The high school yacht club has giggly girlish adventures— in space.

I wanted to enjoy this show, I did. How could it go wrong? It’s about SPACE PIRATES!!! It has a fabulous setting: a vast galaxy filled with mysteries and treasure, and a crew that’s ready to do some piracy. What could possibly go wrong?

But instead of a swashbuckling adventure, we were treated to an adaption of Afternoon Tea Time in Space. The main differences are that a) instead of a variety of snack foods, we are limited to parfaits, and b) instead of a cute turtle, we have spaceships.

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The grand adventures in space ended up all being high school girls chatting and smiling. Even worse, when an adventure did happen to present itself, it would be resolved anticlimatically. In this aspect, it reminded me a lot of Dantalian. However, in Dantalian the endings were clever and witty— here it just felt like the entire story arc we just witnessed was a waste of time. They repeatedly arc up the tension, then immediatley jettison the reader and resolve all problems through secret negotiations or other behind the scenes actions which the viewers aren’t privy to. Bascially, they tell a story, and instead of allowing the viewers to enjoy the climax, they say, “Oh, actually, someone concluded the story already, but we’re not going to bother telling you about it. Here, look, everyone lived happily ever after. Let’s go back to school now and wear costumes and smile at each other!”

Most of the cast was fine, but there was one character I could absolutely not stand: Misa, the ship’s nurse. She always has this coy smile and acts like she’s in charge and knows what to do. If I ever met her in real life, I would punch her in the face. But the most frustrating part is how the rest of the crew actually respects her for no apparent reason. All she does is stand around and pose like a smart aleck.

• Storytelling – C – Repeatedly fails to deliver on promises.
• Voice – D – Uniquely manages to make space pirates boring.
• Characters – C – I HATE Misa, but otherwise they’re ok.
• Attention Grab – C – Keeps your attention sometimes, but this always leads to disappointment. Mostly commits to showing cute girls acting insufferably nice to each other.
• Production – B – Pretty spaceships.
• Overall – C

Recommendations – Dantalian (similar plot device), Stellvia and Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo (Cute girls in space but less boring)