ID: INVADED (Limited Edition Blu-ray & DVD)

ID: INVADED (イド：インヴェイデッド) is a 2020 original television anime series directed by Ei Aoki, written by Otaro Maijo and produced by studio NAZ. Staff credits also include music composers Atsushi Umebori and Slavek Kowalewski of U/S. The series first aired in Japan on January 2020.

Background:

“Meet Sakaido, a brilliant detective who solves cases by entering the world of the killer’s unconscious mind: the id well. In the shadows of brutal and puzzling cases lurks John Walker, the Serial Killer Creator. Where will Sakaido’s pursuit lead?”

Plot Synopsis via Manga Entertainment, January 2021.

Studio NAZ is a weird group, because their catalogue of anime has been rather hit or miss. They’ve adapted titles that many had disliked (especially Infinite Dendrogram), though I personally enjoyed My First Girlfriend is a Gal even if the animation wasn’t perfect, and Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion was a surprising show despite the bad filtering it had on top of the animation. But out of all of their titles, they did produce an original series with Re:CREATORS director Ei Aoki for ID: INVADED.

ID: INVADED is a sci-fi series with a pretty cool concept, about a guy going into a virtual world to identify who killed a specific individual, and what also intrigued me was both its artistic style and the music. The artist was Yūki Kodama, known of his work on Blood Lad (another fun series), and his style was then adapted by Atsushi Ikariya who then worked on Sabikui Bisco. The music also featured songs by artist MIYAVI (live-action Blade of the Immortal, KOKKOKU) which added to a lot of the scenes.

Funimation acquired the streaming and home video rights for the series months before its broadcast and also provided an early stream for the show’s first two episodes which I did manage to check out. The series was distributed by Manga Entertainment in the UK before they rebranded as Funimation UK a few months later. Due to a few scenes of strong gory imagery in one of the episodes, the series was given an 18 rather than the usual 15 that most anime tends to receive for the UK.

Limited Edition Contents:

ID: INVADED is a pretty large box set, as we have a few physical items taking up the space.

The limited-edition box set features a rigid box that houses an Amaray case (with a slipcase) as well as a 120-page book and a cardboard box featuring 6 art cards, and an Acrylic standee. The design of the set is very much similar to Plunderer which was another series that had an early stream by Funimation. As this is the UK variation of the limited edition, Manga Entertainment re-used the standard edition release for the Amaray case (whilst the slipcase is included, which wasn’t in the US release). The booklet includes character designs, background and visual illustrations, and some key frame animation work. Also included is a short novel called ID:REMEMBERED: An ID: INVADED Lost Episode.

The rigid box artwork is free of any information and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Funimation limited edition releases.

The SRP for the limited-edition set was £69.99 and there’s no exact unit count. Originally I had attempted to receive the limited edition through Zavvi but they sent me the combo pack that is normally housed inside the set, basically they didn’t have the assets and their customer service was pretty terrible. I was able to get a refund but they sent me a replacement which had the same result (they told me to ‘donate it’). Therefore I asked SAHO if they still had their copy on sale and they said yes, so I appreciate their assistance in the matter (price-wise was cheaper than UP1’s original offering so it works). A standard edition Blu-ray release is also available in the UK, whilst the US has one available as a Blu-ray & DVD combo.

Physical Contents:

• Rigid Box with Amaray packaging and clean artwork
• Info sheet for specification
• 120-page Booklet featuring ID:REMEMBERED: An ID: INVADED Lost Episode
• 6 Art Cards
• Acrylic Standee

On-Disc Contents:

Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Released: 11th January 2021

The limited edition release for ID: INVADED contains all 13 episodes across two Blu-ray discs and two DVD discs, with the encode and authoring done by Funimation.

Audio options include Japanese audio with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub. The white subtitles are unlockable during playback and the disc regions are locked to B for Blu-ray, and 2 for DVD in NTSC format.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0
Video	1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	B
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	2 BD-50s

DVD Specs:

Languages	English, Japanese
Audio	English Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0
Video	Standard Definition in NTSC format 16:9 aspect ratio
Region	2
Subtitles	English
Locked Subtitles	No
Discs	2

Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:

Disc 2:

• Inside the Minds of the Staff and Cast of ID: INVADED
• Promo Videos
• Textless Opening Song “Mister Fixer”
• Textless Closing Song “Other Side”

DVD On-Disc Extra Features:

No extras across all discs

Unboxing Photos:

Final Notes:

ID: INVADED is available to order through multiple retailers across the United Kingdom. The limited edition Blu-ray & DVD release is out of print but stock may still be around for Amazon UK, and United Publications, but the standard edition can be purchased through Amazon UK, MVM’s Anime-on-Line, and United Publications.

(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)