English Dub Review: ID – Invaded “Channeled II”


OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Narihisago and Hondomachi, having regained their memories of their real lives, face Hayasura as they jump across multiple Id Wells, each stranger than the last. He also can’t be directly killed due to his living self no longer existing. This leads them into Fukuda’s well, which still exists despite him being dead. Hondomachi theorizes that he holds significance in the number 7 because he thinks himself a god, yet while he gave each of the killers he created the rule of having seven kills before being caught or killed, he also inadvertently made this rule apply to himself, accidentally creating Narihisago as “The Cornerer” to be the one to catch him. It’s then that the two Brilliant Detectives spring their trap, having Hayasura sit in a Mizuhanome and forcing him to mentally return to the time before his first kill, in his case being right before he killed himself, which I guess means he’ll be arrested in there while his Id Well self is stuck in Fukuda’s Well. As for getting out of there themselves, Narihisago just leaves it up to hope.

In Kura HQ, Momoki attempts to find Kiki Asukai with a suit that helps him withstand her powers. It’s not a total fix, as Matsuoka and the team monitoring his vitals have to remotely break his ribs while defibrillating him in order to keep his lungs from filling with fluid. Eventually he reaches her, but chooses not to kill her, instead bringing her back to her original chamber in order to suppress her abilities and get people to start coming out of their comas. Her connection to other peoples’ dreams is only expanding, so a normal life is impossible for her now anyway, but Momoki promises her that someone will save her someday. Once the Kura team awakens, they extract the detectives. The John Walker case is closed, everything is classified, Kokofu is made the acting Chief, and Narihisago and Hondomachi continue their work as brilliant detectives checking new ID Wells.

OUR TAKE

God, who even remembers this show at this point? The finale was months ago in Japan and Funimation only had one episode left to dub before the shutdown, so unlike the other shows with unfinished episodes, there was no build up to get people back in the groove since it came back just to end. And this show was picked to be a same-day simuldub, something that only goes to shows that have a lot of hype or are surefire hits, so we went from twelve episodes of coming out the same day as they aired in Japan to being nearly THREE MONTHS OFF for the last one. And god help you if had forgotten anything since watching it because you will be totally lost. I rewatched the last few prior to this and it all came back to me how taxing it was to try and juggle all of this show’s nonsense at once. Maybe it’ll be a bit easier going through the whole season again for the Season Review, but I doubt it.

As for the episode itself, it’s pretty all over the place. I watched it when it initially released in Japanese back in March, so these thoughts have been cooking for awhile, but some only feel more glaring with time. Putting aside all the issues with the John Walker reveal itself, the problems at the core really come from how vague and nebulous Hayasura’s goals are. He wants to use the Mizuhanome (yeah, I’m not gonna miss having to double check my spelling on all of these made up bullshit proper nouns week to week) to investigate criminals and why they commit crimes, but he also wanted to create some of his own and then investigate them? What was he looking for in any of them and why did that involve having them torture Kiki (or not in Fukuda’s case)? What was the end goal of any of this for him? I’ve always felt like an antagonists’ goal and motive, especially in a super heady story like this one, is meant to be reflective of some bigger idea that the story wants you to consider, if not agree with, but the most I can parse from this that maybe some people’s ideas of justice involve committing crimes in order to understand the nature of crime? Even that is probably being really charitable and I doubt we’re going to be getting more of this show to better explain it, so that’s what I’m going with.

The ending is also…weirdly open ended? Like, the whole source of the John Walker attacks was because of the Mizuhanome, which then could only be investigated and solved WITH the Mizuhanome, but now that John Walker is taken care of, why are they still using it? Again, this might be something to look out for going over the season again, but it seems like this technology is doing more harm than good, especially when maybe their resources could be better used trying to help Kiki’s condition instead of using her for more well diving. Maybe, I guess. Even the status quo changes don’t seem that much of a step forward. Narihisago and Hondomachi work together now and Kokofu (whose name I only learned in order to mention his one significant moment in this entire series) is now the chief, but it doesn’t feel like anything else has really changed. What are we meant to take from this? What was it all trying to say? Short of getting a second season, which doesn’t seem super likely, there’s nothing we can really do except review the whole season and try to glean something from this before waking up from this dream.