[Fish Sandwich]

It slightly frustrates and confuses me that Baku reacts with surprise at a new Capsem coming out of those machines even though we've never seen anything besides new Capsems come out of those machines.

Fortunately, that's about the *only* thing in this episode I found frustrating and confusing? Honestly, part of what makes it frustrating is that otherwise, I do really appreciate the effort to finally elaborate on some of this stuff in that scene? I wish it were more explicit whether or not Capsems are one of a kind or not, because if they were, that would make the stakes of Baku losing one even more clear and palplable, but that's mostly specific to this current plot thread with Recovery. In general, even just establishing that kind of loosey-goosey rule that the machines don't work entirely at Baku's convenience is really all the logic I was asking for, so long as more plot threads don't pop up that make me want to ask more questions, anyway.

But really, I think this one was rock solid otherwise. The mystery of it all is set up in a neat way where I can already vaguely see the shape of how some of those clues are gonna play out while still having enough details up in the air to be excited about. Plus, the episodic plot pushes the overall story forward with a really nice balance. I kind of thought it might be strange that Nox's real name came up in dialogue before anyone called him Nox, but that ended up making for a slick little cliffhanger that gives him a great excuse to say more cool guy edgy rival character dialogue. It's really played up as some earth-shattering revelation in a way that works even without actually revealing that much more yet. I especially like how it follows the general trend of the midpoint cliffhangers, with Baku thinking he's starting to solve the puzzle only to realize he didn't even have all the pieces yet.

Plus, the direction in this one is pretty great? I've really learned to love Shibasaki's work over the years, and even though it seems like next week is the one where he's really going to go nuts, even here, I think there are plenty of great touches you might not have gotten from somebody else. It's fun seeing how every director approaches the concepts a little differently, and I liked this version of Baku going to sleep, for example.