Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 18 - We'll Have Juice at the After Party

Summary

The Bentenmaru completes its jump, but the Hugh and Doolittle fleet is right behind them. While the club members desperately dodges cannon shots Marika, Chiaki, and the princesses hold a meeting with Jenny to figure out what to do. Jenny can’t think of any usable weaknesses her uncle has, but when Grunhilde suggests they change their focus they decide to go after Jenny’s fiancé – Junigh Coolph, eldest son of the Secretary of Interstellar Transportation. If nothing else they can at least get the marriage cancelled. Meanwhile, the bridge crew hacks into Hugh and Doolittle’s accounts and sends the info to Marika through Show.

Thanks to a bonus piece of information the bridge crew found, the girls locate and board Junigh’s personal yacht. They’ve hijacked the airwaves (somehow) and are broadcasting this live. They discover him supposedly plotting a revolution, but the attendees panic and are easily captured after Chiaki fires a few shots. Juniph protests only expose him for the spoiled man-child he is – it’s just a hobby, honest!

Jenny’s uncle follows them and boards the ship, but the girls whip out the data they have. Unexplained spending isn’t incriminating enough on its own, but he never deleted the secret conversations of him illegally selling military-class ships to Junigh’s father.

So Jenny gets to go to Space University. Her uncle’s powerful enough to get out of any charges against him and keep his position, but now she knows he can be beaten. The Bentenmaru gets to keep the Silent Whisper, and the bridge crew finds out they’re not infected and will be free in a week. Everything’s just rosy.

For now…

Thoughts

I’d ask how they were able to hijack the airwaves so thoroughly – somehow everyone on Sea of Morningstar was able to see that broadcast – but instead of dwelling on the implausibility I’ll just go with ‘Lynn’s awesome’ and move on.

For that matter, why isn’t a massive interstellar company hiring top talent to program its security? It’s not just that the Bentenmaru’s bridge crew was good enough to crack it – Jenny explicitly lampshades how shitty it is. I guess her uncle really is just that arrogant.

Eh, at least the whole thing was therapeutic for Chiaki. Being surrounded by girls who’re treating this whole outing as ‘awesomest field trip ever’ was probably getting on her nerves already, and seeing a bunch of guys who are beyond old enough to know better thinking they can stage a revolution just because they want to really badly can-I-please-have-a-revolution-daddy was the last straw.

The princesses haven’t really done much since the Ghost Ship arc, but they did have a good moment here when it was shown they’re just as willing to play dirty anyone else. Not really much of a surprise with Grunhilde, since it’s already been shown that she has a sneaky side, but hearing Gruier say with enthusiasm and a smile “Morals are not of particular concern here” probably isn’t something you’d expect to come out of her mouth. Marika certainly didn’t. Not sure if it’s the influence of being around pirates so often rubbing off, or they’re more politically savvy than we’ve previously been shown – we already know the situation on Serenity had been getting pretty ugly under its fairy tale façade so they probably have some experience with it already – but it was amusing either way.