[Frontier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Gonna go ahead and keep my streak of complaining about Zeztz going by ranting a little about the Capsems, because this episode demonstrates both of the things that are bugging me about their role in the show.

First is that -- at the risk of rehashing debates Power Rangers fans were having 20 years ago -- I don't think I actually like how Baku uses them when not transformed? On one hand, it's nice that they're committing to that gimmick, and it's always great to give the collection items all the utility they can. On the other hand, though, it sort of seems like it's an excuse to have him doing superhero things in the scenes where he should probably be doing cool spy things instead?

The other thing that bugs me way more is the whole Gashapon machine setup, and, more broadly, how it currently feels like Capsems are a total afterthought narratively, which will actually be a serious issue if that stays true in the long run. I don't know why Baku hasn't just already sat at one of those things to pop out all his powerups ahead of time? There aren't any defined rules to how and why Capsems exist that affect the stories in any meaningful way. It's not something that makes the episodes less interesting, but if they're making a huge international push to get new people interested in this franchise, it's nothing short of a massive missed opportunity if they don't demonstrate how the merchandise-driven nature of these shows can actually result in their drama being more interesting because of how the creators can choose to work with that instead of against it.

So that's another few things off my chest! But none of that is specific to this episode, which I actually did enjoy quite a bit, even though my thoughts refuse to reflect that again. My favorite scene was probably Baku and Nem having that whole heated conversation. I like him getting so fired up because it suggests how much that third episode weighs on him, and I like her questioning the whole ethics of his heroic adventures, because that whole fine line seems like a fun thing for the series to hopefully explore throughout its run.

If you think about it as the Capsems serve a similar role to spy gadgets (even if they're fantastical in nature) and the gacha rolls as basically Baku's equivalent of Bond getting new gadgets at the start of every movie, I think it works.