Bodacious Space Pirates: "Pirate Hunting"

It is 2 June 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

As Marika prepares for end-of-year exams, pirate ships are getting destroyed by mysterious pirate raiders. Marika comes up with a potential solution: pirates hiring one another for protection, both to shore up their defences and to satisfy the conditions of their letters of marque. She may, however, have underestimated the firepower of the raiders.

Bodacious Space Pirates enters its final story arc, and it looks set to be a pretty big one: after a gentle, character-focused first half, the episode's climax turns almost apocalyptic as a group of pirate ships get all but annihilated at the hands of a massive, technologically superior enemy vessel. The stakes immediately get about as high as they've been all series, and with only a few episodes to go there's every chance the series may end with a body count.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Final Battle at the Nebula Cup"

It is 26 May 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

The Hakouh Academy's yacht club arrives at the planet Calmwind to participate in the prestigious Nebula Cap. Tensions are high, since the last time the Academy entered the race they nearly destroyed it entirely. As the race begins, Marika finds herself under attack - first from the race's paranoid chair, and secondly from a Bisque Company gunship desperate to take her out.

"The Final Battle at the Nebula Cup" is basically pitch-perfect Bodacious Space Pirates, combining comic dialogue with space pirate action, and peppered with nice moments of character for its extended cast. It is not particularly deep, but neither is it intended to be. This is bright, breezy entertainment with nice design work and plenty of energy. It has been a few months since the last time I watched an episode, and this was a wonderful way to pop back in.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Captain Rides the Waves"

It is 19 May 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

After finding a set of space dinghies in storage, the yacht club decide to enter the upcoming Nebula Cup. The last time the school entered the race, their club caused a passive dinghy pile-up and earned a five-year ban. Fearing a similar disaster, the championship organisers hire the Bentenmaru to observe the race and keep an eye out for trouble. Kane decides to train the girls in the club in how to pilot the dinghies, but he has some fairly unusual teaching methods.

Another serialised story begins for Bodacious Space Pirates, this time split between two simultaneous tasks: the yacht club entering the race and Marika monitoring it as captain of the Bentenmaru. She seems confident everything will work smoothly. I foresee comical mishaps in the next few episodes. At the same time, Marika's mother has learned that a criminal syndicate is targeting Marika as captain of the Bentenmaru. It looks like it won't be all laughs in the next few episodes. For this week though, it is pretty much wall-to-wall comedy.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Bonds Between the Four"

It is 12 May 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

The space yacht club head back up to the relay station to clean the Odette II, finding some half-forgotten space dinghies in the process. Marika takes the opportunity to head over to the Bentenmaru for some spring cleaning of her own, accidentally losing her ID ring to power the ship in the process.

This is a slightly weird episode, but if any form of TV entertainment is going to dedicate an entire episode to cleaning and tidying spaceships it is going to be anime. This is yet another 'downtime' episode of Bodacious Space Pirates, giving the ongoing narrative a pause between story arcs and taking the opportunity to do something a bit lighter and more relaxed.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "We'll Have Juice at the Afterparty"

It's 5 May 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

Or, to work on real time, it's been about six weeks since the last Bodacious Space Pirates review, so we're probably a bit overdue. Marika has a new mission: to get former yacht club president Jenny Dolittle to Space University before Jenny's corrupt magnate uncle has her married off for his own political advantage. In her way, the Dolittle fleet commanded by that same uncle, Robert, who isn't going to let his corporate master plan be ruined.

This is a great episode. It blends light-hearted action with some properly crunchy bits of plot, has an energetic pace, and provides a nice balance of action and character. It helps that this is the final episode of the current storyline. With everything already set up during the slightly less interesting earlier episodes, there's nowhere for this episode to be than sprinting towards the finish line.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "A Surprising Client"

It's 28 April 2012. and time for more Bodacious Space Pirates.

Last episode ended with yacht club president Lynn being confronted over secret calls she was making to someone off the Bentenmaru, and Lynn in turn offering Marika a job: kidnapping former club president Jenny Dolittle. This episode reveals who's paying for Jenny's kidnapping - Jenny herself, in the attempt to escape an unwanted marriage.

Oh Bodacious Space Pirates - I knew you weren't going to make one of your characters evil. The show is simply too light and fluffy, too amiable, for that sort of plot twist. Instead it goes for another one: it's not simply that Jenny's marriage will annul her ability to inherit her family's company, she actually in love with someone else - her replacement club president Lynn. That's not a plot development that I had anticipated, and I applaud the series' creators for undertaking such a twist without any sleaziness or fan service.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Hakuoh Pirates' First Job"

It's 21 April 2012, and time for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.

Their initial teething troubles behind them, the temporary crew of the Bentenmaru pirate shop begins preparations to storm the pleasure cruiser Princess Apricot. Yacht club president Lynn appears to have something on her mind, and when she's spied secretly communicating to somebody off-shop it sets off Grunhilde's suspicions.

Something that's been bugging me about Bodacious Space Pirates for the whole series has finally slipped into clarity: there's no conflict. Conflict is the basis for drama: it's either a person against another person or a person against their environment. It's arguable that the conflict in Bodacious Space Pirates is between the characters and their own self-doubt, but assuming that to be the case it's a pretty thin foundation upon which to build a story.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Smuggling, Leaving Port and a Big Jump!"

The Bentenmaru risks losing its pirate's license if it does not embark on a piracy mission immediately. Unfortunately the crew are in quarantine after being infected by a shipment of space monkeys. Thus the Odette II yacht club crew set off on their secret mission to pilot the Bentenmaru and save Marika's career as a budding pirate captain.

This is episode 15 of Bodacious Space Pirates. The earliest episodes showcased teenager Marika Kato joining the space yacht club of Hakuoh Academy, and interacting with its large cast of amiable high schoolers. Later episodes sort of abandoned those characters to focus on Marika's experiences as the captain of a pirate spaceship, the Bentenmaru. This appears to be the episode where those two separate casts finally join together: the yacht club do their best to operate the Bentenmaru while its actual crew provide support from the hospital.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Marika Goes Recruiting"

It's been nine months since I last reviewed an episode of Bodacious Space Pirates, a science fiction anime that I liked quite a lot - albeit with a few reservations. It seemed as good a time as any to jump back onboard and sample the series' second half.

A shipment of diseased alien cat-monkeys puts the entire crew of the Bentenmaru out of action and in isolation for weeks. To maintain her license to engage in piracy, Captain Marika is forced to go looking for temporary replacements - and that leads her and Princess Gruyere to an orbiting relay station.

A conversation two weeks ago with friend and fellow blogger John Samuel (whose own anime reviews you should definitely be reading) finally cemented my central problem with Bodacious Space Pirates, and that's the pacing. For the first half of the series I felt as if the storylines were too slow and drawn out, whereas John mentioned he often found them a bit rushed. I think the problem is actually both at the same time.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Marika Sends an Invitation"

Marika returns to school following her piratical adventures chasing the Golden Ghost Ship. In her absence she has become a local celebrity. Her life is complicated when Princesses Gruier and Grunhilde turn up, freshly enrolled at Marika's high school and keen to continue their friendship.

Just when you thought the Golden Ghost Ship saga was over, there's this odd little epilogue tacked on at the end. It delivers mixed results. On the one hand it works as a bit of a palette cleanser between the first half of the series and the second. It also shows Marika having to deal with a rapidly growing reputation among her classmates. On the other hand I felt rather done with the Serenity princesses, and to have them return just one episode after leaving feels really bizarre and a little bit unwelcome.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "A Return from Eternity"

Marika and Gruier board the Golden Ghost Ship at last. What treasure will they find at its centre - and what is the secret mission about which Gruier has not told Marika?

After six episodes, the Golden Ghost Ship saga hits a sudden and unexpected conclusion. Given the glacial pace of the first five instalments, I honestly expected at least one episode to go before this all wrapped up. This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum: do I criticise the episode for rushing its ending in comparison to the earlier episodes, or do I praise it for finally picking up the pace like I've been asking it to all season?

The rapid climax is all the more surprising given the rather gentle, leisurely way in which it begins. The time is taken to really give the enormous generational starship to attention it deserves. These opening scenes are highly reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's seminal SF novel Rendezvous with Rama, with a similar sense of steady exploration into the unknown. Of course that isn't going to last forever, and before long Gruier and Marika are face-to-face with Grunhilde and a squadron of Serenity troops.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Wanderer of Light"

The Bentenmaru continues its quest for the Golden Ghost Ship, with the Serenity fleet hot in pursuit. When all of the ships are caught in a spacial rift, things look difficult for Captain Mariko - until the source of the rift turns out to be the Golden Ghost Ship itself.

"Wanderer of Light" is the 11th episode of Bodacious Space Pirates, and the fifth in this current "Ghost Ship" story arc. It features a nice amount of action and suspense, but it remains an incredibly slow series. There's just too much padding going on. While we do finally reach the Golden Ghost Ship, and its arrival is pretty awe-inspiring, we don't actually get inside yet. Just finding the ship has taken something in the region of two hours of screen time. I like the characters in this series, and the visual aesthetic, and the basic set-up, but they're really dragging their feet in terms of actually doing things.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Battle in the Storm"

I didn't like my last episode of Bodacious Space Pirates, because I wanted spaceships and explosions and they gave me slow-moving plot developments and characters running in circles. I'm pleased to report that this episode does feature both spaceships and explosions, so naturally I found it much more entertaining. It's by no means a knock-out episode, but there was enough here to keep me entertained and to keep the plot moving along - two things the last episode definitely lacked.

The Bentenmaru is off into a space storm, getting buffeted like nobody's business in the search for the phantom ghost ship. When it is intercepted by the Serenity fleet, Marika orders the charge into battle - even though Serenity's own Princess Gruier is onboard the Bentenmaru.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "A Beautiful Launch"

Marika and Princess Gruier receive data on the location of the golden ship, but before they set off to find it they must return to school for a series of meeting and conversations. Jenny plans a school yacht club cruise to cover for Marika's absence. Chiaki admits that Barbaroosa will be hunting down the ghost ship and destroying any rivals on the way. Not a lot else happens.

I just cannot get my head around this series. Every time it feels like the show is finally firing on all cylinders, I find an episode like this one. Very little happens here. It ends pretty much where I figured it would begin, with the Bentenmaru finally off on its quest to find the long-lost 'golden ghost ship'. Quite why it takes so long to get there is beyond me.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Princess and the Pirate"

The identity of the Bentenmaru's stowaway is revealed: Princess Gruier Serenity, who is looking for Marika's father. Once that confusion is resolved, Gruier tasks Marika with locating a lost starship. When newscasts reveal that Gruier has been reported as missing by her government - despite the princess assuring everybody that her government knew where she was going, Marika places Gruier undercover at her own high school while she and the Bentenmaru crew work out what to do next.

Why is this series worth your time? For one thing, it's the sort of series that will name a character Gruier Serenity. Seriously: that's her actual name. Gruier Serenity. Is she a hippie princess or a French cheese? There's no need to decide: this is anime, which is allowed to be weird, so she gets to be both. Beyond that, this is a broadly entertaining episode that sets up a fresh storyline for the series: the hunt for a the golden ghost ship.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Peace Does Not Last"

Now that she's a professional space pirate, Marika is finding it difficult balancing her time spent commanding the Bentenmaru with her high school studies. Like a classic overachiever, however, she insists on continuing to dedicate herself to both.

Now that we're seven episodes into the series I am beginning to appreciate what they're doing here a little more. I do think they spent too long getting Marika onto the bridge of the Bentenmaru, but we're now talking about whether it should have taken three episodes or five - not the biggest jump, and I'm happy to meet the series in the middle. One benefit of the slow set-up is that the series can jump around pretty effortlessly, so an early scene of Mami gushing to Chiaki about how wonderful she thinks Marika is doesn't feel out of place or a waste of time. The cast is still worryingly huge of course, but I do feel like I'm slowly getting to know each character - even if I'm still referring to Wikipedia to remember their names.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Marika's First Day at Work"

Resolved to follow in her father's footsteps, and with her government-sanctioned letter of marque in hand, Marika Kato takes her first step on the road to pirate legend with a raid on the cruise liner Princess Apricot. It might have taken six episodes, but Marika is finally captain of the Bentenmaru, and undertakes her first raid as a privateer.

I do still think that the production team could have squeezed the first five episodes into maybe three, but at this point that's by-the-by: Bodacious Space Pirates finally kicks into some form of high gear with a raid, a sword fight and a lot of well-judged humour. I may be taking my sweet time watching this anime, but I'm really enjoying each episode I see.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "Marika Makes a Decision"

The title to this episode made me laugh out loud, because indeed Marika makes a decision. It's a very predictable decision, and a decision that she needs to make otherwise there's no series, and she has taken five entire episodes to make it. Talk about indecisive.

The Odette II finally makes a stand against the pirate ship that's been trailing it, and together the high school space yacht club prove themselves to be more than a match for professional space pirates: either that's one hell of a school, or some really crappy pirates. It's probably a little from column A and a little from column B. This all sounds like I'm mocking the episode, and to be honest taking five weeks to reach the basic premise of the series (high school student becomes a space pirate captain) is deserving of that mockery. That put aside, however, and it's a very enjoyable episode.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Final Battle is at Midnight"

The Odette II continues on its voyage, although it becomes clear that the ship is being tailed by another vessel. Marika discovers that the entire class knows she's under consideration to become a pirate captain, and together they agree to fight the enemy vessel once their teachers are asleep.

The battle might be at midnight, but it sadly doesn't begin in this episode. It's actually a little crazy once you think about it. An anime like Blue Submarine No 6 was done and dusted after four episodes. This anime has barely started in the same time. We've now spent three episodes on a school space yacht cruise, and we're clearly going to be spending a fourth one there as well. It's kind of frustrating.

Bodacious Space Pirates: "The Odette II Leaves Port"

Marika and Chiaki fend off the hackers from taking over the Odette II's systems, then take their yachting examination and finally set off with their class on a sail around Tau Ceti.

You're possibly waiting for a "and suddenly they are attacked by pirates", or somesuch; certainly I spent most of this episode waiting for the exciting action to kick in. It doesn't. This is an oddly sedate episode, spending its time on the characters in a more relaxed setting rather than filling the screen with explosions and chases. It isn't bad, it's just a bit unexpected. With another 23 episodes to go, it's probably a smart idea to ensure the audience really do know who the characters are and what they're like.