Sunday, 13 May 2012

Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 16 - The Hakuoh Pirates' First Job

Summary
Once the minor oversight of assigning rooms is resolved, everyone settles down for the night. On the bridge, Lynn is speaking with someone over the phone/comm-link/whatever. She’s obviously bothered about something. Grunhilde overhears some of it while coming to relieve her but doesn’t let on that she did.

The next morning Marika explains the basics of their job, a typical robbery of a luxury liner. The girls are a little intimidated by what’s involved at first given their inexperience, but they don’t back down. Sure enough, their docking and boarding are a bit rough, and boarding the ship in cosplay outfits – courtesy of a three-day no-sleep marathon by Mami – earns some initial surprise from the passengers. But, they quickly end up going with it and Marika is given private, official thanks by one of the ship’s officers.

During the victory celebrations – wherein Gruier’s suggestion that they try this on the Barbalusa sometime is firmly shot down by the resident grouch – Lynn slips out, which Marika notices. Later, the princesses come to her room to discuss their concerns with her and Chiaki. When Grunhilde tells them what she overheard Chiaki says she thinks Lynn might be a spy, hired by someone because of her hacking skills to do something to the Bentenmaru (this is the real reason Chiaki joined the club….apparently). Marika doesn’t think so and takes them to ask Lynn directly. She says she has a job for them – she wants them to kidnap Jenny…

Thoughts
Well that ended in an appropriately silly fashion. Except those two guys trying to hit on one of the middle schoolers – seriously, what the hell? Really, though, if these passengers are already going along with the whole ‘legalized theft of their valuables’ thing, having a bunch of teenage girls in cosplay outfits do it isn’t any sillier than what normally happens. Sure, the Bentenmaru is supposedly more traditional and business-like about it, but they’re still conducting their boardings dressed in stereotypical pirate garb for no other discernible reason than ‘it looks cool.’ To be fair, it does; Marika’s captains’ outfit is probably enough to sell the series on its own.

And what’s this about Chiaki originally joining the yacht club because she thought Lynn might be a spy? There’s been no indication that Lynn’s hacking got her anything beyond getting put on probation in middle school, or that Chiaki was actually around for a reason other than to keep an eye on Marika. I’m sure neither would exactly be advertising it if something more was going on, but that came a bit out of left field with no build-up whatsoever. It’s not the case so far as we know, and probably not implausible in-and-of itself; we haven’t seen much of it, but there’s certainly genuinely seedy types out there in space. Ah well, even if this is the first hint of something, it’s fine so long as Lynn doesn’t turn out to be a bad guy – I like her.

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