Moretsu Pirates 7 ~ people make mistakes all the time

Cross-view of the bridge of the space pirate ship, Bentenmaru.

Episode 7 of Mouretsu Pirates (AKA Ferocious Pirates, AKA Bodacious Space Pirates, AKA …) has two main threads, in one Captain Marika Katou’s struggle to be good at a bit too much is explored, in the second a routine pirate job ends up with unexpected consequences. Since this is only the second episode in which we have seen the Bentenmaru in action, I’ll also have something to say about ship duties.

This week we got two very different space battle sequences.

As the episode opened, Marika leaps into a single-person craft and scouts out a mysterious planet, which ends in her being attacked by overwhelming force and ultimately woken by her friend Mami. Yes it was all a dream, but it turns out to be an opening to an exploration of Marika’s self-imposed pressure to succeed on a seemingly impossible scale. Now that she is pirating, her grades are dropping, but whereas another person might drop out of school and focus on the captaining of a space pirate ship, Marika insists on graduating from high school. In fact, she also insists on keeping her part-time job at the maid café. Now this seems crazy, and in a conversation with Chiaki, Mami reveals that Marika has kind of an inferiority complex related to her mother. Basically Marika’s mom is so awesome, that Marika has outrageous expectations for what she should be able to accomplish, so she is always pushing herself to the very edge.

View of the Bentenmaru bridge from the rear. Notice the view out into space during FTL travel.

In my last post, I took some guesses about the bridge crew stations and responsibilities. The biggest thing we learned this time is that the area to the captain’s right is Misa Grandwood’s station. I’m not sure if this is normal or a result of Marika being in training. I guessed that Coorie was dedicated to electronic warfare, and she definitely has those duties, but she also seemed to act as a communications officer. I also had guessed that Hyakume was head of engineering, and in this episode we see him running a ship-wide diagnostic for the presence of explosives, so I think this is pretty accurate. I wasn’t sure who had responsibility for the ship’s weapons systems, and in this episode they were under Schnitzer’s control. Luca’s exact role is still a bit mysterious. I still think she is tapping into a variety of sensor  systems, but I would like to learn more about what exactly she is doing.

The passengers on this week's target had the same excited attitude, like the pirate attack was just a part of the trip.

Space pirate Captain Marika Katou relaxes in her private quarters.

There was an odd juxtaposition in the two space battles. In the dream space battle, Marika is at first enthused, and then panics when the shooting starts, because she might be in over her heard. In the real space battle, Marika is almost bored with the situation at first. She wonders if she should shut off the alarm. It is only when things start going wrong (deviating from expectations) that she seems truly engaged.

The pirate job this time is even more blatantly a drama. The Bentenmaru has been contracted to attack by the company that runs the luxury liner. In fact they have paid for an “optional package”. The pirates are to exchange fire with three guard ships prior to boarding. The passengers of the luxury liner are thrilled when Marika bursts through the hatch, demanding their valuables. The cynicism of this situation is still a bit surprising to me, although I can imagine that jaded rich people would go on adventure cruises with precisely the hope of being attacked by pirates. After all it isn’t much different than going on a “safari” and hoping to be “attacked” by a lion or a rhinoceros, when one is safely ensconced in an armored vehicle.

A visitor from outer space.

Unfortunately for Marika, who wants to hit the books (it’s a school night!), something went wrong during the ship boarding. Somehow someone managed to slip on board, and the episode ends with the intruder demanding to negotiate directly with the captain.

I’m pretty happy with the way this episode ended. Again we have a twist that I wasn’t expecting. I think this new character could be important for the direction the show heads in from here, but we’ll have to wait until next week to find out more.

"There are times when trying harder isn't enough."

Each episode ends with a quote from the dialogue in calligraphic presentation. I think this is very classy. Just another part of this show that I like.

Another thing I like that I just wanted to point out is the way some technologies are fused between very futuristic and antiquated. Two examples:

Analog pocket watch with a holographic email display.

This phone looks like it was made in the 1920s. It has a rotary dial AND a holographic display screen.

I’m probably not using the term “holography” correctly here, but Physics is beyond my ken, so feel free to correct me in the comment section below.