[Sh Ranger]

This episode was portended to reveal what's going on with Nem, but it leaves more questions than answers. So, based on the shrine, looks like she's either dead or comatose, which would explain why she's always in the dream world if she has nowhere else to live. But the fact that she continues to exist in various marketing is confusing, as she'd have to be alive and awake to do those things, especially the sneaker ad in the first episode that shows her running. What does it all mean?!

The prison symbol looks similar to the one in Nox's book with the four circles of the universe or whatever. I wonder what significance that will have. It's clearly not a byproduct of the dreamer's subconscious, feels more deliberate like the moonscoop, like a detail that's being put there rather than being dreamed up.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

I don't think there was ever going to be a way where an old man being entranced by a little girl wasn't going to come off as creepy, but this definitely did not come close to it.

Yeah. Dude got a little too excited.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

I love how even when forced into wearing a prison uniform, Nem still looks cute and chic.

The blue and pink is a good look on her for sure.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

So...I'm getting the vibe that Fujimi has had some relationship problems in the past that he projects on situations of people involved in the case...

Whatever his reasons, he was right about the dreamer having family trauma at least, unlike his conclusion last week. Fujimi's intuition about Baku led him to discover CODE, so when it works, it works.

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Originally Posted by Frontier

Even Nem has problems she hides behind her cheerful facade and the persona she plays in dreams. Also Baku maybe you shouldn't have jumped to yelling so quickly.

Feels like Baku broke character there, acting in an emotional way unlike the suave charismatic Seven.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

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?

That's a perfectly valid complaint and I agree. Baku slinging everybody through the death traps was reckless and only worked due to his ability to control the dream. I would've expected an agent to solve this problem in a more technical way. At least, it's a better use of a Capsem than when he used it to handle one guy with a knife, but the overall execution does contrast with the whole agent theme if he can just superpower his way through any problem.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

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.

I liked Mesnick's suggestion from the previous thread, about having the Capsem dispensers appear in dreams instead. It's common in the agent genre to have collectible intel that may prove useful to the mission, so maybe put them in the same place as the dream doors as a reward for good investigation. Alternatively, just have Zero provide new ones as required like he did with the Zeztz Gear. The classic "here are your gadgets" scene never gets old.

EDIT: Ninja-ed by Mesnick.