This manga is a continuation of the Id:Invaded anime that starts with the cast of the first season solving a new case through the use of id wells. The manga very much assumes that you’ve already seen the anime and are familiar with how everything works and who everyone is. It explains things somewhat but it serves more as a refresher than an actual explanation. Even as someone that has watched the anime, I found myself having to look things up because it’s been a while. Thus, you should only read this manga after watching the anime. And while this manga does advance things, it isn’t all that different from the anime, so your feelings about this manga will very likely be the same as your feelings about the anime.
There are a few new characters introduced, but none of them get developed all that well, similarly to how none of cast outside of Akahito got developed all that well in the original anime. I will note however, that while I don’t think the original anime used Koharu very well, this manga does a better job and fleshes her out better both in terms of outside and inside the wells in ways that feels consistent with her character and let her best parts shine through. The manga didn’t really do much with any of the cast other than her though, though it did set up a couple to take in interesting directions in the future.
The manga has three volumes that are centered around a single real-world mystery, though it involves three id wells. The first id well was super interesting just as the ones in the anime were. It gets kind of crazy in applying sci-fi concepts, and though it definitely does screw up the science, it screws it up in a way that pretty much all similar sci-fi screws it up so I didn’t really find it an issue. The second and third id wells are incredibly simplistic but it barely spends any time on them so I thought they were fine. The real-world mystery I felt was better than any of the mysteries in the anime, mainly due to how it involved a lot more of the mystery happening in the real world and not just searching for things from the wells in databases. It was also pretty well paced and well written.
The thing though, is that it feels like only half the mystery is solved. Similar to the first season with John Walker, there’s a new overarching antagonist set up here. It very much feels like this was going to be a much longer story with a bunch of smaller cases that build up to a larger final case where they finally take on the antagonist. However, this manga contains just the first of those smaller cases. Thus, the story very much feels incomplete and at this point I doubt there’s going to be a continuation that completes it. Thus, the ending of the manga is pretty unsatisfying.
The art in the manga is solid but the id wells are a lot less crazy than they are in the anime so the art is never anywhere near as impressive. Character design wise it’s mostly all pretty plain as outside of the id wells as everyone is just wearing suits. Inside the id wells, the returning brilliant detectives still have pretty cool designs, and the new brilliant detectives are a solid addition.
