English Dub Review: ID – Invaded “Desertified”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While investigating Kiki Asukai (and her numerous institutionalizing before being kidnapped by The Challenger), they notice that most of her record has been wiped, presumably by Momoki. Also notable is that when she last disappeared, she left many nurses in the hospital with comas, though no idea as to why.

In the meantime, they’ll need to rescue Hondomachi, which will take more than one brilliant detective. They test out Fukuda as Anaido in Narihisago’s well to try and retrieve her (because we’ve established that detectives shouldn’t enter their own wells, so Narihisago can’t try it), though after enough failures, it’s clear that’s as good as they’re going to get. Upon collecting particles from Momoki’s home, they use them to create what seems to be Momoki’s own Id Well and send both Sakaido and Anaido in to find a way to save Hondomachi. This is the first time two detectives have entered a well at the same time, something Fukuda thinks will force one to be wrong in their investigations.

The two find themselves in a barren desert and both suffer from their usual amnesia until they find Kaeru, who is face down in the sand and dead of dehydration. Doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery to it, but the odd tan lines on all of their wrists does seem to point to something. The heat and lack of water means they’ll face her fate soon, so Sakaido has them both cover their clothes in urine for moisture (which I guess means you can pee in someone’s mind?), but the desert seems to go on for miles, maybe even forever. This is made worse when Sakaido ends up in a quicksand pit, requiring Anaido’s knowledge to get out. Eventually they find another body who did die in a pit, though their scratched up face might have been done by the bird flying around them. They also find a Mizuhanome cockpit like in Narihisago’s well, also designated to being used by Kiki Asukai. This time, Sakaido uses it, putting him in the same position as Hondomachi.

As Momoki is interrogated, the officers let slip that they’re in his Id Well, which suddenly gives him reason to get nervous and make the others alert the team that this is a trap.

OUR TAKE

Okay, first thing, I don’t think this is actually Momoki’s well. Not only does it seem like they are framing him for something, it also seems to be pointing to this well being some sort of tool to get the team to unlock…something. While a lot of the “good” characters are pretty much enigmas at the moment, Momoki just doesn’t seem to be set up as much of a killer, but he does come off as a dependable leader whose absence or placing doubt would disrupt the team’s ability to process things. He might also have a connection to this mysterious Kiki Asukai, but we still don’t have all of the information just yet. Regardless, this whole operation regarding this desert well is pretty fishy to say the least, something I think we’ll be exploring next episode.

But it does provide us the opportunity to see a lot of firsts with the usual format of the show. We see the return of Anaido, who looks like he still has his issues of dying way too often and not really learning much from his surroundings, but we also get to see him partner up with Sakaido for the first ever double detective job. It’s pretty fascinating seeing the two slowly learn to trust and probably even trust each other when they don’t know about the other’s baggage (or even their own), but it also highlights the differences in their respective deductive skills, with Sakaido going for the logical routes while Anaido is…the comic relief? Thinking outside the box? Not entirely certain at this point, but perhaps this has something to do with Fukuda’s speculation that having two brilliant detectives causes one to be wrong. But Anaido has failed both well’s that he’s been tested in, so that should be an easy choice for who the wrong one is, right?

And now we have two of the three detectives diving into a well into a well thanks to the sudden appearance of a Mizuhanome within that first well. Does this mean that Sakaido will meet Hondomachi/Miyo Hijiriido within Kiki Asukai’s well, which both of these machines seem to come from? What will Anaido do to solve the case in this well? What makes Momoki go full Admiral Ackbar think this is a trap? With five episodes left in the series, we’ll hopefully start getting the answers to this soon, otherwise the holes are start coming. This has slowly become a pretty fascinating show, so I’d hate for it to collapse under its own intellectual weight.