Audience reviews
12 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Realkaku
Watching Be Invoked was intense.
It doesn't build up slowly, it just throws you in. The moment it starts, things are already falling apart. People die fast. Sometimes without warning, sometimes without meaning. And it's overwhelming. Not in a flashy, dramatic way, but in a "this is happening and you can't stop it" kind of way.
Characters I spent so much time with are suddenly gone. No big speeches. No heroic last stands. Just fear, mistakes, and silence. The more it goes on, the more you realize this isn't about saving anyone. It's about how far everything has gone, and how there's no coming back from it.
Yet, weirdly, it's not hopeless. It's not even cruel. It's just... the end. But not an empty one. Those final scenes feel strangely calm. Like the universe finally took a breath. Every…
Read at the sourceSp1cyCrab
Ideon as a whole is Tomino's rant in anime form.
The movie has no structure, it has a small recap of TV show's latest episodes, a series of three battles in space and then the worst thing that could happen happens.
Ideon has gruesome character deaths that have no value beyond shock value. That's because all the characters are incredibly one note and have no depth, including the Ideon pilots. The mech has only three attacks - missile spam, swords of light and Ideon gun that destroys everything in target's general direction. Battle scenes aren't really breathtaking.
Ideon isn't a raw gem, it's just raw. Strongest concepts were better defined and redefined in Gundam Zeta, ZZ and Turn A. And Be Invoked is just an unsatisfying end to an unsatisfying show.
Read at the sourceSuperJohnDoe
It was all worth it. The awful first half, the nonsensical battles, the bizarre nature of the Ideon, neither side willing to negotiate after failed attempts to do so...
The movie rendeemd all of the TV show's faults and goes far beyond its original scope. It's hard to believe this was originaly intended to be a bunch of episodes as the flow of the entire film is quite smooth.
The score definitely helps in this case; we go from typical campy and upbeat songs you'd expect from an old-school anime to a proper orchesrta adding their colourful and rich sound to the events that unfold.
All of the character deaths, monologues and fights were much more impactful this time around and I was genuinely moved the entire time. The ending in particular had me in tears; it was cathartic an paradoxical…
Read at the sourcerooster_
Nowadays Ideon may come off as a heavy-handed allegory for nuclear warfare and the apparent inevitability of human conflict, but Be Invoked--a feature film that provides the original series with a final arc and ending, instead of the rushed final episodes prompted by the show's cancellation--continues to be one of the most emotionally devastating and spiritually aspirational anime. The fact that Ideon began as a transparently toyetic mecha franchise, which is still reflected in many of its designs, doesn't detract from how seriously the story takes itself, its characters, and its message. The violence pulls no punches, even when children are involved, and this is still Tomino's rawest look at civilian casualties and collateral damage in war. All leading up to its rather open conclusion, Be…
Read at the sourceSpirit_Chaser
There will be spoilers as there is no other way I can do this.
When I first watched Ideon with the series, I sat in awe of the marvel of the Ideon itself. A giant sentient being with unlimited power. Still, there was always something that didn't feel right from the start. It's the lyrics to the opening. As much as I felt grateful for it saving the cast time and time again, something didn't feel right. Something felt eerie, or even disturbing, about the Ideon. Soon enough, it's shown that this is a monster, and no one from Captain Bes's ship wanted it anymore soon after. But they, along with the Buff Clan itself, were trapped in the Ideon's web. In a way, it felt as if the Ideon played them all like toys for it's amusement. Whether they wanted to or not, they would all spiral into madness…
Read at the sourceMazinGaius
Genuinely the greatest movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Never in my entire albeit short time have I ever been left so mesmerized by a piece of media. The way Be Invoked manages to take the stress-inducing, paranoid experience of the TV series and take it to a whole new level is jaw-dropping. Ideon is not as well-known outside of japan, but within the mecha mythos, it's arguably one of the most revered properties not only within the genre, but amidst all of anime, serving as clear inspiration for later visionaries (Hideaki Anno directly cites Ideon as one of the main inspirations for EVA)
Since the firm effectively serves as a direct sequel to the tv series, and speaking of its shining quality is impossible without the previous knowledge, I'll instead focus on the l aspects that t…
Read at the sourcebrandotendie
The Ideon: Be Invoked ran so End of Evangelion could fly.
i haven't been THIS slackjawed at anything anime since my first watch of End of Evangelion several years ago.
absolutely masterful. the best payoff i've gotten from the groundwork of a preceding TV show tie-in since motherfucking Fire Walk with Me. it's THAT amazing.
the sheer amount of emotions this film puts you through as it boils to a mind-melting fever point is overWHELMING. the previous 39 (well, 38 really if we have to discount the final episode) episodes completely lull us into believing in the in-world plot armor; everyone on board the Solo Ship and the Ideon are protected.
there's never been a situation where they would die or be harmed. so when that plot armor is stripped away, and we see MAIN CHARACTERS and fucking…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Ideon: Be Invoked serves as an alternate retelling to the final several episodes of the TV anime when it was abruptly cancelled the year prior before Sunrise could wrap up the anime's plot. The film serves to wrap up events in the escalating conflict between the human crew of the Ideon and the alien Buff Clan.
Be Invoked starts where the TV anime left off in depicting Karala's confrontation with her father before the Ideon's power surges upward in response to the hostility between both factions. From then on, the film doesn't let up in showing how these hostilities result in an all-out final conflict between the Ideon crew and Buff Clan. The film is well regarded by mecha anime fans for being the high point of Tomino's "Kill Em All" moniker and it definitely shows with the high kill count…
Read at the sourceQuiddity131
The Ideon: Be Invoked is the thrilling conclusion to the Space Runaway Ideon franchise. In my eyes this is one of the best anime movies of all time and still is today, almost 35 years after its release.
A little bit of background is necessary coming into this movie. Space Runaway Ideon was a television series that aired from 1980 to 1981. Originally intended to last a full year, the show got cancelled after 39 episodes. The show’s director and much of the crew had been involved with the show Mobile Suit Gundam, which had suffered a similar fate, but had been provided with a 4 episode extension to finish the series. The show’s staff tried for the same with Ideon, including even storyboarding the final 4 episodes, but were unable to get the extension. As such those final 4 episodes were ne…
Read at the sourceTwoSevenTwo
"Be Invoked" is absolutely fantastic, but it doesn't stand on its own (unless you just like pretty animation and gruesome deaths). If you want to care at all about any of the characters or understand any of what's going on, you'll either have to watch "A Contact" or the TV show first, neither of which quite match the standards of Be Invoked. If you watch "A Contact", you'll get a compressed version and miss much of the characterization. If you watch the TV series, you're in for a long haul of 39 episodes, some of which are just garbage, but the last ~17 episodes are great and set the stage for "Be Invoked" in the way that "A Contact" doesn't.
Let's get this out of the way first: this movie is infamous. If you've seen End of Evangelion, you know what to expect, since Evangelion was partly…
Read at the sourceMS06FZ
It is difficult to write a review of The Ideon: Be Invoked without also writing about A Contact. It's not recommended you watch this film without having seen either the full series or the first movie.
However, if you have the context needed from having watched the preceding events, Be Invoked is a truly excellent ending to the show. The essential idea behind The Ideon is that it subverts the idea of super robots being man's servants against an alien menace by giving the titular robot a form of mind of its own, and removing the element of human control.
The events of Be Invoked pick up around where the series and A Contact end, with a credits sequence introducing the events not shown as in-depth in the first film as in the series - such as the Ideon Sword, and Cosmo's relationship with Ki…
Read at the sourceyaosaku
The Ideon: Be Invoked it's the second and last movie of a compilation of the series Space Runaway Ideon created by the infamous Yoshiyuki (Kill'em all) Tomino.
Story 10/10 the story is very appealing and well developed at least in this second movie, there's a lot of tragedy, a lot of killing, all of them caused because the two enemy factions are unable to understand each other and they make their small diferences bigger then their really are. At the end of it all the hatred, the pride, the desire for vengeance and the willing to live, merge in one of the most epic and tragic ending you could see
Art 10/10 the art is outstanding especially for the time it was made
Sound 10/10 it manages to create an great atmosphere
Character 5/10 completely underdeveloped, never get to know any of the…
Read at the source