Title: ID:Invaded #Brake Broken Vol. 3
Author: Otaro Maijo (Story), Yuuki Kodama (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 196
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery, Drama
Publication Date: November 23, 2021
Final Thoughts
We have arrived at the third and final volume of ID:Invaded #Brake-Broken and… wow… I, honestly, do not know how to even begin to describe what I have read but thankfully, I probably don’t have to say too much because it would end up spoiling the entire ending to the case.
As for the final volume, Narihisago ends up cracking the case and while I won’t divulge the biggest details, I will tell you that time travel is the ultimate clue in solving it. On top of that, we get a massive breakthrough on the true abilities of the Mizuhonome and why this entire case is happening!
As far as characters go… I will make a note about Hondoumachi. There is a point during her dive where she experiences something for the very first time and it marks a radical shift in her character. Not one where it completely changes her but it takes her out of her element and shows us a side that we haven’t seen before. Knowing her throughout the anime series and through this side story, it was a surprising element to witness that gave us a reminder that, no matter what, we are all still human.
Now that I’ve said that I could possibly say comfortably, as with any final volume of a manga, I will offer up my thoughts on the series as a whole.
If you’re reading this series, you’re probably already familiar with the anime. You’re aware of the world these characters exist in and how this takes a brilliant spin on your typical detective series. It’s like someone took Minority Report and injected it with sci-fi steroids! Even though I didn’t care too much for the anime’s art style, the uniqueness of the series drew me in so when I saw that there was going to be a spin-off manga, I had to dive right into it.
A lot of the mysteries in the anime were oftentimes either shallow or semi-deep. This one; however, was probably one of the deepest mysteries we’ve encountered in the series. The twist in the final volume seemed to have come out of left field; however, it only added to the depth of the entire mystery.
As we are accustomed to with ID:Invaded, Kaeru is dead and it’s up to solve her murder. Her murder is not really what is truly being solved, though. It’s more or less a metaphor or a symbol of the true case that’s being solved out in the real world. Solving Kaeru’s murder in the Well by the Mizuhonome correlates to the mystery trying to be solved in the real world, typically by Matsuoka and Hondoumachi.
Here, her body is found in the trunk of a car on a freeway where nobody’s brakes work. Blood is splattered on Narihisago’s back and somehow, through all of this, a group is looking to steal the Wakumusubi… the device which detects killing intent in the real world to create the ID Wells that Narihisago dives in to solve the case.
At first, this seems like a simple case to solve and the second volume makes you believe that everything is being tied up. Car crashes happening in the real world corresponds to the freeway in the ID Well. The brakes being broken are symbolic of the impending crashes being carried out by this group. However, when you get through the second volume, the mystery of why this group wants the Wakumusubi is the one thing that stops you from believing the case is solved.
The third volume blows this wide open with the aforementioned twist that I, personally, didn’t see coming. In a way, without revealing much, I felt as if it were added at the very last minute and seemed like an artificial extension of the series. Had they wrapped this up in the second volume after discovering who was behind the crashes, it would have felt a bit more normalized. On the flipside, by doing that, it would have felt like any other ID:Invaded case and, to be honest, that would have been rather boring.
I guess in a good way and a bad way, extending it to include this twist added much-needed depth to one of these cases… something we never really got in the anime; however, I felt that with this being targeted as a 3-volume series, the twist felt a little rushed and just slotted in. Perhaps a fourth volume could have benefitted or maybe if they had cut out Hondoumachi’s “human reaction” segment and just used that to focus on expanding the story, it would have come across a little better. Then again, it would have cut out some nice character development that I really loved.
Still, I loved the series even though it was a bit on the short side and if you’re a fan of the anime, this is a must-have! Because of nature of this series, it does require you to have previous knowledge of the world so watching the anime is highly recommended if, for some reason, you’re reading this and are completely new to ID:Invaded. The character development throughout was almost non-existent because it was relying on already-established characters. Again, this is aside from Hondoumachi’s experience in the ID Well.
The new characters that are introduced, though, really did shine here. Each one had great personality and added some great variety to the story as a whole. Definitely check it out if you get the chance to and remember… We Are the World!
Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5!
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**This item was provided for review by Yen Press
