successfully navigate the ID wells. Of course, I think we all expect Hondomachi to step up to the plate at some point—but won’t that mean she has to murder someone first? Well, despite my rant, I’m clearly sticking around for more. |
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NeedMoreCats
Subscriber Posts: 316 Location: Westchester, NY |
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Episode 6
I guess we don’t really have enough information to develop our own theories about John Walker. My first take was that there was a possibility that he was a construct that Sakaido brought with him into the ID well—seems less far fetched than a villain within the police force using tech to turn people into serial killers—but surely the fact that no one suggests that means they’ve already discounted that possibility? I’m really looking forward to the next episode and Hondomachi’s first dive. |
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Sisyphusson66
Posts: 96 |
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I think the discussion at the end of the last episode about why Hondomachi was recommended was a bit heavy-handed. By telling her that she pretty much could become a serial killer if not stopped, it takes away any sort of self discovery on her part as to why she would be recommended to become a Brilliant Detective. It would have been much more interesting to have her unaware of the reason, only then having to come to her own conclusions as she learns from/observes Narihisago.
I do also wonder how the ID will cope with this shake up of the personnel placement. Narihisago was compelling enough as Sakaido on his own, so the ID well parts worked to some extent for me, and the field work was satisfying because of Hondomachi and Matsuoka. While Narihisago and Hondomachi working together(?) or at least working in the same space could be a new, intriguing dynamic, I fear that Matsuoka is nowhere near enough for the field work to hold any real interest (assuming that the field work aspect has the same amount of screen time in the second half). I think the best way to sum up ID so far is that it is overly complicated while being too simple. The series tries too hard to be complex and thought-provoking, as it can be overburdened by the symbolism, as mentioned by the reviewer, and the reliance on the technobabble to drive the show's ideas forward. Yet, it is also too simplistic. It was clear that Hondomachi would become a Brilliant Detective eventually, it was just a matter of when. We are just about halfway done with ID, and given all that we know so far, John Walker most likely has access to and knowledge of this very obscure tech that only a few people can use, leading to the idea that John Walker might be the tech's creator, or it was an inside job. This drastically limits the scope of who it could be, as does the fact that the people discussing this possibility have had so little development or character outside of their job descriptions that, unless one of them gets some sudden character development and screen time, it is highly unlikely that any of them are John Walker. At this point, my opinion is that ID is much more interested in its own thought experiment than creating a compelling narrative. |
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Tanteikingdomkey
Posts: 2345 |
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Maybe that is the point, after all if X is Y then it would make sense actually for him to do that. The bullet maybe was supposed to hammer in the whole she is off her rocker thing, but it just made me laugh so hard. I really wish they had handled that whole angle with her much better but we are 6 episodes in, and have basically nothing on the overaching plot and other basics so we have to get moving I guess.... I have been really loving a lot about this series but I am waiting for the dumpster fire to start A lot of what this show is doing is pacing and focus wise is reminding me of erased and it's unfortunate and inevitable conclusion that was never going to work out well. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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I think you’re being tough on Hondomachi. Do we really have enough evidence to say whether she would have developed into a serial killer (or this show’s weird conception of serial killers and insistence on differentiating types of “killing intent”) before she got the head hole? Pretty sure being caught by the perforater was an accident.
But if the show says so, I suppose it’s true, and she was a psychopath all along, even though the first person she “killed” was herself and the second was clearly self defense. I still like her as a character and can’t wait to see what her “Brilliant Detective “ persona will be like. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I may be - I'm honestly not convinced that she wasn't set up to become a Brilliant Detective by someone and that everything that happened to her was orchestrated to facilitate that. Given the way the show is playing with psychology (in admittedly ridiculous ways), I wouldn't be surprised if some nebulous "they" planned for her to be caught knowing what she'd do. I'd also completely buy the Phineas Gage theory of she only became "dangerous" once she sustained brain damage from the hole in her head and she was set up from there. Also, sorry I keep mentioning Phineas Gage; we spent a truly bizarre amount of time on him in my 11th grade history class and it stuck. |
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NeedMoreCats
Subscriber Posts: 316 Location: Westchester, NY |
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You’re not the only one! I can remember watching old medical dramas where a doctor is perplexed about a patient’s change of personality after head trauma and shouting at the screen, “Phineas Gage, Phineas Gage!” I still remember what his x-ray looked like. |
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Dirtyshadow
Posts: 49 |
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I felt like that moment was the dumbest thing in the series. Its a clique trope especially with the barging in internal affair morons while they were in the middle of something in front of everyone. Basically accusing a police detective and lead investigator of being a complete moron (burying a body on his own property really and keeping evidence on his computer and in his house!!! ) in a series where everyone is suppose to be intelligent. |
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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The animators seem to be having fun with Hondomachi's avatar design, one of them gave her a pipe.
I wonder if Narihisago's would've tried to save everyone, after all he did spend a lot of time trying to save the girl in the copycat's case, even if it didn't seem highly related to solving the mystery. With Hondomachi it feels like the path they're going through with her is that she has an emptiness of sorts. Noted by her own ID Well being a barren wasteland. So she'd be the same archetype as a criminally asymptomatic from Psycho-pass. An anime's simplified view of a sociopath, somebody who follows cold-logic and whatever purpose she has, but lacks empathy. So she can kill or abandon people in need a lot more easily than somebody like Narihisago. Which will honestly... be the most boring place you can take her if that's the case, so hopefully I'm wrong. She did use her knowledge to save people in the ID Well so there's some evidence against that. Another point on her in the last episode is that she could've easily waited until backup arrived to take the Gravedigger alive. He wasn't going to run anywhere, there was absolutely no reason to escalate the situation with what she did. So it's another point in her being more suited as an great detective. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11331 |
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As soon as he leaped toward her, I knew where the next bullet was going to go.
 Especially since prior to that, neither of them seemed to be able to hit the broad side of a barn if they were standing in it.
If Johnny Walker is an insider, I expect it'll be the old bearded guy heading up the whole thing. On a different note, I wonder if it will end up meaning anything that Matsuoka also has (had) essentially a hole in his head. I hope that adding that stitched-up scar above his eye to his character design wasn't just for cool. Overall though, I'm thoroughly loving this. I'm not feeling the problems with pacing and all the other complaints. Sometimes it's good to be stupid so you can just enjoy stuff. 
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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ID Invaded is still probably going to end up disposable when the show ends but I found the episode to be the strongest one of the series so far.
Partially because of the meta-aspects (despite the inaccuracies pointed out by Silverman). I do wonder if the Japanese mystery genre has a slightly different tradition, although I've only read one Rampo story so I wouldn't really know. Otaro Maijo did win the Mephisto prize so I'm assuming that he is familiar with the genre trappings. Although then again The Perfect Insider also won the Mephisto prize so maybe it isn't the greatest arbiter of being a good mystery writer. I also liked how it compared the detective styles of both Anaido and Saikado. Saikado actually has detective experience so he's very good at boots on the ground deduction and generally uses that to solve mysteries. Anaido on the other hand is not really a detective, but understands the meta. He misses the small details relevant to the mystery and survival, but is better at seeing the world as a metaphor/story. There are mysterious footsteps, therefore the next aspect of the plot must be finding the owner of the footsteps. His knowledge of how to get out of quicksand isn't knowing how quicksand works, but realizing what the quicksand represents. To be completely and utterly pretentious about it, Saikado's the Watsonian and Anaido is the Doyalist. Or a more fun comparison is that Saikado is Sherlock Holmes and Anaido is Dirk Gently. It'd be foreshadowing Saikado figuring out the owner of the ID Well but Anaido figuring out either the trap, or where Kaeru and the ID Wells actually come from. I also like the general metaphor for Quicksand tying into Saikado's arc. His life has gone to pieces, but he hasn't hit the point of no return. He still has compassion and if he puts in an effort he can put his life back together again. Unlike the other serial killers he isn't a complete monster yet. It's basic storytelling in a lot of ways. But it provides an emotional hook that is more applicable to our lives than the cop cliches it relied on before. Very few of us have suffered a tragedy as big as Saikado has. But being in a down-period in your life, feeling hopeless, and having to rebuild yourself piece by piece is something I find more relatable. One odd thing about Anaido's detective style is that it draws a comparison between being a crazy serial killer and being more creative. Psychopass under Urobuchi's pen did this too, with the various latent criminals having some sort of creative/literary hobby. I wouldn't call it problematic and it's ultimately not supposed to be reflective of reality, but like... murdering people doesn't really unlock some sort of special insight and it's weird to see writers using serial killers like that. Also wonder how ID Wells actually work. It's not really going inside a person's mind. I figured it'd be something like a computer simulation created from stray thoughts, not actually going inside cognition particles, due to the fact that it just resets after each round so the worlds shouldn't have permanence. But then it'd be impossible for two ID Wells to be linked. Anime science is silly. Last edited by Doodleboy on Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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