Yeah! This is more like it! Actual bodacious piracy!
I loved the piracy scene. It’s not what you would expect at all, but it makes perfect sense. These rich people on interplanetary cruises want to be pirated. It’s a form of entertainment for the bourgeois.
I don’t find this particularly unbelievable either. I’ve been in situations where something bad has happened, and everyone’s first thought is to take out their cellphones and start snapping pictures. It’s not situations where they could have done anything to help, but still it seems kind of strange. They’re almost excited that this terrible thing has happened, because they’ll have a good story to tell.
Marika and the crew pull out this feeling strongly, by turning piracy into a show. It’s complete with flashing lights, a bodacious announcement, a spectacular entrance (complete with cape) and a sword duel. This will be a story to remember. The passengers throw their jewelry at Marika and her crew as a performance fee.
What Marika practices isn’t piracy. The nurse said the same thing, but implied it was merely a technicality. I don’t see it that way. What Marika does isn’t piracy, not merely on a technicality, but in its essence. Piracy has victims that it plunders. Marika’s band of merry pirates has no victims. The people want to be robbed. Besides, the insurance company will reimburse them. The only groups being robbed are the insurance companies.
So Marika isn’t a pirate. She’s a Robin Hood figure, who robs the rich insurance companies and gives to the poor (money to herself and her merry band, entertainment to the passengers).
Since Marika has been training for war, though, who will her enemies be? I’m hoping the remainder of the show will be a long struggle against the henchmen of the insurance companies.
Scenery Porn
We’ve barely seen any of Marika’s home planet since everything has focused on space, but now I’m really curious. This world looks awesome. A city hanging over the edge of a giant waterfall? A city with blocky, oddly colored skyscrapers and tunnels? Do want.
Further Thoughts
- They’re doing a nice job on Marika and Chiaki’s relationship. Chiaki’s seriousness and Marika’s goofiness play off each other well.
- That was a fabulous evil laugh breaking down into a coughing fit!
- Marika’s pirate costume is as wonderful as I thought it would be from the OP.
- And finally that annoying nurse got something right:
This sure was the most enjoyable episode yet and I particularly agree with you on the that evil laugh!
What bugs me, however, if that Marika is a trainee on that ship. I admit that this is more realistic than assuming that she just pops out of nowhere as a fully-trained pirate captain. But then again: Marika did have her training on the school ship.
The great Iskander would laugh at the thought that a king is to be trained by his own people. The same imo applies to a pirate captain!
Haha yes, an excellent point! Iksander would not agree!
One thing to note though is that they aren’t teaching her how to be a captain. She knows how to lead people already, as she’s demonstrated. They’re training her how to be a pirate, which is a different thing. Still, I’m curious to see how they’ll ever learn to accept her as their leader and obey her (especially the nurse and teacher, I hope she tosses them in the brig).
I agree with you that this episode was really good. And it does seem like piracy is high-class entertainment in that setting. But it seems to be a contrast to what these narrator-flashbacks at the beginning always do. It’s always stuff like “A space-pirate has to do this and that…”, “It may seem like a trifling matter but this is really important to survive in space…” or “Space isn’t a bathtub…”: these intros always are so serious and kind-of preachy. The episodes then are more on the lighthearted and optimistic side of things, though. It’s kind of strange how this series takes some elements far too seriously but then also wants to be a simple entertaining series about Marika enjoying her life as pirate-captain.
Good point, there is a contrast with the way the intros present the dangers of space with the way piracy is portrayed as so lighthearted. I think that the characters treat it jokingly, but the danger is still very real. They did almost die in the last episode, for example. It’s very similar to how normal pirates are portrayed, actually: they’re usually seen as having wild swashbuckling adventures on the high seas. But really, it was probably a miserable life filled with danger.
My favourite scene was when Marika shot the teacher and he pretended to die.
I don’t think anyone will really lose out on this. If the Letter of Marque in the anime is anything like the one in real life, most of the proceeds from piracy go to the government. That will in turn go to the people who have just had their insurance rates hiked up.
Ah, I didn’t realize the proceeds went to the government. That makes sense, but I don’t know… there’s no such thing as a free lunch.