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「SNIPED」
ID:Invaded continues exactly where it left off with no time skips. Hondomachi’s in recovery, which gives the writers a chance for more jargon and exposition.
Summarizing Field Agent Matsuoka, normal people can’t dive into their own ID wells because you’ll become conscious of your unconscious and break your psyche. Most of all, he confirms my theory!!!! That “brilliant detective” is really just a persona, a pilot for Sakaido to utilize or prevent mindbreak.
Also, did he just drop that Narihisago is his former colleague?? I want to know!
Anyway new week, new killer! This time it’s a serial killer who snipes victims after setting a bomb, aptly named ‘Pyrotechnician’. The literal translation of the killer, hanabi-ishi is more like “Fireworks killer” which I think is funnier in a darkly humourous way; and also reveals the pointlessness of these episodic mysteries.
‘Mystery of the Week’ is the bread and butter of most anime, including one of my faves: Mayonaka no Occult Koumin which is the epitome of weekly mysteries. But for some reason, I just can’t get into the ones set up by ID:Invaded.
On the surface, should be great. I like the whole ID-Well walkthroughs and Sakaido getting killed over and over again for a clue. It’s very similar to how Minority Report does the predicted crime scene analysis, and the level of detail like the facial distortions clue is really good.
This is a budget/time constraint, but last weeks’ double ep drop was better because the surreal landscape was more interesting which helped smooth over the dialogue heavy parts. This waterfall/tower scenerio just doesn’t work. It’s too boring for an episodic series. And I was 100% ready to drop when the last fifteen minutes just SAVED this.
Just who is Narihisago???
That last 15 minutes was just…. Killer (Pardon the pun.) How he manipulated and slowly walked Mister Pyrotechician through into committing suicide ahhhh that was freakin’ awesome!! Super awesome!!!
And!!! I really cannot praise Narihisago’s seiyuu, Tsuda Kenjirou enough for this episode. Without his amazing acting, this entire scene couldn’t have happened.
There’s so much good stuff to unpack here. First the symmetrical cell layout setting up both sides of the debate. How the camera ping-pongs between both of them, and then Narihisago looming behind Mr Pyrotechician casting the only shadow in this pure brilliantly lit cell.
Then the photograph melting into memory. And finally, Mr. Pyrotechcian stands among his own victims framed by his own photograph, his own hell.
The scene darkens, literally and figuratively. Our killer kills himself while Narihisago encourages him with a sardonic ganbatte (keep it up). The scene ends like it opens, the cells in symmetry but with the lights shut.
Again, just who is Narihisago???
See you on the other side next week!!
Thanks for the post. Unfortunately, the snapshots will open in a new tab and not in a pop-up window.
That’s strange, I’ll ask the site admin about it thank you!
This episode was good until they faced off in the cells. Then it became amazing. If I hadn’t seen the previous stuff I would have sworn Narihisago is the villain. He literally talked that killer into killing himself in less then 5 minutes. Sure, the guy was crazy, but still…
But from what I observed he wasn’t going to do that at first. It wasn’t until the guy mentioned that everyone is meaningless, even Narihisago’s dead daughter, that he started going after him. The signal was the eye twitch. That is the moment Narihisago decided it was suicide time.
Also… holy fucking brutality Batman, the way his daughter was killed….
My guess is after that Narihisago snapped and went Punisher. I don’t think he ever found Challenger, but I think he stated making killers stop living. I really don’t think this was the first time he got someone to kill himself.
YES!!! Honestly, Narihisago is the best character in this series so far. I got chills listening to him talk the killer into suicide. It’s a beautifully written scene, and kudos to the writer/team for pulling it off. TBH, ID:Invaded is one of the few series that would probably work as a live-action as well, I can totally see a Hannibal-esque setup.
Urgh yea, that was awful. I’m glad they kept that brutality offscreen though — it wouldn’t fit the overall aesthetic, especially with the opening dream sequence part. Also going super violent seems really pointless/just for titillation in this kind of psycho-drama.
It’s mentioned in ep 2 that Narihisago got 5 other killers to commit suicide during his chat with the head detective.
I don’t disagree that the setting of the killer’s mind is less interesting, but it’s still rather fun how the well visualizes their killing intent in what at first appears to be a meaningless manner.
I’m super curious what will become of the police girl, how well she took getting her head drilled as well as her interest in diving into the well is a bit suspicious, especially since the perforator seems like he’ll be having a presence in future episodes.
As for our protag and his alter ego, the contrast and resemblance is kind of intriguing. They’re both quite Sarcastic (Sakaido telling the dream lady to just jump cause she was being annoying) but Sakaido’s definitely more energetic, so I wonder if he’s based on a younger Narihisago? On that front, I wonder if “Kaede” is meant to be based on a combo of his daughter and his wife, which brings to question, what happened to his wife?
Yeah! Hondomachi’s just a way for Invaded to do more exposition (oh what’s this? what’s that? lemme tell you a super long jargon thing) I hope she takes a bigger role in this, especially since they’re hinting she has pilot potential.
Kaeru-chan is interesting to me since Kaeru in Japanese means to “to return home”. So I wonder if there’s any meaning in that
Oh, come on!
Sweet talking a repulsive cell neighbour into killing himself? Why hasn’t anyone made the Hannibal Lector parallel….
Actually I did in one of the comments! Invaded definitely feels like it could be a live action version. I think the difference with Hannibal at least, is the lack of Will Graham. Like, Hannibal (TV, Bryan Fuller ver) works because it has a strong central tension between 2 leads. Right now Narihisago is carrying the show on his own, there’s no “central space”
Crime procedurals work because even if the setting is always different (mystery of the week, killer of the week) — there’s always a central space with core characters that don’t change. Climatic action happens when the central space is invaded by a monster, criminal or alien agent. In Buffy it’s the library. In CSI it’s the office. Invaded has a problem where you don’t have core characters (either a duo or trio) or a central space. The ID well analysis could be considered one, but there’s not enough world building and the ensemble cast is too large for audience to connect with.
Still not really sure what to make of this show, as a lot of the story elements have still yet to be really revealed and/or explained, and any one of them done poorly could turn me away, but for now at least, it’s keeping my interest.
Yeah I’m really struggling whether to keep this or not. The fact that Suzuki Kiyotaka is directing doesn’t bode well — he did Babylon (hot mess) and Psycho Pass s2 (worst season of PsychoPass) so I’m kinda ehhhh about it. I might give one more ep before deciding
Babylons faults rest with the writer it’s based on a novel and the core premise is a mess and really stupid.