English Dub Season Review: ID – Invaded Season One

You ever wake up from a really vivid dream and try writing it down but then looking at the notes in the morning and realizing it looks like gibberish? ID Invaded kinda feels like that when all’s said and done. Being the new hot original anime of the season isn’t an easy role to play, but it is always nice to see fresh story ideas in the mix of all the manga and game adaptations. Typically that leads to a lot of intriguing and potentially groundbreaking ideas, but then also leading to those ideas being formless and not living up to that potential. ID ends up being this to a T, as while its premise of entering the minds of killers to solve cases in surreal locked room mysteries is a visually fascinating and mentally intriguing concept that starts out with a bit of promise, it ultimately ends up tripping on lacking some fundamental story elements that would have put some substance behind the undeniable style.

The story acts as a procedural crime drama, at least at the start, with disgraced cop turned serial killer Akihito Narihisago being tasked with diving into manifestations of unconscious called Id Wells, which are made by serial killers and entered by capturing Cognition Particles, which only become detectable with a device called a Wakamusubi when there is a strong urge to kill. Narihisago is able to access this by being a killer himself, entering the Well as the “brilliant detective” Sakaido, where he has no memories of his present life and must piece together the case with clues laid in the well by a mysterious girl named Kaeru. And if any of that threw you off and made you feel completely lost, you’ll understand how this series shoots itself in the foot pretty early on. It introduces so much jargon and special terms right out of the gate that it becomes a game of catch up to understand any of them instead of focusing on the plot in front of you. Now take all of that and add an ongoing mystery to find a mysterious creator of serial killer of John Walker.

One of those unfortunate losses is, sadly, the characters. Narihisago, other detectives, and some of the police force he works for are fleshed out well enough, but then we have some of the other members who have no discernible personalities or character traits, while the serial killers get a feast of characterization, even if it’s sometimes confusing. Part of that makes sense, seeing as their the subjects of intense mental and emotional scrutiny which make up the main gimmick of the show, but then we cut back to the hub of all the activity going on and I’m looking at a bunch of people who I couldn’t tell you one thing about if you put a gun to my head. Even so, the show does quite a bit to get you fascinated about its Id Well concept and what effect it has on its pilots, though often by introducing new details that add to the pile of things your own brain just won’t be able to keep up with, which ends up making it a pretty stylistically interesting story but not one that feels all there by the end. Basically how you view a dream you’ve just woken up from. It’s oddly fitting that a show about the unconscious feels like a lot of it was written unconsciously.

In the end, while it will probably be remembered fondly for it’s creative style and premise, I don’t see ID Invaded leaving much of a lasting impression in this new decade of anime. It has a lot to ask about the nature of killing and justice and identity but never really comes to a clear conclusion about any of those, which ultimately made me feel pretty unfulfilled by its mystery and its story, but most definitely its characters. It probably didn’t help my impressions that, while the anime did manage to finish production before the pandemic lockdowns, the dub didn’t finish until months later despite having the first twelve episodes release on the same day as the sub, though that’s not exactly fair. Either way, while this show will be fun to look back on how crazy it was, it might only work in our subconscious instead of thinking about it.