Forum - View topicBodacious Space Pirates (TV).
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18458 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Bodacious Space Pirates (TV) Genres: adventure, science fiction Themes: pirates, school, space Plot Summary: Marika is a first year high school student living on a planet known as Uminoakeboshi. One day she finds out that her recently deceased father was once the captain of the space pirate ship called the "Bentenmaru". More importantly, the only one to inherit the captain's title has to be a direct descendant—meaning that Marika is next in line to become the captain of the ship. ---------------------------------- This is Satelight's new series for the season. The basic premise sets the series in a far-flung future on the planet Sea of Morningstar, which has long used space privateers to supplement its military forces. One such ship, the Bentenmaru, has a century-long tradition of passing its captaincy down the same family line, and lead heroine Mariko Kato - a space yacht club member at her school who also works part-time as a maid - discovers, to her shock, that the captaincy has passed to her on the sudden death of her father (whom she never knew was a space pirate). While she doesn't actually get to the ship in the first episode, things are certainly headed in that direction. Frankly, I loved the first episode of this. Unless the next couple of episodes are big drop-offs, it will be one of my priority views this season. Even in a silly, light-hearted show like this, execution matters, and Satelight has done a wonderful job with the first episode in every respect. The maid cafe business is a little much, but the minor bits of cleverness the episode shows elsewhere more than outweighs that. It's been a clean show so far, too, so no worries about fan service. Other thoughts? |
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Yttrbio
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I felt that annoying "Pirates are cool... because they're PIRATES!!" attitude. I think the war is over (?), so we still don't know who their Letters of Marque let them target, or more broadly what pirates do for a living in this universe. I'm going to assume murdering, kidnapping, and theft are not their primary specialties.
Still, I can appreciate a lead who goes "WTF" right along with the audience. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Well based on the name, it doesn't seem like a series I'd want to check out, but neither did Princess Tutu. But what does make me want to watch it is that the director did Shingu, which I think is an underwatched gem, even if the ost was stolen from the world's most boring elevator.
But I'm going to have to wait a week to watch it on crunchyroll, I don't usually watch any simulcasts, this would be the first one I've seen in like two years, so I can't really justify paying to see one simulcast when I can wait a week. I did watch the two minute preview though, which does make me want to see more because I like space and sci-fi series, and ever since Monkey Island, I've been on the side of pirates. So next week I can watch the first ep, and I'll be able to find out if ep 2 keeps up the pace of being good from ep because I'm sure Key will watch and do a write up on ep 2 since he liked ep 1 (hehe!) I also didn't see any fanservice in the first two minutes, excessive fanservice always detracts from a show for me (except for maybe Golden Boy where the fact that the main see over exaggerated fanservice everywhere is practically the point of the show half the time). If it's like that the whole ep, then I'm good! |
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MrTerrorist
Posts: 1348 |
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Fun facts:
* Did you know the OP song of Bodacious Space Pirates is written by Kenichi Maeyamada aka Hyadain, the guy who sang the OP songs of Nichjou, and the guitar for the OP was done by ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman. Yes! Marty Friedman did the guitar for this song! Here's proof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmiQCzCVlGU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5iMm7xuBg * The anime was going to be called by the name of the novels the anime was based on, Miniskirt Space Pirates before it change into Bodacious Space Pirates. |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3013 |
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Watched the first episode and rather enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing more, and am curious as to whether a certain guess of mine is correct.
spoiler[I think the reason the Letter of Marque is still in force for the Bentenmaru is due to some quirk (possibly the result of a mistake that slipped through in the original contract) that allows the Letter to remain in effect indefinitely as long as the captaincy of the ship is passed down to a direct descendant of the previous captain. I also think the government of the Sea of Morningstar is not pleased with this, that the Bentenmaru is a legal and political thorn in their side, and they would rather Marika not become the new captain of the Bentenmaru so that their little embarrassment goes away.] |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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Fanservice is rarely a problem for me when there's some other reason to watch any particular animated series, but I'm still glad the staff is keeping things relatively clean by showing some restraint here, despite the obvious potential to get carried away with it. So far, so good.
It's probably way too early to compare this new show to the likes of something like One Piece, for better or for worse, but the first episode was at least good enough to keep me entertained and served as a decent introduction to its premise. Then again, I imagine there might be others who will find Bodacious Space Pirates a little too slow and deliberate in its first episode, but in my opinion there's no need to rush and immediately put Marika in space when getting to know the characters first is a far greater priority. Last edited by nightjuan on Sat Jan 07, 2012 8:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Based on the title, the protagonist's character design, and the premise, I had zero interest in this show. It looked like some ditzy pink-haired girl would be suddenly plucked out of her mundane life to lead a crew of space pirates while hijinx and/or adventure ensued. Seeing Theron and Zac both praising it highly in the preview guide, though, I decided to give it a try, and pretty quickly the show established that it was more than competent in handling itself.
The setting is explained sufficiently and quickly, and Marika's given a scene to display her talent right away. It helps that she's neither arrogant nor an airhead, plus generally likeable. She doesn't pick up on a couple of the obvious points that viewers will easily pick out, but that's as it should be, as we're aware of the genre and she is not. Also, I'm always impressed when a show manages to aptly convey character intentions and emotion through facial expressions without having to fill the scene with dialogue or voice-overs to explain things to the viewer. The scene where Chiaki is introduced, and the look she gives as she passes Marika, and Marika's reaction were superb. Also, the scene in the cafe where the man in suits fill the place, and Chiaki unintentionally orders a chocolate parfait show that the series can handle light humor in with its main plot as well. I'd originally expected this to be a trite effort, like Angel Links, but it may end up being more like Outlaw Star. Except, a little more shiny and sanitized rather than with 90s grit (not trying to suggest that either is inherently good or bad). Mad_Scientist: That sounds like an interesting spin. I might be a little disappointed now if that turns out to not be the case. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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It was a good first episode, I too did really look forward to watching space pirates which appeared to just have a female captain as an excuse for fanservice. But over all little to no fanservice, the main character does not want to be a criminal, and is as WTF about it being legal as the audience is. I do wonder how they are going to make the continuolly sympathetic, while not having them just be too silly, there are at least guns.
I loved the OP song it sound somwhat sinister as you would really expect about pirates, but also not too serious, as there seems to be quite a bit light humour. Can't wait to read the lyrics. Not that it is important but I found it kind of funny that the friend Mami Endou (who was one of the maides) was voiced by Chiaki Omigawa, she also did the main character in Sore de mo Machi wa Mawatteiru which makes her being a maide kind of funny. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I'm just gonna copy-paste what I wrote in the Winter 2011 Preview thread here:
Okay, so Moretsu Pirates is well made. But the biggest problem is that it's a show about pirates. Or, by the sound of it, privateers, but that's just a fancy word. And that's a pretty bad problem, because pirates is not just in the premise but in the show's goddamn name. The biggest hurdle is what these privateers are going to do. If they're going to actually rob freighters and attack civilian space stations and kidnap people then the show will be awful. That's because no matter how cute you make your lead female, if she's no better than a common thug yet made out to be the heroine then that kills the show's credibility. And if she doesn't do anything of any note but enters ship races and drinks tea then that's almost as worse. So yeah, at this stage I'm going to keep watching for another two episodes because as others have said there is potential here. If she's going to be an actual pirate rather than a true privateer, or if this is going to be fluff, then I'll drop it so fast it will break the sound barrier before hitting the ground. But if she preys on actual pirates or fights in a new war then I'll keep with it. I just hope she doesn't somehow win the war on her lonesome, or lead the fleet that does it. Because that would be so yawn. I do think Mad_Scientist is onto something though. spoiler[That's a very interesting interpretation of events. However, I don't think that route, if true, is better. If a government truly wants to get rid of a pirate, then it is simple enough to renege on the deal by passing a law or petitioning the courts to make the loophole invalid. The war is over, there's no reason for a pirate-ship to still exist.] |
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silencer226
 Posts: 302 |
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I wasn't wowed by the first episode of this show. I don't think its bad but the first episode was just average. I don't see how its "the show to beat" at all. That said, I did like it, and hope it can get better with time. Finally, I'm glad it isn't what I was expecting it to be. I'm going to stick with it in hopes of it just being something fun to watch.
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naninanino
 Posts: 680 |
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I'm not usually one to post in these threads, but I do as well feel that the tone and characters will place some serious challenges for this show.
It can't really go the routes dtm42 mentioned, but I also feel that it will have a very difficult time in creating a decent scenario that won't be detrimental in one way or the other. For example, the cast and tone will not give into any serious feeling conflict or politics. I can only imagine the horror of hearing teenage girls making preachy speeches to corrupt politicians in their ridiculous get-up. I think it would be best as a hunt for the legendary MacGuffin. That way you could give them the freedom to be as silly as they want and make it a real adventure. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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In that case, if I'm not going to watch One-Piece why the heck would I want to watch this? Well, better production values I suppose, and a story that won't go forever. But it just seems like so much fluff . . . ugh. Macross Frontier had the ridiculous premise of pop singers controlling the fate of humankind but at least the writing was good and the goals were obvious, normal and logical; finish war with aliens, find a nice world to colonise. |
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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Interesting that the goal of the show is being defeated as being inferior to what Macross Frontier did without even having a chance to get passed more than 5 character introductions.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Take it somewhere else ArsenicSteel, I'm in no mood to respond to your efforts to needle me.
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Dorcas_Aurelia
Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Maybe you could take it somewhere else, too, dtm, if you're going to post here like you posted in the preview guide thread.
And why are you comparing this to Macross Frontier? That show was about humans with mechs/fighter jets defending against an aggressive alien force, a love triangle, and the power of pop music. This show has given no indication of containing any of those things. |
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