I just received an email about Mouretsu Pirates. I was going to respond by email, but decided to make a post about it.

I like collecting ALL of a show before beginning to really watch it. I knew I would like Mouretsu Pirates, but I stopped at about ep 5 so I could go back and enjoy it all over a week.

I think you're going to enjoy the whole show in about two days. Nearly every episode ends in a cliffhanger; it's going to be difficult to stop watching it.

There are a few good stopping points: episode 6 ends the Recruitment arc. Episode 12 ends the Ghost Ship arc. Ep 13 is filler. Ep 18 ends the Hakuoh Pirates arc. Ep 19 is filler. Ep 20 and 21 are a single filler story. And then it's a straight run right to the end of the series. But trying to stop in the middle of any of those arcs will be extremely difficult. It'll be like when Ubu showed Divergence Eve to his friend Dr. Devious; they ended up watching the entire show in a single evening.

Anyways, my wife was watching a tokusatsu TV show called 'Aba-Rangers' and we caught the word 'shi-raku-sen' translated as 'privateer,' in this case meaning a ship, not a person.

I am going to guess that the '-sen' part is " ? " which is 'ship' or 'vessel,' the way 'sen-chou' ( ?? ) is 'captain.'

I don't know if this term is used for Bentenmaru et alia, but I was giving you a heads up to listen for it in case.

I think he tried to include this kanji 船 sen, but my email program doesn't handle that encoding.

In the show they invariably use 海賊船 kaizokusen to refer to Bentenmaru (and Barbarossa). It means "pirate ship".

However, the term being translated as "Letter of Marque" is shiraku menjou. That translates to "bloodletting license". Which is certainly an interesting phrase.

It wouldn't be too much of a surprise to learn that there were no traditional Japanese terms for "privateer" or "Letter of Marque" because there weren't any privateers in Japanese history, even though there were lots of pirates.

But I thought I'd post this to see what others might say about it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:41 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The latest upcoming-season chart is out now. I haven't seen any next-season previews elsewhere, so I'm going to do a half-assed one. This isn't complete, by any means.

The bad news:

Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate -- high school club, girls with big boobs. Eroge adaptation. Do we really need to know any more than that? Pass.

Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse -- Girls with big boobs and skin-tight pressure suits operate mechs to save the Earth, or something like that. Where have we seen that before.

Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai -- Another take on the "magical girlfriend" genre. The magical girlfriend is gorgeous and has red hair. She's a Goddess of Death, and Our Hero has some sort of contract with her, in which he lost his libido. He takes no pleasure in seeing naked girls. The rest of the cast consists of cute girls with big boobs, which presumably for plot reasons we'll see in various stages of undress, so that Our Hero can mutter, why ain't I enjoying seeing this? Odds are the Shinigami is angsty, because she's pettanko (relatively speaking). I'm guessing that she'll be tsundere.

Sword Art Online -- is a ripoff of .Hack/Sign. But maybe they'll do a better job of it. A boy is trapped inside an MMORPG and must win it to escape. If he loses, his death is real.

Oda Nobuna no Yabou -- is a ripoff of Sengoku Otome. Same Sengoku period, and all the natives are girls. The future person sent to the past is a guy this time, so it's sure to be utter crap. (Part of the reason Sengoku Otome worked was because the Hideyoshi character was well conceived, and because she got her act together. I doubt this guy will be as good.)

Bimbou-gami ga! -- the picture features two girls with huge boobs, one of which is carrying an immense syringe. I'm not sure I need to learn any more about it.

Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmon-bu -- High school hijinks, accidental harem. Our hero accidentally becomes a member of a high school club for girls who are fans of yaoi. He's the only boy in the club. Good Lord. (face-slap) Why doesn't he just say, "Oops, wrong number! can you tell me where the astronomy club meets?" ...because then we wouldn't have a show.

Tari Tari -- is probably a ripoff of K-On. Five high school girls form a music group.

Kono Naka ni Hitori Imouto ga Iru! -- Our Hero needs a wife, in order to satisfy a promise he made to his dying father. He transfers to a new high school, with the mission of finding one there. Problem is, one of the five haremettes is his estranged sister, whom he doesn't know. The show web site features a picture of five cute girls, all wearing wedding gowns, so this is incest-fetish bait. I'm guessing it's an eroge adaptation.

Campione -- looks to be poured from the same bottle as High School DxD.

Kokoro Connect -- is a gender bender show. Kids in a high school club start trading bodies.

Rinne no Lagrange is getting a sequel. No, Sato, no! You should be working on a sequel for Mouretsu Pirates, not this trash!

Joshiraku -- I don't quite know what to think about this one. It sounds like a one-trick pony. What's rakugo "verbal performance"? I haven't heard of that. And if it's like a radio show, why do these girls need a dressing-room? Presumably so we can watch them undress, but is there really one cour of story there? (Or even one episode?) Probably utter crap.

Chitose Get You -- sounds like a ripoff of Kodomo no Jikan. Squick city! (More likely it's a ripoff of Hanamaru Kindergarten.)

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita -- the human birth collapse has resulted in a huge depopulation of the planet. For some strange reason, there are now fairies (10 cm tall) who don't seem to have that problem. The story is about a young human girl representing the UN who works as a negotiator with the fairies. This thing reeks of cute and I don't want anything to do with it.

The good news for people who care:

YuruYuri is back for a second season. I only watched one episode of the first, so I won't watch this one either.

Hagure Yuusha no Estetica -- might be pretty good. Magical girl friend with associated harem, but it looks like the main guy isn't a wimp. And there's a fantastic setting. I'm getting Daimaou vibes.

And now the best good news: Dog Days returns. I sure hope it isn't a disappointment.

UPDATE: One danger sign on Hagure Yuusha no Estetica: the main guy's voice was also the voice of Leicester in Shukufuku no Campanella. He's a good actor, but it's not the voice of a gar hero, which is what the character appears to be. I would have preferred a baritone.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:52 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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I just added an entry to the Wild Mass Guessing page for Mouretsu Pirates:

Marika's entire crew is ringers

Every last one of them were replaced at the hospital. But the ringers don't all work for the same illuminati, which is why they're working to expose each other.

• And now you know the real explanation for Courier!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I wish I could read Marika's upgrade plan. We know that it involves a huge increase in comm, but it would be nice to know what else she's thinking about.

The nicest thing there, of course, is Marika's cutesy drawing of herself as a signature. It's one of the very few times that Marika has permitted herself to be girlie while in the job as captain.

That picture stirred some memories of other notes with similar signatures. One was in Nanoha A's:

That one's Hayate. And then there was Reki:

Which is not at all the same!

I have a very vague memory that there may have been something like that in Hand Maid May, too, but I may be remembering a chibi instead. (And I don't feel like looking for it.)

Can anyone think of other examples like this?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:32 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Ep 21:

Ep 22:

In episode 22 they switched Marika's costume back to the old version. I wonder why?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:31 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 That's just so you can tell the real Marika from the clone... 

I guess that for 22 they accidentally left in an earlier version of the artwork.  All the colors also seem richer in the episode 21 screenshot, though that could be due to random differences in the JPEG conversion between each shot.

Posted by: Siergen at June 16, 2012 07:32 PM (PuIGa)

2

It's not just that ED. In the show itself she's wearing the old uniform, too.

It's possible it's just a production mistake. We won't know until that BD comes out and we can see if they fixed it. Or it might be a plot point, though I don't see how it could be.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 07:48 PM (+rSRq)

3 It may have been worn on the Cosplay Pirates voyage out of deference to Mami and she's just now reverted to her usual look.

It might also be slow to don and doff. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at June 18, 2012 06:36 PM (EJaOX)

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Well, they survived it. And then we got a whole lot of reveals. Yikes! Looks like they're going to give us one hell of an ending for the series. more...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:07 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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1 Is Chiaki hiding from her true feelings towards Marika?  As I recall, they do share the same cabin when's she's aboard.  Probably not, but I can always hope...

I wonder what happened to Luka, and when?  Maybe while they were in the hospital...

Posted by: Siergen at June 16, 2012 09:20 AM (PuIGa)

2 I imagine that is the story with Chiaki. It sure isn't fear of violence. Chiaki is solid as a rock when the shooting starts.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 09:47 AM (+rSRq)

3

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." -- Winston Churchill

I think that's why Hyakume was so cheerful when Bentenmaru was in the space dock. He was almost giddy.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 09:57 AM (+rSRq)

4 Marika is short a crew member now. If Marika proposes a pirate fleet action against the Grand Cross, then I bet she uses Chiaki as her navigator during that action.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 11:48 AM (+rSRq)

5 There's so much that needs to explained/resolved, and only two episodes to go!  I don't see how they can avoid leaving dangling plot threads when this season is over.  I just hope they do well enough in Japan to get picked up for a second season...

Posted by: Siergen at June 16, 2012 12:31 PM (PuIGa)

6

I have confidence in Sato. His story telling has been sure and careful all along; I don't think he's going to botch it up.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 01:06 PM (+rSRq)

7 But, well, you're right. Really does seem like there's going to have to be a huge block of exposition some time soon. Making an android duplicate of Luca and making the swap some time was a huge effor on someone's part. Why was the Bentenmaru, in particular, treated this way?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 01:32 PM (+rSRq)

8 Regarding Luca: up until the last attack on the Bentenmaru, all the pirate ships seem to have been attacked while on their way to an insurance company-sponsored job.  That made them easy to find.  The Bentenmaru was en route to a supposedly secret base, so they would have been harder to find without a spy on board.

Of course, that doesn't explain the other pirates attacked on their way to the council.  Maybe knowing the final location makes it possible to predict places where a starship will be in normal space between FTL jumps.  Space is really big, and in three dimensions, but FTL physics might preclude certain areas as safe jump points.

Posted by: Siergen at June 16, 2012 02:15 PM (PuIGa)

9

Except that the spy has to have been planted a long time ago -- and that means that it has to have been planted even longer ago.

My guess is that Luca was replaced at the hospital, and that the early-release of the animals was intended to give the bad guys the opportunity for the swap.

That was long before the Grand Cross began its predation. So there's something <i>really deep</i> going on.

I'm entertaining this theory: It is Gonzaemon as captain of Parabellum. The bad guys know he's alive, and know he's involved in something the bad guys don't want. They're picking on Marika because they're trying to lure Gonzaemon out of hiding.

But it hasn't been working, because Marika has been handling all the crises herself, without any help from him. Once it became clear that she was that formidable, the bad guys decided they needed to know more about her, and that's when they decided to plant the spy.

One possibility here is that Sato really isn't going to resolve a lot of this. Maybe Sato, and Satelight, are planning a second series, and always were planning one. That's happened before.

After all, as best we know, we aren't even into the third light novel yet, right?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 02:56 PM (+rSRq)

10 Rats. "has to have been planned even longer ago."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 02:56 PM (+rSRq)

11 The last scene of the last episode: It'll be Marika making a pirate raid, and the last line will be Saa! Kaizoku no Jikan da!

Of that I'm certain. But I'm almost as certain it'll be Marika and someone else saying that together. I used to think it would be Marika and Ririka. Now I'm thinking it's going to be Marika and Chiaki. I think that Chiaki is going to become part of the crew of Bentenmaru. (Best case, Chiaki will be wearing the miko costume.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 03:23 PM (+rSRq)

12 "Send it to our lady on the outside."  Would that be Ririka?  Also, judging by the reacton of the guy in the booth when he saw Courier's ear ring, the Bentenmaru has gotten itself one HELL of a reputation.

Posted by: Dave Young at June 16, 2012 05:19 PM (ZAk0Z)

13 Hyakume was referring to Courier, who was outside the space dock.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 16, 2012 05:40 PM (+rSRq)

14 Yeah, that's logical.  The second guy repeating the phrase the way he did led me to believe there was some deeper meaning to it...but the simpler answer makes more sense.  Reading too much into a piece of throw-away dialog.

Posted by: Dave Young at June 16, 2012 06:40 PM (ZAk0Z)

15

Bentenmaru fired on Grand Cross, but there's no way Grand Cross took enough damage to prevent it from continuing to fight.

True, but Grand Cross does seem to need a cool-down period  and/or its dervish maneuver takes a huge amount of energy and can only be maintained for a limited time. Benten Maru's escape may indeed have been legit.

Regards Kane: In the first episode he seemed initially unimpressed with this part of space and Sea of Morningstar in particular, like he was slumming. Perhaps he's from the Parrabellum's stomping grounds and this is Hicksville by comparison.

In the preview: It does appear that Quartz Christie makes an appearance at the meeting. I don't think the fight is actually between Ironbeard and Ririka, it's a quick edit, however, on Crunchyroll @ 23:53 Ironbeard seems to be bowing before Quartz Christie (that does appear to be her posterior).

Regards Chikaki under the sheets, Siergen, you have...issues. It's obviously that she does not like Brussles Sprouts and the  Legendary Chef  has announced he is going to fix them.
^{(full disclosure: that last bit's not actually obvious at all)}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at June 17, 2012 12:46 AM (EJaOX)

16 I have 2 things to say about this episode:

One: this came very close to being a "wham episode" and misses only because of the excellent foreshadowing.  That it wasn't such didn't lessen the enjoyment at all.

Two: I have obtained proof positive that inanimate devices have personalities.  Evil ones.

Posted by: ubu at June 17, 2012 11:50 AM (GfCSm)

17 On the Light Novels:

I believe the Yacht Club goes Pirating was the entire 3rd Novel, so they've knocked off Novels 1-3.  Since that ended, it's been anime original.  However, per information, Novels 4-6 are one entire story arc, just in 3 parts, and 7 & 8 operate in a changed environment from the end of 6.  (Though I have no idea if part of this story is out of Novel 7) 

So, there's a ton of content for another 2 course show (LN 4-6 or 4-7), if the series was profitable enough.  They're not really boxing themselves in, either.  Though events do diverge a bit between the LN and the Anime a decent bit.

Posted by: sqa at June 17, 2012 12:48 PM (/vL6w)

18 You're right, I just looked again. The second LN is Golden Ghost Ship. The third LN is Hakuoh Pirates.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 17, 2012 02:11 PM (+rSRq)

19 "It's obviously that she does not like Brussles Sprouts and the  Legendary Chef  has announced he is going to fix them."

It's most likely something of that general nature--something that pokes a hole in her aloof act.

Posted by: jcm3 at June 17, 2012 07:23 PM (OU30d)

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Another show that seems like it will have at least some images I can use. For those scoring this at home, this is the harem show from last year where one of the haremettes is a ten year old nun, who is a teacher at the school because she's a genius.

When this show originally ran, that simple fact was enough to melt the squick meter, so I never bothered watching it. I now learn that she isn't the worst squick in the show. Our Hero's younger sister has a bro-con. (Good Lord.)

But I'm still looking for plunder, and some of the girls are pretty good looking, so tonight I started going through it.

These are the two main girls in the show, Yozora and Sena. Work with me here: Yozora is the childhood friend. She's trying to rekindle a long lost crush with Our Hero. She's also a bit evil; she enjoys twisting the knife after she's stuck it between someone's ribs.

Sena has the biggest breasts in the club. She's rich, and she's the school idol. She's Yozora's preferred target for those knives I mentioned.

I suddenly realized I'd seen that all before, in a previous plundering expedition:

Tomomi and Selnia, from Ladies versus Butlers. Tomomi is the childhood friend. She's also evil and likes knifing people. Selnia is rich, the school idol, and Tomomi's main target. Also, Selnia has the biggest breasts in the school. Tomomi also knifes Our Hero, but secretly she's sweet on him and hopes to build some sort of relationship with him.

At first glance, they're the same characters (albeit with all the boobs reduced several steps, and without the hair drills). And it's the same relationship between them.

I haven't gotten very far in this show yet, and I think I'm going to do it with sound off and subtitles disabled and try, try to ignore such story as comes through just from the images. I may also skip around a bit. (Episode 8 is a swimming pool, and I think ep 9 is onsen. Ep 10 is beach. Ep 11 is summer festival. They got all the obligatory episodes in, didn't they?)

And I think I won't grab any pictures of the loli nun. Sena is the best cheesecake in the show, so I'm mainly looking for good images of her.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My general rule is that if one of the blogs I follow goes a full month without posting, then their link falls off my daily visit list and goes into the "dormant" folder, which I go into about once a year.

As I write this, it's been five and a half weeks since Beta-Waffle has posted anything. Problem is, I don't want to put that link into the graveyard. Anyone know what's going on with DiGiKerot? (Did something bad happen to him? If so, is there anything I can do to help?)

UPDATE: Meanwhile, some tremendously good news: Sixten found another job. That means he won't be deported.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 04:45 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 His twitter is at twitter.com/digikerot and sees some activity.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 15, 2012 05:25 PM (5OBKC)

2 I rarely visit blogs "personally" - I just subscribe to the RSS feed and let Google Reader handle it from there.

Posted by: gaiaswill at June 15, 2012 05:36 PM (ar9uP)

3 Steven can keep dead blogs in a folder of a feedreader, I'm sure, but the question is about the blogroll rotation. I purge inactive blogs from blogroll too.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 15, 2012 06:07 PM (5OBKC)

4

I don't do RSS.

I don't do Facebook or Twitter, either. I'm an atavism, you damn punk kids. Get off my lawn.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 15, 2012 07:20 PM (+rSRq)

5 Oh, gosh darn it, I only thought it was about two weeks since I posted last. Doesn't time fly and all that...

Basically, I herniated a disk carrying my luggage back from an anime convention about eight weeks ago at this point, and it's still giving me some grief. It's pretty uncomfortable to maintain my usual drawing position for long enough to actually draw something, and otherwise I've just been kind of feeling too frazzled at the end of the work day to finish typing anything up. Throw in a few other diversions (spent most of last weekend in a London cinema - the most recent Ghibli flick was much better than I was expecting, lots of Mikan boxes), and it's just really been a case of trying to find both the time and something to post, as opposed to an intended absence.

I'll totally find the time to post at least something this weekend. Probably not something interesting, but at least something...

Posted by: DiGiKerot at June 15, 2012 09:07 PM (dXIkx)

6 I'm glad you're not dead, and I wasn't trying to nag.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 15, 2012 09:32 PM (+rSRq)

7 My sympathy.  I herniated a disk back in March. It's not a lot of fun.

Also, mikan boxes, yay!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 16, 2012 10:29 AM (PiXy!)

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Well, things have sure turned dark with this episode. Two more episodes, so we're in the final arc.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 01:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I figured out how to prevent the 16-ounce Marie Collander chicken pies from burning in my microwave. The manual says it's 1100 watts, but I think it may be a bit hotter than that. The new version of the MC chicken pie says you should cook for nine and a half to ten and a half minutes, but when I cooked for more than about seven and a half, the rim would burn to charcoal.

Here's the solution. You carefully pry the pan off before cooking. Then you bend the rim down all around. Put it back in the box, cut a slot in the top, and with that I'm able to cook them for eight and a half minutes with almost no burning.

Meanwhile, a picture that may make some people cringe, below the fold.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 11:19 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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