Bodacious Space Pirates • Mouretsu Pirates - Anime of the Week

[u/AnimeMod]

Welcome to the weekly Anime of the Week Discussion Thread! Each week, we're here to discuss various older anime series. Today we are discussing...

Bodacious Space Pirates • Mouretsu Pirates

Far in the future, where interstellar travel is considered commonplace, high school student Marika Katou balances her duties in the space yacht club and her job as a restaurant waitress. Following a chance encounter with a peculiar pair of customers, Marika meets them again and learns that her absent father has passed away.

During his life, he was known as the legendary pirate "Gonzaemon." He has left behind his infamous ship Bentenmaru and its crew exclusively for Marika to inherit. With one of the few remaining Letters of Marque that permit legal piracy, Marika must choose whether to stay as a regular student or take up a second life as a high-octane space pirate.

As Marika ponders her decision, the delicate situation attracts the eyes of various government agencies and the mysterious transfer student Chiaki Kurihara, all eager to see if the upcoming captain lives up to her father's reputation. If the crew of the Bentenmaru want to maintain their status, they will need to set sail into the vast expanse of space and once again become a name to be feared.

(Source: MyAnimeList)

Databases

AniDB | | MyAnimeList | | Anilist

Streams

https://www.livechart.me/anime/1153/streams

Remember that any information not found early in the show itself is considered a spoiler. Please properly tag spoilers!

Or else...

Next week's anime discussion thread: Mars Daybreak

[u/EncyclopediaEupho]

Mouretsu Pirates is really fun! I'd recommend anyone check it out.

[u/Asturaetus]

Absolutely loved the show. It was a ton of fun and Marika was a really sympathetic protagonist. She showed that you can be competent and still be upbeat. Just loving what you are doing.

And the show itself was a fantastic example of how well slice-of-life and space opera as genre can mix since both of them are more on the slow-burn side of things.

Plus the yuri in the show was a welcome surprise.

[u/Kadmos1 → u/Asturaetus]

I forget as to which couple was yuri.

[u/Asturaetus → u/Kadmos1]

Jenny and Lynn were confirmed in episode 17.

Plus - as a side - Gruier stated openly to Chiaki that she loves Marika and suspects that Chiaki does too, so she considers her her rival - though Chiaki was still in denial.

[u/Kadmos1 → u/Asturaetus]

While her VA career is quite to somewhat inactive, I am with Caitlynn "Chiaki" French.

[u/LouisLeGros]

I remember being hyped for this when it came out and expecting to be ridiculous, I think I got a few episodes in and dropped it because it turned out to be mostly slice of life stuff and not insane.

[u/Social_Knight → u/LouisLeGros]

It could indeed have stood to be more ridiculous, especially when they had BODACIOUS in the title (lol).

It was fine though.

[u/dualcalamity]

I appreciate this anime for including electronic warfare (hacking) in its depiction of space warfare. I dont see that often in any media.

[u/TheDanubianCommunard]

Never heard of it before, but looks pretty interesting and fun.

[u/wloff → u/TheDanubianCommunard]

Likewise. Kind of interesting that with a title like this, the only tags on MAL are "Sci-Fi" and "Award Winning"!

[u/BasroilII]

That was such a fun show. A love letter to space pirates and space operas while also being just wholesome fun.

[u/Calwings]

This was a fun show. Not amazing, but a solid and enjoyable 8/10. It started slow to build out the world, but got better from there. Gruier best girl.

I've heard that the last 2 arcs of the anime (plus the movie) were actually anime-original content that diverged from the light novels. If that's true, then that anime-original content turned out to be my favorite part of the show, so I'm happy they did that over a "fuck you go read the source material" non-ending. Maybe a hot take, but I wish more anime did that if they knew they weren't getting a 2nd season.

[u/Yay295 → u/Calwings]

Episodes 19-26 are anime-original, and the movie is based on the Abyss of Hyperspace spinoff manga, which was written by the director of the anime.

For me these anime-original parts are my least favorite parts. I felt like the character personalities didn't quite match, and I really dislike how [the movie] made space travel safer. I liked how traveling through space wasn't easy, and required skill and experience to do.

[u/Temporala]

I like the OP song, and general energetic vibe of this series.

it's not what I'd call "good" anime (plot is all over the place), but its fun and its not generic.

[u/HikkingOutpit]

The light novels were never licensed, but fortunately a dedicated fan translated all 12 of them. You can start reading them here:

https://miniskirtpiratestranslations.org/v1/v1.html

[u/GallowDude]

There's no -chan!

[u/chilidirigible]

Ah, to be the other Satelight series which released in the same season as Senki Zesshou Symphogear.

And one I happen to like a lot. Like I said last week, there's at least more pirate adjacency in this one than in Kaizoku Oujo.

And some distinctive VAs.

[u/roryteller → u/chilidirigible]

That's a heck of a season, I love both this show and Symphogear.

[u/chilidirigible → u/roryteller]

Meanwhile, the third Satelight series that released in Winter 2012 was Aquarion Evol.

[u/8andahalfby11]

My biggest issue with this show is that the female singer of the OP completely fails a high note and they left it in.

Otherwise it's a really solid space anime with engaging stories and fun characters.

[u/chilidirigible → u/8andahalfby11]

In any case the OP is still pretty wild.

[u/Nachtwandler_FS]

It was the fun show with some great characters. Though, anyone hoping fir a lot of action can perish the though. I still have not seeen the movie, though.

[u/Donnie-G]

Back then I thought it was just cute girls doing cute things but in SPEHSS. But surprisingly it dives pretty hard onto certain concepts. Like the sci-fi-ness is taken quite seriously, it goes into things like solar sails and whatnot. And how FTL works and stuff is fleshed out, even if it is just in-universe pseudophysics - it shows that it has a lot of thought put into the worldbuilding.

They are technically privateers rather than outright pirates, and it also put plenty of thought into explaining the space version of Letter of Marques and how they were handed out.

So yeah, expected cute girls in space - got a pretty serious(the plot is still light hearted overall but like it's serious about its setting) sci-fi story with good worldbuilding.

[u/Yay295]

The opening for this anime, "Moretsu Uchu Kokyokyoku Dai Nana Gakusho «Mugen no Ai»", sounds somewhat similar to a song sung by a certain pirate vtuber. There has been no official confirmation of this though.

[u/RandomRobot]

I'm 1:20 in the first episode and the OP is a banger. I'm already happy to have picked it up

[u/Niwrats]

this one was awful. everyone is generally happily positive and nothing that happens has any weight. there is no tension at all. it felt more like some sort of propaganda than a show, though don't ask me what the message was.