anime: Bodacious Space Pirates
Jan. 6th, 2015 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreBodacious Space Pirates is about pirates. IN SPACE. In case you couldn't tell from the title. I'd been curious about the series for a while because it was about pirates with a mostly female cast, but the title made me think it would likely be a fanservice fest. Thankfully, someone posted on it recently declaring otherwise (sadly, I forgot who, and didn't find it in the tags of the likely suspects), for which I am ETERNALLY GRATEFUL.
Set in the far future, a galactic empire rules (mostly) peacefully. Before it ruled peacefully, there were space pirates who ran amok until someone had the bright idea to bring the pirates under the empire's wing and issue letters of marque. Now, while pirates still undertake various transport jobs and will sometimes go un treasure hunts and takes on jobs from princesses and/or runaway princesses, they're mostly tourist attractions. Cruise ships and the like will contract insurance companies to have pirates accept commissions to attack luxury cruise ships and the like. The pirates get the loot, and the insurance companies repay the customers for the stolen property, and the customers get the fun of being held up by (totally civilized and safe) pirates. Letters of marque and pirate ships can't be sold for whatever reason, and can only pass to the current captain's direct descendant. Because of this (presumably, some pirates' kids gave a "thanks but no thanks" to the pirate successor bit), there are far fewer pirate ships than there used to be.
Marika Kato lives on a nice, peaceful world with her larger-than-life mother, Ririka. She's a member of her school's yacht club (SPACE YACHT club) and works after school at a maid cafe. Then Kane and Misa, two strangely attractive and dashing customers at the cafe, mention that they just happen to know her mother, and appear at her house that night. At which point, Marika learns that (A) Ririka is actually a REALLY FAMOUS pirate, and (B) Marika's father was the captain of the pirate ship Bentenmaru, and as he recently died, she's now the captain of the Bentenmaru, if she wants the job. Kane and Misa would very much appreciate it if she would take the job, because they want to keep theirs.
VARIOUS PARTIES are very interested in whether or not Marika takes the job, so Kane and Misa go undercover at Marika's school as her homeroom teacher and the school nurse, because they've really appreciate it if no one would kidnap their captain before finals. Ririka is completely chill and la-di-da about all this. Ririka is very confident that her mothering skills can only create BAMFs. One of these INTERESTED PARTIES is Marika's One True Love, Chiaki, a MYSTERIOUS TRANSFER STUDENT. Chiaki rescues Marika from 50 or 60 other INTERESTED PARTIES camped out at Marika's cafe. Chiaki would like to fervently insist that she does not like or care about Marika AT ALL and will continue to do so for about 3/4 of the series, despite appearing almost literally everywhere Marika does to totally-not-help-out-no-really. For the proper context, imagine Kyoko and Kanae from Skip-Beat IN SPACE. I'm 90% certain that most of Chiaki's scenes end right before she runs from the room screaming "STOP LOVING MEEEEEEE....(wait, why aren't you following me with hearts in your eyes? Am I running too fast?)" Sadly, Marika/Chiaki aren't technically canon lesbians. There are canon lesbians whose life goals include marrying each other after school and jointly running a ridonckulously successful intergalactic business with a bit of hacking on the side, but that's not Marika/Chiaki.
The rest of the yacht club thinks it's AMAZINGLY COOL that Marika is a pirate captain. Marika's crew thinks Marika is scary smart of a teenager, but would like her to know that child labor laws still apply to teenaged pirate captain. also, could she maybe be a teensy bit more subtle about scheduling their jobs around finals? Marika's best friend, Mami, is an aspiring fashion designer and is TOTALLY OVERJOYED at the chance to play around with schoolgirl pirate uniforms. There's a space princess surnamed Serenity with blonde hair, pigtails and buns who would like you to know that no, she doesn't own 30 copies of Sailor Moon, but she is willing to be a total Marika fangirl. Chiaki would like to let you know that no, she still isn't in love with Marika, she'll just glare you to death if you're mean to Marika and give Marika just the right advice when she needs it. Ririka is still chill about this, and is pondering a career change.
There's also plot, and it's generally pretty good plot, but who cares about plot when you have so many delightful characters and interactions running around. (Look, it was very difficult not to just type multiple paragraphs of "HEARTS IN MY EYES.") There's one plotpoint that comes up later on that involves a secret being kept from Marika that irritates me (it irritates me mostly because everyone but her knows the secret, but she's the one who should know it) but the anime only adapts the first few volumes of a much longer light novel series, so I assume it gets addressed later on. Sadly, there don't appear to be any signs of an official or fan release of an English version of the light novels.
Set in the far future, a galactic empire rules (mostly) peacefully. Before it ruled peacefully, there were space pirates who ran amok until someone had the bright idea to bring the pirates under the empire's wing and issue letters of marque. Now, while pirates still undertake various transport jobs and will sometimes go un treasure hunts and takes on jobs from princesses and/or runaway princesses, they're mostly tourist attractions. Cruise ships and the like will contract insurance companies to have pirates accept commissions to attack luxury cruise ships and the like. The pirates get the loot, and the insurance companies repay the customers for the stolen property, and the customers get the fun of being held up by (totally civilized and safe) pirates. Letters of marque and pirate ships can't be sold for whatever reason, and can only pass to the current captain's direct descendant. Because of this (presumably, some pirates' kids gave a "thanks but no thanks" to the pirate successor bit), there are far fewer pirate ships than there used to be.
Marika Kato lives on a nice, peaceful world with her larger-than-life mother, Ririka. She's a member of her school's yacht club (SPACE YACHT club) and works after school at a maid cafe. Then Kane and Misa, two strangely attractive and dashing customers at the cafe, mention that they just happen to know her mother, and appear at her house that night. At which point, Marika learns that (A) Ririka is actually a REALLY FAMOUS pirate, and (B) Marika's father was the captain of the pirate ship Bentenmaru, and as he recently died, she's now the captain of the Bentenmaru, if she wants the job. Kane and Misa would very much appreciate it if she would take the job, because they want to keep theirs.
VARIOUS PARTIES are very interested in whether or not Marika takes the job, so Kane and Misa go undercover at Marika's school as her homeroom teacher and the school nurse, because they've really appreciate it if no one would kidnap their captain before finals. Ririka is completely chill and la-di-da about all this. Ririka is very confident that her mothering skills can only create BAMFs. One of these INTERESTED PARTIES is Marika's One True Love, Chiaki, a MYSTERIOUS TRANSFER STUDENT. Chiaki rescues Marika from 50 or 60 other INTERESTED PARTIES camped out at Marika's cafe. Chiaki would like to fervently insist that she does not like or care about Marika AT ALL and will continue to do so for about 3/4 of the series, despite appearing almost literally everywhere Marika does to totally-not-help-out-no-really. For the proper context, imagine Kyoko and Kanae from Skip-Beat IN SPACE. I'm 90% certain that most of Chiaki's scenes end right before she runs from the room screaming "STOP LOVING MEEEEEEE....(wait, why aren't you following me with hearts in your eyes? Am I running too fast?)" Sadly, Marika/Chiaki aren't technically canon lesbians. There are canon lesbians whose life goals include marrying each other after school and jointly running a ridonckulously successful intergalactic business with a bit of hacking on the side, but that's not Marika/Chiaki.
The rest of the yacht club thinks it's AMAZINGLY COOL that Marika is a pirate captain. Marika's crew thinks Marika is scary smart of a teenager, but would like her to know that child labor laws still apply to teenaged pirate captain. also, could she maybe be a teensy bit more subtle about scheduling their jobs around finals? Marika's best friend, Mami, is an aspiring fashion designer and is TOTALLY OVERJOYED at the chance to play around with schoolgirl pirate uniforms. There's a space princess surnamed Serenity with blonde hair, pigtails and buns who would like you to know that no, she doesn't own 30 copies of Sailor Moon, but she is willing to be a total Marika fangirl. Chiaki would like to let you know that no, she still isn't in love with Marika, she'll just glare you to death if you're mean to Marika and give Marika just the right advice when she needs it. Ririka is still chill about this, and is pondering a career change.
There's also plot, and it's generally pretty good plot, but who cares about plot when you have so many delightful characters and interactions running around. (Look, it was very difficult not to just type multiple paragraphs of "HEARTS IN MY EYES.") There's one plotpoint that comes up later on that involves a secret being kept from Marika that irritates me (it irritates me mostly because everyone but her knows the secret, but she's the one who should know it) but the anime only adapts the first few volumes of a much longer light novel series, so I assume it gets addressed later on. Sadly, there don't appear to be any signs of an official or fan release of an English version of the light novels.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 08:34 am (UTC)I think the thing with Mariko's father didn't bug me as much as it could have because it came really late in the series while Mariko was busy with other things. At least it FELT like the setup to a bigger story where Marika would find out eventually, rather than being about her staying in the dark FOREVER (this bugged me so much more in Allison and Lillia. SO MUCH.)
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Date: 2015-01-07 01:32 pm (UTC)I think Lillia is WHY it bugged me so much, because in Space Pirates it's less bad for the reasons you mentioned, and because it would out him pretty fast if they started spending time together/she inexplicably started hating him/however she reacted, on top of her mother coming out of retirement to work for him. It also isn't set up as "secret we will keep from her forever" but as "secret we must keep now." With Lillia, though, he's been a part of her life for some time and is dating her mother, so he' been around her enough to know she can keep the secret if needed, and with her temper, any reaction she had would be unlikely to raise flags. And EVERYONE but her knows it (Seriously, Trieze, why do even you know?) and there's no indication that it will ever change.
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Date: 2015-01-08 04:49 am (UTC)And YES EXACTLY, it was so frustrating with Lillia. I really liked Allison's story and how being a middle-aged mom with a teenage daughter didn't mean she stopped having adventures, but it felt like the story constantly shortchanged Lillia by keeping her in the dark about everything.
Like maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if she'd at least known about either her father or about Treize? It's not like she can't be trusted! Instead her entire story centers around people never telling her things. So many people already know that it doesn't even seem like that well-kept a secret. Why does Treize know? EVEN THE PRINCESS GUESSES (I mean I liked the princess, but this really compounded the frustration)
At least with Marika her father's not part of her life, like you said, and I also got the impression most of the crew had no idea what he was up to, so you don't feel like the entire cast is actively dedicated to keeping her in the dark for insufficiently good justification.
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Date: 2015-01-09 04:36 am (UTC)With Lillia, the only real reason to keep things from her was to have the extra drama. She does, at least, learn about Treize at the end, even though it was very abrupt? But there's also the fact that she apparently looks a lot like Will, at least younger Will, and no one comments on the fact that she looks a bit like her mother's new boyfriend, aka, the only guy her mother has been interested in (as far as we know) in 15 years.. And while 35 year old Will can be passed off as unrecognizable when compared to 20 year old Will with a different hair color to people who haven't seen him in well over a decade, Lillia, who has access to pictures of Will, should have been able to figure it out.
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Date: 2015-01-07 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 02:58 pm (UTC)We started this a year or more ago, and finally finished the series a couple weeks ago, after parceling it out carefully because we were afraid of running out. Erica Friedman reviewed it on Okazu, and after many years, I know how to read Erica's reviews to know which things she reviews I'm likely to enjoy. I got a Crunchyroll membership JUST for this series.
I ADORE Chiaki. I kind of imagine her drinking heavily with Homura from Madoka someday.
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Date: 2015-01-07 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 05:52 pm (UTC)