By the time you’re reading this, the ID: Invaded preview will have run out, but never fear – it’ll be back in 2020.

Funimation had a preview for ID: Invaded and lemme tell you…aside from being able to “see the future” and realise it still looks far too much like the present (again)…

…ID: Invaded is basically really, really up my alley.

Not only is it a murder mystery (which is already appealing to the part of me that still has an allegiance to Detective Conan), it turns out it presents itself in a way that instantly commands your attention and doesn’t let go, by revealing its plot elements as Sakaido or the team controlling him finds them out.

Now, hang on: our protagonist’s name is a lot deeper than you might think. “Sakaido” (酒井戸) is an alias and I assume it plays into the “id” wordplay they point out in the preview – that ID (identity), id (as how Freud used it) and i (井)/ido (井戸) = well (for water) can all be used for wordplay in just two or three letters. This also, I guess, plays into the idea a “well” is what you call a container for stuff in science as…well (LOL, unintentional pun).

“Kaeru” is also an alias and it can mean “frog” or “return” – I’d assume the usage of the latter was intended, but the former is (potentially?) why Sakaido has green eyes.

It’s due to this that a lot of this show is still unclear, including the significance of the “original creator” credit, “The Detectives United”, and you never quite know what the truth is until you see the world of the unconscious start being reflected in real life (or, as much “real life” as can be done in an anime, anyway).

As you can see from the explanations above, the show is also fond of its wordplay, so it’s good to stay vigilant in case a clue or two comes up. Notably, looking closely at the car licence plates reveals the story is set in Shinagawa, so it’ll be interesting to see if anyone can match up locations from the show to ones in real life…our real life, not ID: Invaded‘s. (I’ll leave that job up to you guys in 2020.)

As for the mystery itself, it’s presented like 18if in that the detective – Sakaido – investigates different “mind worlds”. The main one is presented as a segmented world where things float around in nothingness and blue squares can be seen on missing parts of the body (such as Sakaido’s elbow and arm). It’s a really cool way of presentation, especially when Sakaido exploits it (by making like Luffy) to open doors and discover he’s part of a locked-room mystery where nothing is what it seems to be.

(Very Long) Sidebar: I noticed the code that the backup team (Momoki and co.) – presumably police or something similar – was some kind of Windows code (due to the designated hard drive being the common C:/) – I’ll take a stab in the dark and say it’s in the programming language C, which Windows computers are coded in. Meanwhile, Hayaseura seems to use a Mac, based on his GUI (graphical user interface) having that silver appearance and the green/orange/red icons in the top left corner of the window.

…I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, but in my simulcast commentaries, if I get a look at someone’s phone or other device screen in an anime, I’ll try to guess what it’s running on (as in the operating system…and sometimes you can accurately guess the rough time period the anime was made based on the technology, since the tech/terms for the tech date the work). Likewise, if code comes up and I recognise what language it is from having used it before (or having googled it), then I’ll say it there too.

Of course, I’m not going to reveal all the secrets of the show in case you missed it. So, have I piqued your interest if you’re waiting for 2020 to watch it? What were your impressions regarding ID: Invaded if you caught it? (No spoilers for the unspoilt, though!)