Mouretsu Pirates - 06 - Lost in Anime

What do you know – it’s an episode of “Bodacious Space Pirates” with some actual piracy. And dare I say, it was almost bodacious.

I took my own advice and took in the refined, dignified Mouretsu before spoiling my palate with the intense and visceral Sympogear this week, and I think that’s a good general idea. While this was without question the most exciting episode of the series and the best since the premiere, Mouretsu Pirates still has a grace to it that I have to admire. Of course, as Elaine Benes said (and this is the second time I’ve quoted her this week), “Too much grace and you won’t be able to stand” – and that’s been a real concern for the show for most of its run so far. But this episode brought a nice balance to things and made for very entertaining viewing.

Among the elements I enjoyed especially this week was Misa’s lecture to Chiaki and Marika on the history of piracy, complete with hilarious visual aids. This is a series that definitely knows the history that it draws its fiction from, and the thin line between piracy and privateering is an interesting one to explore from that perspective. One area which I’ll be interested in observing is the morality of what Marika has chosen to do. You can call it by any name you wish and populate your crew with smiling and charismatic characters, but effectively this is still a criminal activity – ethically if not legally. The business of the Bentenmaru is stealing things that legally belong to other people. Does the fact that the “Princess Apricot’s” insurance will reimburse the passengers justify the act? I wonder if that side of the story is going to be pursued – perhaps the Robin Hood angle will be played up. But piracy is still piracy, and it’s only funny till somebody gets killed. Is that a worthwhile endeavor for a teenager to pursue?

Of course there are strings of pirate films that paint the buccaneers as heroes, so I’m not going to hold Mouretsu Pirates to such a high standard that I’ll dismiss the series if it fails to deal with that issue. Still, considering the very cerebral and realistic approach of the series, it’s almost begging to be assessed in that way. There’s no question that for the passengers on the liner, this was all a lark – being raided by pirates was one big adventure – I suspect these are the class of people for whom boredom is life’s biggest problem. With Kane going ahead and sowing the field this really amounts to another controlled training exercise for Marika (right down to her literally reading her lines from a script) – real enough to satisfy the rules of their letter of marque, but symbolically with bokken instead of real swords (the little masquerade between Marika and the irrepressible Kane aside).

What I’m going to be most looking forward to in the coming weeks is – hopefully – the fleshing out of the pirate crew and the further exploration of the internal debate inside Marika that the series has hinted at without really exploring. As to the former, we’d already met Fujiwara Keiji’s Hyakmume, but we were briefly introduced to Schnitzer (Miyake Kenta) who appears to be some sort of cyborg, Coorie (Horie Yui – huzzah!) geek glasses and all, Luca (Mizuhara Kaoru) – representing the token pirate eyepatch – and Sandaime (Matsuoka Yoshitsugu) about whom I can tell you nothing except that his beard is one of the weakest I’ve seen since I was in high school. In terms of Marika and her motivation, considering how close this show holds its emotional cards to the vest that’s likely to be a very slow work in progress. It’ll also be interesting to see if the narrative track of alternating between pirate life and mundane school life is going to work.

7 comments

Anonymous

February 12, 2012 at 6:02 am

still waiting for gokaiger shout-out/expy or main lead be like captain marvelous?

Luxorcism

February 12, 2012 at 8:42 am

I must admit I love pirates–I grew up with Treasure Island and the like, but then there was One Piece and Pirates of the Caribbean–so Mouretsu should be at the top of my list. But I'm still waiting for the grand adventures like in the stories I just mentioned, which I hope to see in the next 20 or so episodes… ^_^

gandalf8

February 12, 2012 at 1:12 pm

When the episode started with Marika and Mami presumably heading for the beach, I glanced at the episode number and thought "Oh, episode 6. The episode where most shows usually have they're prerequisite fanservice episode." Up till then, Mouretsu Pirates had done an admirable job of not falling to the same old tricks of otaku pandering despite the minefield of opportunities with its veritable cast of high school girls. I guessed that it was inevitable that they had to dedicate an episode to some fanservice to boost the sales of those Blu-rays and DVDs. Imagine my surprise and utter relief when Misa and Kane came to crush her dreams by whisking her away to attend to official matters as the new captain of Bentenmaru. It also didn't hurt that it was the most interesting episode yet of Mouretsu Pirates instead of another generic beach episode.

I especially liked the way they portrayed the numerous procedures and formalities that Marika had to attend to with her new official status as Bentenmaru's new captain. Visiting the various ministries and departments, and signing and stamping all those documents really drove home the fact that the crew of the Bentenmaru are legal pirates who are regulated by the government, and are bound by the rules of law regarding their pirating endeavors.

The training sequence on board the Bentenmaru was, beside serving to show Marika learning the ropes from the crew to understand what makes a pirate ship tick, also worked to flesh out the other crew members besides Misa and Kane. It also highlighted yet again that though Marika might have the natural disposition to become a great captain, it doesn't mean that she can just get into the captain's seat and start issuing orders.

Seishun Otoko

February 12, 2012 at 1:20 pm

I'm quite surprised they didn't take some time to introduce the new crew members, that's definitely something I'll be looking forward to as well and more Hocchan is always good news 😉

Karmafan

February 12, 2012 at 3:04 pm

That cyborg looked pretty cool. This series is a surprise. Its really well made and I enjoy it each week. I'm still in disbelief that a ship full of hardened and experienced pirates woul let a high school girl become their Captain. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm guessing the best friend and the dark haired glasses girl will end up as crew members sooner or later.

Mushyrulez

February 18, 2012 at 4:35 am

I've been meaning to ask people this, but… where did they actually introduce the characters? I must be the only person who's missed this 🙁

admin

February 18, 2012 at 7:16 am

You mean the crew of the Bentenmaru?

Mouretsu Pirates – 06

Guardian Enzo

7 comments

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Luxorcism

gandalf8

Seishun Otoko

Karmafan

Mushyrulez

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Lost in Anime

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7 comments

Anonymous

Luxorcism

gandalf8

Seishun Otoko

Karmafan

Mushyrulez

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