The Princess and the Pirate
Summary
The stowaway is Princess Gruier of the Serenity royal family. She has a request for the Bentenmaru – she wants them to find “the wandering golden ghost ship.” As they converse Hyakume, the ship’s radar specialist, finds a notice on the ‘net that Gruier has gone missing, although she insists she’s here of her own will. Their employer on this job was the Harold Lloyd Insurance Union as usual and the escort ships were Stellar Alliance, probably there to protect the Princess, so everything seems to add up, but Misa tells Hyakume to contact the Union and see if they ask any suspicious questions.
Until they figure out what to do, Gruier is enrolled in the middle school at Hakuoh Academy (under her real name) and instantly becomes popular with the students. Shortly afterwards Misa calls Marika to the infirmary and tells her that the Morningstar government received a secret document from Serenity right after the Bentenmaru returned and their call to the Insurance Union. They both agree that seems fishy.
They aren’t supposed to have any work for a while, then a job suddenly comes up (I sense a recurring motif). The Alliance navy wants them to investigate an incoming ship that Gruier says is from the Serenity Royal Fleet, bringing palace records on the golden ghost ship. Serenity isn’t hostile, so the Bentenmaru was hired to keep the investigation unofficial. However, Hyakume picked up more than one ship, and they were engaged in combat. Sure enough, when the ship comes out of hyperspace it’s damaged, and the pursuers are from the Serenity fleet as well. Something’s going on here…
Thoughts
Isn’t ‘The Princess and the Pirate’ the name of a children’s book? If not it probably should be.
I like where this is going. The whole thing about making a living as basically a stage show for tourists made a certain amount of sense (although I really have to question if all those people are really OK with all their valuables being stolen at the end, even if it’s covered by insurance – seriously, don’t some of them have personal value?), but it’s not enough to carry a story by itself. Ok, you probably could make a story out of that, but you’d still need some sort of backstage plot or character development to move the story along. Which is what the last two episodes were, but would it really be a show about space pirates, not just actors who play pirates, if they didn’t get involved in a real adventure at some point?
And this, this looks like the real deal. We’ve got a ghost ship that’s not just a passing mention this time, an independent-minded princess whose cheerfulness is clearly hiding something (not that she’s not like normally, we don’t know enough to tell, but Misa mentioned that she looks a bit unhealthily thin – stress, perhaps?), obvious court intrigue in the background, and a friendly crew of pirates about to get caught in the middle. There’s probably treasure somewhere in there too – seriously, this is about pirates, how can there not be treasure at some point? But even if it’s not what’s expected, this show’s still good at giving us something worthwhile anyway. Either way, whether this is just another story arc or the start of an actual plot for the series, it looks to be a good one.
Also, Misa’s driving has officially put alongside Lisa from Ponyo in the listing of ‘Anime women who are clearly related to Yukari-sensei.’
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