Like I mentioned in my Sakura Quest’s post, I just feel underwhelmed by the recent development of that show, and in truth this little bastard here just keeps growing on me, couple with the fact that ID-0 is hardly covered anywhere else; so I hope that my posts will help the show getting more attention it deserves. I blame Netflix for this unfortunate, as the way I see it, anime shows need to be more accessible instead of exclusively available by certain viewers. The recent development of music industry, for example, has bands release/share their albums for free online in order to gain solid fanbase before aiming to get profits back by live shows or physical CDs. In that same vein, anime shows need to be watched in order to gain worth-of-mouth and increase sells (do you really watch shows that nobody talking about? Like, have even you heard of ID-0 yet?) and I witnessed the restriction hurt the chance of Re:Life last year and now seems to bring Little Witch Academia down that ship and I personally think it’s dumb, dumb idea. But enough about that and let’s talk about ID-0, an original CG show about a bunch of space pirates by Sanzigen, the company responsible for Bubuki/Buranki last year.
Episode 2, 3, 4 focused mainly on the crew members of Escavate Company, a band of misfits that steals Orichalt chunks in space (I don’t even know what they’re worth of, energy, maybe?). Many of its members don’t have their physical form, which mean, their consciousness lies within an I-Machine permanently, most of them due to unfortunate consequences. Ido is a prime example, having lost his physical body, his memory taken away and his ID erased, (his ID is 0 hence the name Ido), he doesn’t know who he was but he’s skilled and ruthless and because he has nothing to lose, he’s determined to go all the way to his death in every mission. The other casts have great, easy interactions to each other, and moreover each of them fit their roles very well. Rick (the red I-Machines) has an outgoing personality but I found at no time he’s annoying. The captain Grayman with his well-built body often in command to protect the crews, but sometimes his childish side still gets through and you always feel the responsibility he has for the safety of his crew.
Maya is our protagonist though, and so far, she’s quite refreshing to watch. Still inexperience outside of her skills, she acts innocently most of the time, but by no mean she’s boring. While in action, she has a quick decision-making that comes more of her nature and never feel too geeky or too forced. I really appreciate that ID-0 never pushes up its fanservice from these girls. Well, they could easily fill up with fanservice scenes but they haven’t gotten around to it, which I’m glad. Episode 4 introduces a new crew member, Amanza. She’s in an interesting position as she’s a policer whose main mission is to catch the Escavate crew, but she got sucked by the Miguel Jump (they jump through dimensions) and thus has to live amongst our crew. Moreover, she fits right in with the rest of cast, making their interactions a joy to watch. I know these fellas aren’t the deepest bunch around but their nuances and their easy chemistry more than made up for that.
About the world building, so far I like the concept of these guys stealing the Orichalt chunks in space and there seems to be an overarching plot of the men in power who aim to steal the Orichalt chunks for whatever reasons, and honestly, for now those scenes revolving the man in mask are a dead weight. They tend to over-analyze the concepts which drag on too much and their intentions are so vague it’s hard to take them seriously. Episode 3 also introduces an abnormality, a loli girl who lives in the Orichalt that seems to have a strange power that affected satellites. Whatever her real power is, getting to know who she really is and what role she has in the big picture will be one of the overarching plot of ID-0. As for the CG part of the show, the action part is mostly done well and I enjoy majority of the animation sequences. Sometimes we can see the stiffness in character’s movements but because they’re robots, it’s rather appropriate, right? The character’s designs are attractive so visually, really I have no complain so far. It might take sometimes to get used to the visual but it’s a treat once you are up to it.
I know most of you readers don’t watch this show (either because of streaming rights or the CG or you just don’t aware about this show), but that is one of the reason why I really want to cover this show: to get more people know about this show. I have a blast time watching it so far, so I hope you guys give this show a chance. It deserves much more attention.
It’s watchable, but disappointing. I couldn’t be bothered to finish the third episode. They kept boiling away all the interesting story possibilities in favor of promising yet another “save the girl that came out of the space crystal” type of plot. It felt like it was close to starting a compelling personal story, but then decided to be a mainstream anime instead (just without the budget to at least be pretty to look at).
I agree ID-0 is nothing deep, yet it keeps surprise me on how entertianing it is. You know, later event reveals that loli girl might be Ido’s memory made me laugh so hard. I don’t think we will have a compelling, meaningful story out of ID-0, but let’s just enjoy the ride. In fact, the closest thing this series reminds me of is Senerity (the movie version, I haven’t watched the series), goofy, fun to follow characters are (maybe) an epic overarching plot.
@SuperMario:
Outside of the loli girl’s admittedly wacky character design, I don’t find it to be funny. Not at all. In fact, Ido’s laugh felt a little creepy and makes me wonder about how they’re all actually connected.
If it helps make things clearer, I’m not saying this is entirely unenjoyable. Something can disappoint me and still be enjoyable. To me, that’s a “watchable” series. Perhaps that’s a rougher choice of words than is often used here?
@El Goopo:
I would tend to disagree with your statement above. For one thing, I think the robots in ID-0 look cool and have some good body language. The different types of space backgrounds are fine and the music is also quite nice to hear. In terms of 3D, I think it’s already easier on the eyes than something like the new Berserk show.
For another, the overall plot clearly isn’t limited to being about saving the crystal girl. That sounds like an exaggeration and isn’t even supported by the events of episode 3. In other words, most of what you are saying sounds like a rather premature judgment to me.
For instance, I liked how the third episode brought in some conflict with a direct confrontation involving the military and those who appear to be manipulating them behind-the-scenes. Not only that, but they have also started to explain the pasts of the other members of the crew and properly introduced Amanza into the equation. I think her interactions with Ido in episodes 3 and 4 were alright.
If anything, I would also argue the personal side of the story has been gradually strengthened lately. Episode 5 had some interesting revelations in my opinion as well as finally giving Maya more agency after a couple of episodes were she took a backseat. What we’ve just learned about Ido’s past sounds quite grim to me.
I don’t know if it’ll be a particularly deep show, but it’s also far from being as mindless as your description seems to suggest. I believe it won’t have a very complicated message, but that doesn’t mean it will lack any meaning.
Even the crystal girl, Alice, while she is still part of the story, has connections to a wider narrative beyond herself. By the time it’s all said and done, I think it’s definitely not going to be pretty and the circumstances leading to the current state of both Ido and the girl don’t sound like a walk in the park. That’s not the implication thus far.
Yes, as I said, it’s watchable. Perhaps my baseline for “watchable” is higher than people might expect here, but I don’t consider this “bad”. I just think it dropped the ball on the themes it initially established, and I’m not in the mood for another merely-watchable series right now. If that’s all it wants to be, then I have other mainsteam styled series I can watch that at least have better production values. Once they disappoint me even more, I’ll likely return to this one.
@Madonis: I think you’re a wee bit too harsh on El Goopo. I agree with all of your points, but El Goopo’s opinion here for me represents the general reception of the show. I myself found ID-0 enjoyable and a bit mindless at best until it starts growing on me; I can’t even put my fingers on why I enjoy it so much. He said he didn’t even finish episode 3, by that point the plot hadn’t gotten serious yet. Chill out.
I offer my apologies for El Goopo if he was bothered by the tone, although I really didn’t mean to come across as aggressive in my response. Sorry.
No need to apologize. I’m new here, so it’s necessary to establish a baseline for what my choice of words means and what you guys expect.
Plus it helped confirm that the show is growing on more people *after* the point where I put it on hiatus (even if they’re not quite sure why).
Glad to see this getting some new attention, I’m really quite enjoying it as well.