English Dub Review: ID – Invaded “Inside-outed”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Sakaido, or rather Narihisago, awakens in his old home with his wife and daughter, seemingly having been taken back in time to when he was helping investigate the Challenger case, before he became a serial killer. Now armed with future knowledge, he informs past Momoka of the Challenger’s location to get the drop on him, though not without getting some payback by facing him one on one, getting a severe beating for his trouble, not to mention the guy still manages to keep getting up despite being shot four times. Narihisago still kills him, but now it at least can be played off as self-defense. They even manage to save a prisoner, a girl named Kiki Asukai who looks suspiciously like Kaeru. Looks like they were able to stop what would have been the Challenger’s last kill.

Once in the hospital, Narihisago questions her about what the heck is going on. She explains that she seems to be able to broadcast her thoughts to those around her somehow, including her dreams. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of The Face-Lifter, another serial killer who has come to kill Kiki, but is stopped from doing so once Narihisago makes him feel pain. Turns out this conversation is happening in Kiki’s dream, through which serial killers have been coming through in order to torture her, with dying the only way for her to wake up. Narihisago is only able to be here because he’s a killer too, but he does learn that these killers started coming through thanks to John Walker.

Narihisago then tracks down the Face-Lifter (knowing his hideout from having previously arrested him) and pumps him about John Walker, then convinces him to kill himself. Still, he needs to find a way out of this dream, even if his family is here.

OUR TAKE

Ya know, I suppose since it’s been a few episodes, we were pretty much due for a big Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment from this show. Though I guess that’s to be expected when we’re in uncharted territory like going into a well within a well. This new realm raises a lot more questions than answers (and there were ALREADY a lot more questions than answers in this story by a WIIIIIIIIIIDE margin) but here’s what I think I’ve gathered from this influx of new information. These Mizohanames that have been showing up in the last couple wells seem to be a way into Kiki Asukai’s own well, which manifests as…Narihisago’s past? Wait, no, still doesn’t add up. Well at the very least, it seems that coming through Kiki’s dreams does have the same requirements as the existence of a well or having cognition particles, specifically being a killer of some kind. I imagine those are connected somehow, but we’ll have to find out at some point.

While the actual events taking place still seem to escape me, I do think the character specific stuff going on was interesting to watch. It was quite satisfying getting to see Narihisago take sweet pre-revenge (prevenge?) on The Challenger before he can kill his daughter, even if he did have to take a pretty savage thrashing in order to kill him this time. Narihisago basically gets to both redo and relive his worst mistake in a more cathartic way without all the hardship or sacrifice this time! And yet, he is still the main who went on to become a serial killer himself and began jumping into murderers’ brains for the Kura, so he’s still go those skills to talk people to death under his belt as well (which may have been what killed his wife too if that brief flashback dream is taken the right way). Still, now the conundrum is how he’ll get out of this to help solve the real world case taking place.

And we’re going to really need to get a move on solving it because this show only has four episodes left. Yep, just four episodes to get out of this well, find out where Hondomachi is, get her out that, find out why Momoki was framed, who the desert well belongs to, where Kiki is in the real world, and find out who John Walker is and why he’s doing this. And frankly I don’t know if we can cover all of that in an hour and a half, but we’ll see.