First Impressions / Mouretsu Pirates / Series Introduction

OP Sequence

OP: 「猛烈宇宙交響曲・第七楽章「無限の愛」」 (Mouretsu Uchuu Koukyoukyoku Dai Nana Gakushou “Mugen no Ai”) by ももいろクローバーZ (Momoiro Clover Z)
Watch the OP!: Streaming ▼

「海賊、罷り通る」 (Kaizoku, Makaritooru)
“Pirates, Coming Through”

There were no real surprises from the premiere of “Bodacious Space Pirates”, but the slightly slower pace indicative of a 26-episode adaptation worked well in establishing the galactic setting and slowly introducing the massive cast of characters. The last thing I would’ve wanted was to be overwhelmed right from the start, so it was nice to see just a small subset of the soon-to-be crew of Bentenmaru.

As for the quick rundown, our high school heroine and member of the space yacht club, Katou Marika (Komatsu Makiko), is paid a visit by two crew members of Bentenmaru, Misa Grandwood (Itou Shizuka) and Kane MacDougall (Matsukaze Masaya), and asked to become their new captain after the recent passing of their captain, Katou Gonzaemon, three days ago due to food poisoning (…of all things). She’s shocked to learn that the father she believed to be dead was still alive and that her mother Ririka (Kaida Yuuko) never told her that both she and her father are “legally licensed” space pirates as per the “Shiryakusen Menjou” (a.k.a. “Letter of Marque”) — a decree that sanctioned space pirates to help fight for the independence of their planet, Umi no Akeboshi (“Sea of the Morningstar”), over a hundred years ago. Then comes along the extremely temperamental transfer student Kurihara Chiaki (Hanazawa Kana) and a lot of suspicious individuals scouting out Marika as potentially the new captain of Bentenmaru and WHABAM!, Marika’s on the run from people who are already after her.

In short, it’s more or less the premise I described in the Winter 2012 Preview, which interested me enough to see what Satelight studio’s latest space-related series would entail. For now, it’s kind of hard to tell exactly what Marika and her friend/fellow maid cafe waitress Endou Mami (Omigawa Chiaki) will get wrapped up in when she eventually agrees to become Bentenmaru’s new captain, but the fact that she has enemies gives me a few ideas already. What the premise didn’t reveal is the interesting dynamic between the spirited and talented Marika and the overly serious and difficult to handle Chiaki, who’s the other main heroine of the story. The latter was quick to establish herself as a hard-ass toward Marika’s ignorance about space pirates, but already showed her orgasmic-like “dere” side with her sweet tooth. She was also quick to rescue Marika from someone posing as airport security — complete with a brief “mouretsu” panty flash for those with a good eye — so her interactions with Marika are something that I’m already looking forward to seeing more of. Of course, it’s even better considering I get to hear Hanazawa Kana in another haughty role.

From what I gather, Misa and Kane are also here to recruit students from Hakuou Girl’s Academy with sketchy “qualifications” befitting of space pirates, so that will likely be one of the focuses in the upcoming episodes. Judging from the opening sequence, there are quite a lot of girls that will be brought on board too. Regardless of the direction things are headed, I like what I see so far and just hope that Mouretsu Pirates will feature a space opera story closer to the Sunrise’s Banner of the Stars adaptations than Satelight’s other title, KIDDY GiRL-AND. When it comes to a cast full of female characters, I’m expecting something closer to the latter but I’m still hoping the story will surprise me in some way.

* The ending sequence with English spellings of all the westernized character names is a god-send, even if there’s already some discrepancy between the spelling of Kane’s last name in the show and in his profile. It’s still better than me giving my best guess.
* Full-length images: 06, 27, 33, 35.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「LOST CHILD」 ももいろクローバーZ (Momoiro Clover Z)
Watch the ED!: Streaming ▼

Preview

56 Comments

  6. for a “shojo” genre, very intriguing first ep and animation is very good, story line is good enough to get me very intrigued +++ this seems better sequel to Last Exile then stupid FAM FAN FAN

    paiser
    Reply

  7. I think this Comedy Space Opera series had a solid start, although almost nothing might look particularly outstanding.
    OK, nothing, except for Chiaki who is basically Kuroneko with more bangs(literally).

    Songs for the OP and the ED were both downright terrible, but you can always skip them or even mute…

    From what I’ve heard about the original novel, “Mini-suka Pirates(Short-skirt Pirates=the original title)” is basically a comedy(no surprise here), but not quite full of nonsense. It’s full of cute girls but not exactly overly excessively Moe(now it’s rather shocking here) either. And it’s supposed to have a little bit of actual Sci-Fi stories.
    All in all, and considering the fact that the directer of the series is a solid veteran, Mr.Sato, I guess I can expect at least a decent Sci-Fi anime series here.

    Aniota
    Reply

      1. Just so you know, what i said was to help Aniota get a better opinion of the OP song. Sorry if you thought i sounded like i agree with him.

        And besides, who would hate a song written by Hyadain with an epic guitar solo by Marty Friedman?

        MrTerrorist
        Reply

  8. Really enjoyed this and what it seems to be going for judging from the first ep, OP visuals, and ep preview.

    That bit of oldschool but updated, big space opera action adventure show with top notch modern visuals, we haven’t even gotten to space yet and I was locked in by the natural pacing and nicely realized scifi setting and tech for the setting, and quickly likeable characters and good mix of seriousness and comedy (real comedy and not slapstick or fanservice-based comedy too). Marika pulled off being the MC quite well in the premiere and I love her design.

    This (obviously potentially since we’ll see more of what it’s like next time and once they get into space and get the real space action but with how like-ably they handled one of the hardest parts I’m quite hopeful) and Last Exile: GnF have finally delivered the scifi action adventures we used to get a lot more often, feels great getting two of these in back-to-back seasons to me, I miss these.

    DangerMouse
    Reply

  9. I watched this with no prior knowledge of the series because I was hoping that space pirates =/= high school life…and lo and behold it’s another high school anime. HOWEVER so far the series has surprised me in a good way with the surprisingly likable characters. If most of the future episodes consists of more scenarios outside of school, this will definitely be a very enjoyable series 😀

    Taiakun
    Reply

  10. I was surprised at that, so far, the show seems to make sense; I was expecting totally unbelievable gibberish from the preview.

    What we know: 100 years ago Marika’s colony world Sea of the Morningstar revolted against its ruler, the Stellar Alliance. As part of its war strategy it issued Letters of Marque allowing piracy against their colonial rulers. Apparently this went swimmingly, since the war was won in a yet-to-be-revealed surprising way.

    Speculation: the pirates were decisive in ending the war, so for political reasons the new government couldn’t simply cancel the Letters of Marque. But it was extremely awkward for the government to continue to sanction piracy going forward, so they added a qualification that each Letter could only be passed on to a direct descendant. Piracy having high workplace mortality figures, this resulted in exponentially decreasing numbers of “legal pirates” each year. Today there are very few Letters-of-Marque holders alive, but there are still wanna-be crooks and freeloaders. Anybody holding such a Letter would be a license to print money for any would-be pirates. So the guys in the cafe are their to press-gang Marika not injure her.

    I really like the world and technology design here; there are all sorts of nice touches like the strangely elaborate security for Marika’s house (which quickly makes sense given her mother’s previous career).

    Regarding the OP, not only is the music awful, the timing, editing and selection of the visuals is dull and sluggish, with lots of long, drawn-out shots of characters doing nothing very interesting. “Denpa Onna” has (intentionally) awful singing coupled with weird, trippy visuals; it is strangely appropriate for the show. This OP is nothing like that.

    dbm
    Reply

    1. I look at the space pirate situation in the anime as a parody on the Japanese government’s official recognition of criminal gangs in reality. These gangs helped the Japanese Imperial Army fight World War II and later helped keep the American occupation in check. They even helped rebuild communities after major earthquakes. I would not be surprised if the space pirates are portrayed in the same light (as a Robin-Hood-like figure, etc.).

      Matroid
      Reply

    2. Personally, I liked the OP. It has that “ironic” sense that only can be carried off in anime songs. It shows these grand sweeping shots, meanwhile the music is cutesy/girly with a catchy beat. Imagine 2001: A Space Odyssey with “My Humps” playing in the background of those long shots of the space station instead of the iconic 2001 theme. That’s the feeling I think they were going for, which they achieved.

      j.j.j
      Reply

    3. Definitely loving the show so far… it seems the hereditary Letters of Marque were written into the peace treaty in a similar way 2nd Amendment made armed citizens part of US constitution after the Minutemen proved instrumental in, surprise, War of Independence.
      I wonder if the Galactic Empire mentioned will turn its conquering fleets towards outer rim where both Stellar Alliance and Sea of the Morningstar are located, which will mean the pirates are needed suddenly again.
      I am not sure if the MiB were competition pirates or some sort of secret services trying to assess ne pirate captain.
      Oh and Chiaki is hawt.

      ewok40k
      Reply

  11. The pacing, like you indicated, flowed pretty well. It gave enough details to intrigue us on what is going on, and not enough to unsure what the men in suits and Kurihara’s intents are.

    TSouL
    Reply

  15. Great catch, Divine… Thanks for highlighting the Mouretsu pantsu flash ;P
    I really like what I’m seeing from this series. The airships look great and that’s enough to make me come back for more, not to mention we have HanaKana in a tsundere role which is always a plus.

    Seishun Otoko
    Reply

  17. I was expecting something ridiculous and over the top when the premise introduced Space Pirates and High School Girls. What I got though was a simple and fun introductory episode, which gave a decent exposition on the setting as well as introducing some characters and their quirky personalities. Didn’t exactly wow me, but its looks interesting enough to keep watching.

    fragb85
    Reply

  18. I was generally impressed by this, the space opera genre has been dead for some time and this has definitely breathed some new life into it. The main character Marika was actually more then just a pair of tits with a face, definitely liking Chiaki I hope she’s just not a one dimensional Tsundere, and will get more depth. I for one liked the opening and ending, the visuals were amazing. when i saw that ship all i thought was The Arcadia and The Outlaw Star, two of my favourite ships ever.
    I’ll definitely be sticking with this one all season long. A nice break from the ‘ Generic boy with hot harem’ that we keep getting season after season. Looks to be a reverse harem lol.

    Sacks
    Reply

    1. Yeah, it’s been way too long since we’ve gotten some space opera adventure shows, I definitely miss them.

      Totally agree on Marika, I was pleasantly surprised that she was more like I hoped she’d be and way less like I feared, really liked her and her character design.

      Yeah now that you mention it the Outlaw Star must have been what I was thinking of 🙂

      DangerMouse
      Reply

  20. Great opening episode. I agree with most, it’s nice to have a well-made space opera to look forward to.

    Only one things gives me some pause. All of the narrative was done in “real time”. Yet, when we get the establishing “this is what a privateer/pirate is and does” scene, it’s done in a daydream like flashback. This might be my over-active imagination, but there might be something to that choice of style. It might be that the animators wanted to do something cool, nothing more, nothing less. But, I remain wary dreamy flashbacks. Always something left unsaid…

    skylion
    Reply

  21. This one is my choice of scifi of the season. Impeccable graphic design. From spaceship (exterior and interior) to galaxy battle to European-like side street to holographic display in a futuristic class room, all have the clean cut that makes it very eyepleasing. Character design is much improved from the shoujo manga style used for the original novel. The story has a good mix of adventure and comedy. The only thing that annoys me is that Marika refers to her mom as a third person by her name. The voice actress of Marika sounds a bit tensed and doesn’t yet quite bring out the feminine side of the character (considering the setting that Marika is girlie enough to work in a maid cafe). Judging from the first episode, this series appears to gear towards entertainment. Nonetheless, it is high quality entertainment. And I can’t wait to finish the rest of the series.

    Matroid
    Reply

  23. Looks like it will be a fun adventure romp. I’m especially liking how all the female characters have a distinctive design rather than just swapped hair colors/hairdos.

    Censor this!
    Reply

  25. These anime characters are always ignorant about their own stuff… “What? Pirates? I think that’s something related to history, right?”. They don’t even know something extremely relevant and basic to their history. It’s like not knowing who Napoleon was. LOL.

    André
    Reply

    1. It’s not really surprising to me since I live in North America and some people (Both in the US and Canada) don’t know who their first President/Prime Minister was. It makes me sad when I can name both off the top of my head. I know lots of random things that most people don’t know though.

      Roguespirit
      Reply

  26. Does anyone know why Katou refers to her mother(Ririka) by her first name? This seems surprising coming from a show born in polite and formal Japan. The only other instance of this I know of where not used disrespectfully was in the book (To Kill a Mocking Bird). Anyone care to shed Light?

    Also liking this anime so far but the problem I have is I don’t know how I’m supposed to percieve it. At the same time though I actually like that because it keeps me guessing and coming back. Love all the tech in the show too.

    Roguespirit
    Reply

  28. I loved that first episode, although why Marika doesn’t know what is a pirate is beyond me… unless we’re in a totally different planet where pirates were never documented, let alone space pirates. Then again, seeing Chiaki’s hard shell being cracked by a chocolate parfait was… funny… like: “ok, that’s one way to get her on her good side”.

    I’m eager to see the next episode.

    JiCi
    Reply

  29. Liked this first ep of Moresoooooo Pirates, Things pretty much turned out like what you said in the show’s intro in the preview. Now I’m eagerly waiting for more, especially those long detailed descriptions of battleships I heard about that seems to be in the novel.

    Rockmanshii
    Reply

  31. I do like the inclusion of a space opera for this season, and given the other series happening, I think this will be a good winter season. The key I find here is the visuals, and if they keep it within reason and grounded (no pun intended), it looks like I will have a full card this season of watching. For some reason, additionally, the ending song was really catchy. I think I better stop clicking the replay button of the ending theme by now, but I just can’t. March 7th cannot come soon enough.

    Soren
    Reply

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