Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 14 - Marika Goes Recruiting

Cat-monkeys - proof that scientists in this series are fans of Avatar.

Summary

With their latest ventures wrapped up except for the delivery of a crate of cat-monkeys, Marika is allowed to go home and catch up at school before the next round of jobs. The next day she gets a call from Misa, who informs her that the crate turned out to be set to open on a timer, and the cat-monkeys were carrying an infectious disease that got into the ventilation system. The ship’s been decontaminated, but the entire crew is quarantined on a hospital ship and will be there at least two weeks, possibly longer.

Since she has little choice, Marika calls the Harold Lloyd Insurance Agency to cancel the upcoming jobs. She speaks to Show, who took over from the titular Harold Lloyd, a glorified mobster who ostensibly got into fistfights with Ririka back when she was a pirate (now that I’d pay to see!) He warns her that if she isn’t able to do any pirating for a month – a distinct possibility since the virus infecting the crew is particularly potent – she’ll lose her licence.

With no other practical option, Marika takes her mother’s advice and goes up to the space station orbiting Morningstar to recruit a temporary crew. Gruier sneaks along and convinces her to buy a disguise since she’s become a minor celebrity. They still have no luck hiring anyone, but then some sailors approach them and the leader says they heard she’s hiring and are willing to work cheap. Marika doesn’t buy it, having realized the latter is a captain himself, and he’s pleased to see that she’s as sharp as he’d been told. He’s heard all about her from his daughter – Chiaki, that is.

It turns out Marika and Gruier had no luck because Kenjo and Chiaki told people not to take the job if Marika approaches them. Which will be obvious because her disguise sucks. They aren’t doing it to be mean but because they don’t think it’s the best way to recruit a crew. They ask her what she values most in a crew, and she concludes that it’s trust. Chiaki reminds her she can’t really trust someone she just hired. People she already knows, however…

Marika: Hey guys, wanna become pirates?

Yacht Club: Yay!

Thoughts

To be fair about Marika’s ‘disguise’, the problem is that she was taking advice from a 13-year-old princess who’s probably never worn anything inconspicuous in her life. She actually said “I’m in disguise” while walking around in a dark longcoat, large wide-brimmed hat, and dark shades; isn’t that actually called the ‘I’m in Disguise Outfit’? Then again, she did manage to sneak aboard the Bentenmaru while wearing what’s basically Princess Peach’s wedding dress.

Also: Yay, Chiaki! It just wasn’t the same without her around to act as a counterpoint to the silliness of the other characters. And her suggestion that Marika should hire people she trusts was pretty facepalm-worthy in the ‘why didn’t I figure it out sooner?’ way. I mean, it’s not like the girls of the Yacht Club are a clever and resourceful bunch, or as if Kane and Misa saw them as a potential pool of recruits in episode 1 or anything…

It made me appreciate how much buildup is actually being put into the series and how the payoff suddenly casts earlier developments in a new and satisfying light. The Yacht Club got to show what they were made of in episode 5 as a precursor to this. That was easily the best of the first episodes, and now they get to do it again, only this time as pirates. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to how this plays out, and it’s made me hopeful that other stuff from earlier is going to re-emerge in new and fun ways.

This episode also made me realize something about the show, or at least my own expectations. I was starting to feel a bit let down because the plot didn’t seem to be taking off like I thought it would, but this series isn’t about having a complex plot, it’s about having fun with the concept of space pirates. And the characters, who are a lot of fun, but I’m starting to repeat myself. In that vein, what could be more fun than putting a bunch of teens with a reputation for sordidness in charge of a pirate ship? To quote something related, this can only end brilliantly!

Anime Thoughts: Another - Final Thoughts

‘Interesting’ is the best word I can think of to describe Another. The central premise – a curse (yeah, yeah, they called it a ‘calamity’; a specific class being plagued by senseless deaths each year sounds like a curse to me) that’s not so much malevolent as, in Chibiki’s words, a force of nature, with no ability to predict when or whom it will strike and seemingly no way to stop it – had a lot of potential for tension and ambiguity. Is it okay to completely shun someone – which would otherwise be called bullying – if it’s the only way to save your classmates? If that fails, who’s at fault when not everyone was on the same page from the start? Could (and should) you kill someone, without knowing if you have the right person, in order to try and save everyone?

The problem was that it took half the series for the show to actually focus on these elements. Instead it started out as generic, less-than-scary horror. Everyone’s obviously afraid of something but won’t tell the protagonist what it is! There’s a mysterious girl no one seems to know about! The protagonist is especially curious about her! Random shots of ‘creepy’ dolls (I’ve concluded that Mei being pale was to make her look similar to the dolls and thus add to the red herring of her coming across as unnatural)! It tried to build tension by leaving us in the dark and wondering just what Kouichi’s unknowingly triggered, but that fell flat because it was obvious that everyone already knew what was happening. Sometimes tension can exist because you know, or think you know, what’s going to happen and don’t want it to. If everyone knows what’s going on it’s a much better way to go.

But for that to work you need to care about the characters and what’s going to happen to them, which, moreso than the weak beginning, was the series’ greatest weakness.  No one who died deserved it, but we’re given no reason to care about or get invested in most of them – in some cases we didn’t learn so much as their name until after their deaths (and in some cases not even that!) – so while Sakuragi’s death may have at least been a bit of a shock, simply because it’s possible to not see it coming rather than because there was any reason to be worried about her, beyond that almost every death was just ‘whoops, there goes another one.’ It wasn’t even made clear in the opening episode that they actually were trying to do something to stop the curse, which made their unwillingness to tell Kouichi anything annoying – I know it’s something any fifteen-year-old would be afraid to face, but c’mon, your classmates’ lives are at stake! In Mei’s case she was reluctant to speak up because she was grieving for someone who was not only her sister but her best friend, and acknowledging that it happened would mean admitting that Misaki’s death is probably just the beginning. As I’ve said before, it’s not an airtight justification, especially given what’s at stake, but it’s at least understandable. It’s implied that similar reasoning is behind most of Class 3’s early actions, and to be fair, once Kouichi talked to Mei telling him about the countermeasures did become kind of moot, but we don’t actually see much evidence of how anyone was thinking, which would have made things more believable.

The second half of the series, though, was a definite improvement. Once it dropped the main horror trappings and focused on how the situation was affecting everyone and the questions it raised, as well as the efforts of a select group of characters to actually get to the heart of what was going on, it became a lot more interesting. There were still a few communication issues, especially Kouichi & co. not sharing their findings with everyone and Mei not revealing that she already knows who the extra person is. However, in the former case their desire to involve as few people as possible in the hopes of sparing the rest was, again, understandable, and since it was made clear the others were scared enough to become reactionary and prone to scapegoating it’s obvious that saying something wouldn’t really have helped. Relatedly, all Mei had to offer was her word, which those who were already predisposed to dislike probably wouldn’t have believed anyway. The final resolution ultimately relied a little too much on coincidence, but most of that was stuff that could’ve been fairly plausibly uncovered by investigation and it did mitigate the real deus ex machina that was Mei’s left eye, so personally I wasn’t terribly bothered by how things worked out.

Also in the second half, some of the characters started to become more fleshed-out or at least more interesting. I know I’m happy that my early certainty that Mei was a ghost proved to be wrong, because once that was shown to be untrue she quickly became my favorite character in the series (as if that wasn’t obvious by now). She had some good principles and was strong in her own way – even if she says it was because she’s used to being alone, volunteering to become non-existent was selfless of her, and she held up better than most of her classmates. But at the same time there was still a sense of sadness about her that made you want to reach out and be her friend. Or maybe that’s just me because I was also less-than-social at her age and can relate to that side of her. Regardless, it’s certainly how Kouichi felt about her. He started out as a bland everyman meant to stand in for the audience and seemed to be doing most of what he did because Plot, but in the second half he was shown to be compassionate, level-headed, and driven by a desire to undo what he’d unwittingly caused. The two of them were easily the best part of the show, and I really liked how their relationship was handled. They mostly acted like friends (they never even made it to a first name basis), but they had obvious chemistry and did numerous gestures – warning the other away from something dangerous or upsetting, holding hands when fleeing danger, Kouichi putting himself in harm’s way to protect Mei – that made it clear they cared for each other more deeply than that.

They weren’t the only ones who get more interesting, although they were the best of the bunch. Akazawa’s desire to stop the curse was creditable and she was something of a counterpoint to Kouichi by showing a similar motive to his own, only her desire to save everyone ended up making her cling to a specific interpretation of events instead of thinking about things rationally. Her death, at least, was meaningful and had a bit of tragedy to it. Honorable mentions go to Teshigawara and Mochizuki; neither was very developed, but they seemed like alright guys to hang out with. As much as I’ve been rambling otherwise characters don’t need to be fully fleshed out to be interesting or likable (although it certainly helps), and those two were the latter, which was enough for me.

On the technical side of things, the animation was consistently solid and had a good color palette and suitably dim or overcast lighting, complemented by the slightly worn-down look of the school, which gave it a subdued atmosphere that fit the tone of the show while keeping the characters and locations normal-looking (oddities of Mei’s appearance notwithstanding). It was a good contrast between an otherwise normal setting and the completely non-normal events that occurred. Sound-wise, I’m still not sure what the deal with the happy-sounding end theme was; it worked at the very end because it had just enough of an undertone of sadness that it helped give a feeling of relief that it was all over, but otherwise it was kinda mood whiplash, especially when it started playing right after someone died. The opening theme and its dark and ominous visuals were also fine for the first half but didn’t work so well when the show stopped trying to be straight-up horror and went more in the direction of a psychological thriller (assuming there’s a difference, but I don’t feel like wrangling with semantics right now). That mechanical ‘vrum-vra’ sound that played a couple times gave a very ominous feel whenever it was used, but its’ about the only background theme that stands out to me. The voice acting was good, I suppose; nothing stood out to me as particularly bad or silly at least, so that’s about all I can really say.

I’m not actually sure why I decided to watch this show in the first place, and I almost dropped it after episode 4, when the poorly-done horror reached something of a peak for me; fortunately it got better. Once it hit its stride it was carried by an overall interesting premise and some likable characters; it’s just a shame it didn’t use the beginning to better effect by developing more of the characters instead of trying, and failing, to be scary. I know in the second half I looked forward to each new episode and don’t feel like I wasted my time watching it. So yeah, it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but it was still interesting.

Final Score: 7/10

Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 13 - Marika Sends an Invitation

Man, the Hakuoh Academy Yacht Club; what a wretched hive of scum and villainy...

Summary

An urgent message from Gruier sends the Bentenmaru rushing back to Serenity, but it turns out they just wanted to give Marika a medal. Back home she’s become a minor celebrity, and her uniform is given some tweaks (the debut work of aspiring fashion designer Mami). At school she discovers that Gruier’s time as a visiting student had been extended, and that Grunhilde has enrolled too. The yacht club has some trouble recruiting new members, however. Mami says that’s not surprising – the president (Lynn, now that Jenny’s graduated) is a hacker, one member is a space pirate, and who knows what those other girls get up to in their spare time... They do eventually get four new members, including Grunhilde.

Gruier meets up with Marika as she gets off work one night. She tells her a little more about the situation on Serenity. It was on the brink of civil war, conservatives who supported the royal family pitted against reformists who wanted reduced royal power and greater autonomy for the vassal planets. The return of the golden ghost ship salvaged the situation and restored royal prestige, although reforms are still being carried out. Gruier regrets that she and Grunhilde allowed themselves to be manipulated by both sides, but Marika reminds her that sneaking aboard the Bentenmaru was her own idea. Gruier expresses her personal gratitude by giving Marika the ID ring she used to sneak aboard the Bentenmaru; it was given to her by Marika’s father.

Marika decides to invite Gruier and Grunhilde to dinner. Other than Grunhilde eating an entire spoonful of hot mustard it goes well. Later, as the Bentenmaru prepares for its next job, Ririka submits her application exam for a starship licence.

Thoughts

So that’s what was going on with Serenity. Well, I’m satisfied; it was pretty simple, but it gave us the context behind Gruier’s actions, and that’s enough for me. I’m no longer sure it’ll come back into the picture again, but the show isn’t about Serenity, it’s about Marika and the crew of the Bentenmaru. What was important during the golden ghost ship’s storyline was that it’s the first time Marika’s abilities as a captain were put to the test in a real, dangerous situation. And she succeeded spectacularly, even if she’d rather downplay that bringing the golden ghost ship back to Serenity – which turned out to be the best solution – was her idea (it just seemed like a good thing to do is all…). She’s famous now, but it doesn’t sound like she’ll let it go to her head.

Which is just another way of saying this show isn’t about the situations but the characters. Whether it’s Marika’s humility relative to her newfound fame, Gruier looking to balance becoming her own person with her responsibilities as royalty, Grunhilde learning that such a thing can be done, or Ririka deciding that because her daughter’s far more independent now it’s time for her to look to her own ambitions again (becoming a pirate again seems a bit too obvious, but whatever she’s up to, it’s bound to be good), characterization was definitely the point of this episode.

Which is fine; it’s great really. It’s different from what you’d expect from a show called Bodacious Space Pirates (although that’s a good thing in…some ways, at least in my opinion) and a nice change of pace. It’s just that sometimes I feel like the show’s focusing on it a little too much at the expense of having a little more of a story. Which kind of feels like a silly thing to say – Marika becoming captain of the Bentenmaru and learning how to handle her newfound responsibilities is the story. And she’s a well-developed, likable main character with a fun and colorful supporting cast, so that’s hardly a bad thing.

I guess it’s just that I was still expecting it to become a bit more focused on the straight-up pirate side of things once Marika made her decision. Oh well; if you’re patient with this show it usually turns out to be worthwhile even if the pay-off wasn’t what you expected. I’m still having fun watching it and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Anime Thoughts: Another Episode 12 - Stand By Oneself

Summary

As the lodge starts to catch fire everyone tries to escape, including Mikami (she wasn’t actually dead). Teshigawara is almost killed by the landlady, who is later revealed as Takabarashi’s grandmother, but is saved by Chibiki.

Back inside Kouichi runs into Kazami. He’s been killing other students at random to see if they’re the extra, but he really thinks it’s Kouichi, who joined in May when the curse took effect (unaware that’s not true). He almost kills Kouichi, but Akazawa knocks him out and tries to kill him for killing others. Chibiki stops her and she runs off.

While everyone gathers by Chibiki’s car, Kouichi tries to call Mei’s cell and runs back inside when she doesn’t answer. He finds her in the main hall, faced down by Akazawa. She tries to kill Mei and Kouichi tries to stop her, but then lightning strikes the lodge and causes the large central window to shatter, killing her. It is revealed that she met Kouichi a year and a half ago when they both lost someone dear to them. In Akazawa’s case it was her cousin (although he was more like a brother to her).

Mei has disappeared again, but Kouichi is able to call her this time. She says she’s by the shed out back and tells him to stay away, so naturally he goes straight to her. She takes a pick from the shed and prepares to kill someone trapped under a fallen tree. It’s Mikami – A.K.A. Reiko (Kouichi isn’t supposed to call her that at school). He says he’ll do it but hesitates. Mei assures him it’s Reiko – not only was Class 3 not short any desks this year (the faculty room was), she witnessed Reiko’s murder a year and a half ago. Hearing this and remembering the various clues pointing to the truth throughout the series, Kouichi kills Reiko.

Several days later, Kouichi, Mei, and Chibiki visit Reiko’s grave. Only Kouichi and Mei remember her – Chibiki only knows because they told him. Kouichi wonders if they’ll forget her too, and Mei asks him if he wants to remember forever.

In a post-credits scene, Teshigawara and Mochizuki hide a new instruction recording in Class 3. This one urges the next class to think carefully together before they act.

Thoughts

Kouichi, did you sleep through fire safety lessons when you were a kid, because damn. There's a difference between running into a burning building to try and rescue someone - that's still stupid, but it's a common enough trope that most people will just go with it - but standing in the middle of a burning room to make a cell phone call!? Seriously, who does that? And he's only the worst offender...

Speaking of 'why are they doing that?', why are they hiding the tape in the classroom instead of, I dunno, leaving it with Chibiki or something? It’s not like he’ll forget that the curse was stopped again even if he doesn’t remember why. At least they’re putting it in the current classroom, so it probably won’t be another fifteen years before it’s discovered, but still, this is kinda important – don’t they want to guarantee the next batch of students will listen to it?

Also, why was Reiko and Mikami being one and the same kept a secret? It’s not like knowing would’ve somehow made us guess that she’s the dead one. I actually laughed when that was revealed, and since it was probably supposed to be a horrific moment where Kouichi realizes one of his own family members has to die, that’s probably not a good thing (Kouichi was appropriately horrified, but to me it felt like something where you expect M. Night Shyamalan to pop up and say “what a twist!”).

Still, at least it actually mitigates the deus ex machina of Mei’s artificial eye somewhat by making who the extra person is actually solvable, although it also brings up the question of how Mei knew about the extra chair being in the faculty room when seemingly no one else did, and if they did, how did they fail to wonder if that might mean something? Heck, without Mei’s eye there could’ve been a bit of lingering uncertainty as to whether they actually killed the right person if it happened sooner and we had to spend the final episode or so wondering if anything else was going to happen or not; might’ve created a last bit of suspense. Oh well, just one more thing that could’ve improved the series.

That being said, at least they got one thing right. Akazawa died, and thus we finally get a death that can have some actual impact. She just wanted to protect everybody, so her heart was in the right place even if her goal consumed her in the end, and it makes her death more tragic than someone of whom we barely even know their name. It didn’t have a huge impact for me, but there’s room to feel sympathy for her, and that’s what makes it work.

And also, yeah, bit of a downer ending. The survivors are safe and the potential for future classes to reduce the deaths to one is there (assuming they can figure it out, which probably won’t be easy), but there’s no way to end the curse at all, and the whole 1972 thing didn’t get any grand revelations. Really, as it turns out we learned everything there was to know about it halfway through the series, and there was no murder, no malicious intent, just a freak accident the rest of the class had a little too much trouble coping with. And people are at risk of dying every year because of it. Way to go, 1972 Class 3. I’d say it’s random and makes no sense, but that the curse was random, senseless, and really more of a force of nature was the point and that was built up enough over the course of the second half.  The intent, at least, was for the story to be about how young people would react when faced with something fatal and beyond their control, and it did do a decent job of that, in the end.

Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 12 - Return from Eternity

Summary

Gruier’s first, hesitant venture into zero-g is overcome by some reassuring words from Marika. Once Hyakume cracks the lock the boarding party heads into the vast interior of the golden ghost ship. Coorie contacts them to say she’s identified the Queen Serendipity docked on the opposite side of the ship. Since the latter are probably heading to the bridge or engine room first, Marika says it’s time for them to make like pirates and head for the treasure.

They pass nearly-empty storerooms once filled with pre-FTL artifacts, most of them retrieved and sold during previous economic crises – hence the earlier search teams, and a genetic bank containing samples for all the lifeforms that populate Serenity. In the deepest parts of the ship they come upon a last door that, once open, reveals a giant artificial rose. Misa, with Gruier’s permission, explains that it’s an artificial womb, used to create to royal family of Serenity.

A hatch up above opens and Grunhilde enters the chamber accompanied by Yotof, Catherine, and a squad of soldiers. Gruier wants to destroy the rose, saying that Serenity has no more need for the royal family, but Grunhilde wants to use it to restore the family’s prestige. In the midst of their argument the leaders on both sides exchange signals and create a distraction to knock out the sisters.

Gruier wakes up on the bridge of the ghost ship to find the pirates and soldiers working together. Marika explains that she and Grunhilde were knocked out so both sides could work things out peacefully. When Gruier was kicked off the bridge of the Bentenmaru earlier Marika sent a coded transmission of her plan to the Queen Serendipity that Yotof was able to interpret. She tells Gruier that the rose was used up; well, not quite. There was enough genetic data and cells to produce one more person, and Gruier is introduced to her new baby sibling, whom she’s assured she didn’t almost kill but arrived in time to save; much longer and they wouldn’t have been unable to awaken the baby from stasis. The golden ghost ship is returned to Serenity and the Bentenmaru leaves for its next adventure.

Thoughts

I was going to write a bunch of stuff asking unanswered questions about the situation on Serenity and why the golden ghost ship is left to wander space in the first place, but then I realized my commentary for this series was devolving into nitpicking, so I’d rather not. There’s still half the series left, and the preview for the next episode makes it clear Grunhilde isn’t going anywhere, so I don’t think the show is done with Serenity yet, and if things on the planet really are getting less than rosy (Grunhilde even mentioned something about the history of the royal family being false; that’s bound to prove interesting, assuming it does come up again) there’s sure to be more opportunities where pirates come in handy.

It’s not like this episode was a bad one either. Marika’s solution was clever and a little underhanded – if I didn’t know better I’d think she was a pirate – and the treasure wasn’t what you’d expect, and that’s definitely a strength of the show. It could easily just be about typical pirates who go in guns blazing and make off with fat piles of loot (OK, they do that whenever they rob a cruise ship, but at least that isn’t everything), but that’s not Marika’s style. She can be sneaky and otherwise think like a pirate, but she, and the rest of the crew, are a clever and much more flexible bunch that make the show much more interesting because of it. Whatever their next adventures are, I’m sure I’ll have fun watching them.