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.

Anime Thoughts: Another Episode 11 - Makeup

Summary

Sugiura (she hasn’t been important until now) tells Akazawa she remembers going to elementary school with someone who looked exactly like ‘Misaki.’ But this girl didn’t have an eyepatch, which makes no sense since Mei lost her eye at four…

Teshigawara asks Kouichi and Mei if they know who Kazami (the other class rep and his best friend) is; they do, so…crap. He thought Kazami was the extra; when questioned he said he didn’t remember their childhood together very much. They got into a fight and Teshigawara ended up throwing him off their balcony. Kouichi points out that a two-story fall won’t necessarily kill someone.

The three rush to see if Kazami’s alive, but Kouichi spots the dining room door ajar and finds another classmate bleeding on the floor.  The dining room is on fire, the landlord stabbed to death inside. Akazawa comes to see what the commotion is about, and Teshigawara says Kazami was gone. They hear a scream from Akazawa and Sugiura’s room but find it deserted, blood on the bed and outside the door. Mochizuki asks what’s going on and says Kazami just came to his room and listened to the tape. Both are gone when they investigate.

They split up to look for Kazami and Sugiura. Teshigawara and Mochizuki stumble into the landlord’s wife, covered in blood and wielding a cleaver. She cuts Teshigawara’s leg and Mochizuki is forced to drag him down the hall while the latter stumbles after them.

The others run into Sugiura. She tries to attack Mei but Kouichi drives her off. Akazawa reveals that she and Sugiura have listened to the tape; they heard about what Kouichi has been doing through one of the students he met on his way to search the old classroom. Sugiura plays the tape over the P.A. system and declares that Mei is the dead one – her missing eye is proof she came back incomplete. The other students emerge from their rooms and prepare to kill Mei. Ms. Mikami tries to get them to back down but one of them accidentally kills her. Kouichi and Mei flee, and another student is killed while chasing them.

The fire in the dining room causes an explosion, collapsing part of the wall in the stairwell Kouichi and Mei have hidden in. Sugiura appears and tries to kill Mei again but accidentally hangs herself with the cables protruding from the collapsed wall. Akazawa appears right after, and seeing Mei with Sugiura’s scalpel in her hand, assumes she’s responsible. Mei realizes this will stop if the real dead one is killed and runs off.

Thoughts

Well, either everyone’s lost it or I need to revise my earlier statement about well-adjusted people being reluctant to kill anyone even in circumstances like these. I get that everyone’s pretty desperate by this point and that, quite frankly and unfair as it may be, Mei’s the obvious candidate, but still, are Ms. Mikami and those two students Kouichi warned about the fire the only ones who didn’t immediately reach for the nearest sharp object after Sugiura played the tape? With Akazawa it makes sense since she’s currently predisposed to dislike Mei, due to the latter, in her view, showing insufficient guilt over her role in failing to stop the curse (thus why she’d not draw the obvious conclusion that if Mei and Sugiura couldn’t have gone to elementary school together, maybe the latter is remembering a different Misaki). Sugiura has clearly gone off the deep end (not that we ever saw any evidence of the emotional instability Akazawa refers to) and nodded along to her accusations in episode 10, so again, I can believe her reaction; same with that girl who told Akazawa about Kouichi’s visit to the old classroom and died by falling out a window (at this point, I really can’t be bothered to look up her name) since her brother was killed because of the curse (at the end of episode 9, about 30 seconds after his only (faceless) appearance). Everyone else though…well, that goes back to the problem that we know absolutely nothing about any of them and have no real basis to even judge their reactions. I dunno, part of me can accept that they’re scared enough to act illogical by this point and this is a case of believing what you’re predisposed to believe, but another feels like is just an excuse to have a final ‘us vs. them’ showdown.

Also, Mei, I’m sure they aren’t likely to believe you (‘that was actually your twin sister? How convenient!’), but you could at least try telling them. Her earlier reluctance not to talk about her sister’s death made some sense, but it’s clear by now she’s realized the consequences of not speaking up, so she gets less slack from me this time for not making the attempt. She’s hardly the only one at fault here, but still. Way to go right back to the main problem we had at the beginning – characters simply not sharing information they know when there’s every reason to. Both are cases where the recipient may not believe it – Kouichi did assume Mei was just getting bullied at first (I wish they’d made that clearer sooner so his interest in her didn’t come across as plot convenience), and this time the opinion leaders (namely, Akazawa and Sugiura) are almost certainly won’t listen, but that doesn’t excuse not trying.

Anime Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 11 - Wanderer of Light

Summary

The lead ship in the fleet is the Queen Serendipity, flagship of the Serenity Defense Forces; clearly whoever sent them is serious about this. Marika sends Gruier away with Misa to learn how to put on a spacesuit then asks what the situation is. The other ships have surrounded a defined area, meaning they have a good idea where the ghost ship will appear next. The crew ask Marika what her plan is, and she says that while she wants to help Griuer as much as possible, the ship and its crew are her top priority and they’ll pull out if things get bad.

The Bentenmaru makes a jump into the target area, and after riding out the shockwaves of a space quake they see the ghost ship emerge from subspace. As soon as comms are restored they get a transmission for Gruier from the Queen Serendipity, sent by one Grunhilde Serenity. She demands that Gruier leave, but the latter accuses her younger sister of being manipulated, which she denies. She threatens to use force if Grier doesn’t do as asked.

The ghost ship suddenly launches an omni-directional scan and begins to wake up, living up to the ‘golden’ part of its name. The doors on one side start to open, and some hot-shot flying by Kane lets them beat the fleet to the ship. Once they’re in the doors close again and the ghost ship returns to subspace. Gruier means to go into the ship alone, but Marika says she’s coming with her; a captains needs to look out for the safety of both crew and passengers. The former knows she won’t be able to sway her and agrees.

Commentary

So I guess the fact someone or somebodies on Serenity really don’t want anyone else to find the ghost ship, including a member of the royal family, just isn’t that big of a deal to the Bentenmaru. But still, someone didn’t want Gruier to get the records and is serious enough to send out a top-of-the-line battleship for this mission, and if Gruier’s claim is true it’s not her sister. They haven’t even asked what Gruier wants to do on the ghost ship. I get the feeling at least some things are going to be explained next time, and a power struggle within the ruling family of Serenity, as this seems to be, probably isn’t that important to them so long as they get paid, but they’re taking this quite a bit in stride given how serious their opponents are and they consider actual combat to be a possibility. Schnitzer is seen getting the regular crew prepped for just such an occasion, and Marika makes an announcement to that they might have to fight the Serenity ships. When that level of risk is involved these just seem like questions they should be asking in advance.

Not much else going on this time, just Marika becoming more comfortable with her role and starting to think like a captain. The crew looks to her for decisions, she recognizes whom she has to put first, even if it might not make others happy, and understands that she has to look out for everyone on her ship. There really isn’t anything more to say.

Anime Thoughts: Another Episode 10 - Glass Eye

Since it starts with Akazawa having a dream about meeting Kouichi, and memory alteration would probably happen if someone's met the extra previously...

I dunno, that seems a bit too obvious.

Summary

The class arrives at the lodge at the foot of Mt. Yomiyama. Mochizuki has fixed the tape and our investigators listen to the rest. At the foot of the mountain Matsunaga got into a fight with a classmate and accidentally killed him. The latter’s absence went unnoticed that night, and when Matsunaga went back into the forest in the morning his body had vanished. When he asked his classmates about the other boy they had no idea who he was talking about, and as he makes the recording he’s sure he’ll soon forget too. No one died afterwards, and what happened is clear – that boy was the extra student. Killing him is what stopped the curse.

During dinner Akazawa stands and asks to say a few words. She apologizes for her ineptitude as head of countermeasures, declares that Mei is to blame for what happened since she didn’t avoid contact with Kouichi, and demands that she apologize. Kouichi, Teshigawara, and Mochizuki stand up for her but she relents and does so anyway. In the process Teshigawara almost lets slip how to stop the curse and an asthmatic classmate has an attack. His inhaler is empty and the phones are down, so Chibiki takes him to the hospital.

Kouichi shows Mei the class photo from 1972, which he finally found. She takes off her eyepatch to look at it and asks Kouichi to describe the 1972 Misaki; he describes him as looking blurred. Mei then tells him more about the other Misaki, her recently deceased cousin. The latter was one of twins. When Kirkia’s daughter was still-born Misaki’s parents were having financial trouble and decided to give Kirika one of their daughters. Misaki and Mei weren’t cousins – they were sisters. Mei was not allowed to see her birth mother, but she secretly began spending time with Misaki, who suddenly died this past April, before Kouichi joined the class, becoming the first victim of the curse. Mei didn’t tell anyone because she was unwilling to admit it had happened. That’s one reason she says Kouichi isn’t the extra student.

The main reason, however, is her artificial eye. Specifically, by ‘things that should remain unseen’, she means the color of death, and she doesn’t see it in herself or Kouichi. It’s clearest in dead people – she could see it in the 1972 Misaki – but it is also visible in those who are about to die. That’s why she wears an eyepatch, but when Kouichi presses she admits she knows who the extra is. Before she can say who Teshigawara bursts into the room – he says he may have done something horrible….

Thoughts

Now this is more like it. Akazawa’s reaction isn’t excusable, but it is understandable. Everyone is scared and that’s causing them to look for a scapegoat, something or someone they can decisively point to as the reason for everything. Since Akazawa got some nodding heads from her friends when she made her pronouncement she’s clearly not alone in putting the blame on Mei. Not everyone agrees with her conclusion, and as Mei herself asks, what purpose would apologizing serve? It’s not going to undo what’s happened, and, while this may not have been what Mei was getting at, it’s just a way to mask the class’s collective responsibility.

Whether or not what happened was inevitable, as Teshigawara tries to argue, the fact remains that multiple people could have done things differently, Akazawa not the least of them. At least she admits she didn’t perform her job (but, and since I haven’t brought it up yet, what, exactly does the head of countermeasures do anyway?) even if that doesn’t extend to admitting she bears some of the blame. This kind of conflict, dividing the class when they should be working together, with both sides reactions being understandable, is much more interesting than Kouichi blundering around wondering why people keep dying.

Even finally finding out how to stop the curse isn’t without possible tension. Just about any well-adjusted person would balk at the idea of killing someone, even if they’re supposed to be already dead and everyone will forget what happened in due course, and as long as there’s no way to find out who the extra student is, there’s the risk of killing the wrong person, which is definitely murder and not something that’ll be forgotten.

Unfortunately, that got undermined a little thanks to Mei having a way to find out all along, but at least her reasons for holding things back make more sense that any reason offered for why the class didn’t just tell Kouichi what’s going on in the first place. Or maybe I’m just more sympathetic to her because I was similarly reserved at that age. She’d just lost her best (and probably only) friend, and that just sucks, never mind that it may herald a year of watching your classmates die; nobody wants to go through that, especially when they’re already dealing with grief. Nor is seeing dead, or about to be dead, people a particularly welcome ability in that situation; without knowing how to stop the curse it’s only going to freak out the affected people, so it doesn’t do much good by itself. Maybe not airtight reasoning given what’s at stake, and how certain people got blamed, but the former at least is a highly emotional response, and those aren’t always logical.

Anime Quick Thoughts: Bodacious Space Pirates Episode 10 - Battle in the Storm

How can the Barbalusa cover for Marika when it was also hired to hunt the ghost ship?

Summary

While Chiaki poses as Marika, the Bentenmaru searches for the ghost ship in the midst of a stellar storm. Marika and Grier are eventually kicked off the bridge – the Hakuoh Academy rules forbid students from working more than eight hours – and while eating supper Marika notices the similarity in their situations, both wanting to be taken seriously but still treated differently by the adults. The next morning she isn’t happy to discover that the rest of the bridge crew pulled an all-nighter without her, but Coorie rebuffs that things aren’t so bad they need their teenage captain staying up all night.

In the past Serenity has sent out seventeen search teams looking for the ghost ship, which left behind search buoys that have this region covered extensively. The Bentenmaru was able to gather the accumulated data by transmitting Grier’s name, genetic information, and authorization code, which worked even though the last search team was sent fifteen years ago and Grier’s only thirteen. Their probes have also picked up a fleet of ships in the vicinity, undoubtedly after the same thing they are.

The probes pick up a large anomaly and the Bentenmaru makes a hyperspace jump to its location but discovers that it’s moving. But the other ships have followed them, and are scanning the area from multiple directions. Marika orders the ship to turn around and break through the rear group, which has only two ships, firing a dispersal shot to damage their sensors. The ships were from Serenity, and Grier asks to contact them. Marika refuses - since Grier is, of course, on a practice cruise with the yacht club right now that would give away the Bentenmaru’s trump card too early. Meanwhile, it’s time to outwit the fleet and claim the prize first!

Thoughts

Yep, this is more like it. Nothing says pirates like a treasure hunt (OK, there are plenty of other things that say ‘pirates,’ but that’s one of them), and this time there’s no stage show in sight (except, um, the stuff Chiaki’s doing; not that she’s having fun or likes wearing the uniform or anything…). The stakes are real and much higher this time, and it really gave Marika a chance to flex her skills and show her crew how she handles herself in a tight spot and her ability to take a long-term view of the situation . It’s not anything new – it’s well-established that she’s capable of making quick and sound decisions, but unlike on the Odette II they’re outnumbered and the opponents aren’t small-fry. It shows how much she’s growing into her role, and thanks to her enthusiastic declaration that they’ll act like pirates and outsmart their opponents, how much she’s really starting to enjoy it. The crew certainly appreciates it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean she isn’t running into other problems. One thing I like about this show is how it accounts for the fact Marika’s age and inexperience. In episode seven it was the consequences of her taking on the responsibilities of a full-time job (that requires heavy travel no less) on top  of trying to maintain her more typical commitments, not realizing just what she was getting into; now it’s how her age affects the way she’s regarded by others. She’s old enough to take on greater responsibilities, and as her reactions show, quite willing to do so, but she’s still bound by rules and expectations that don’t apply to the adults. Like just about every teenager she wants to be taken seriously but still needs to earn that respect, which isn’t always easy, especially when it involves being excluded from things that, as captain, she feels she should be part of. To be fair to the adults, she is trying to handle a lot for a fifteen-year-old and it’s quite sensible for them to see that she doesn’t push herself too hard, and they can clearly see that she’s gaining her sea legs (so to speak).

And as for Grier’s personal information working (and probably what would make the ghost ship “come to [her]” as she claims) despite her existence post-dating the last search team; methinks there’s a certain…redundancy in Serenity’s royal family.