Friday, 20 July 2012

Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 21 - Final Battle at the Nebula Cup

Summary
Everyone freaks out when the Yacht Club arrives at the planet Calmwind for the Nebula Cup. Chiaki, who’s competing with the Sea of Foreststar team, stops one of the girls from asking another team what’s up, and it comes to light that nobody except Grunhilde and the two who were with her when she looked it up had any idea why. Even Lynn, who was in middle school at the time, is surprised. Sure, some of the club seniors decided the course was boring and had her crack the Tournament’s computers to create a more challenging route (only 2 of 142 entrants finished the race as a result), but she hadn’t realized it was that big of a deal.

When the race starts Marika goes out in a dinghy of her own to observe as part of the Bentenmaru’s role to provide security. In the middle of the race a Bisque Company gunship appears and starts firing on the racers since it doesn’t know which dinghy is Marika’s. She breaks off to draw them away, and the Bentenmaru comes to her rescue. It’s not meant for atmospheric flight and won’t be able to line up for a shot at the more agile gunship on its own, but Ai overheard Marika over the comms earlier and breaks off to tell her about an incoming wind that lets the Bentenmaru align quickly and shoot down the gunship. This costs Ai the race, but the Yacht Club still comes in second thanks to Grunhilde (Chiaki placed first). They can’t wait for next year!

Thoughts
Well, that felt like filler. The only things of note to show up in the last two episodes were the hooded man at the meeting, and that there are others out there who might want to go after Marika, both of which could have been introduced in other ways. And in the case of the latter, I won’t be too surprised if this is the last we even see of the Bisque Company – just another disposable threat. Plus, if the hooded man is who I think he might be, there isn’t any compelling reason why he has to show up or be hinted at before a big reveal later. And as far as things that actually happened in this episode, the only thing of note was the reason Lynn was put on probation, but technically I’m just assuming that, and there’s been nothing to suggest that the specifics behind it matter, so it didn’t add anything.

Not much, but I’m trying to stop forcing myself to write at any length about episodes where there really isn’t much to say. Moving on…

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