Usually I look forward to each episode of Mouretsu Pirates and count down the minutes until the next episode is ready. But this time I felt dread.

I needn't have; it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But it's still scary.

I've got a prediction: The caped man from the bar is the one standing on top of the last ship that showed up. Ririka is piloting that ship. And yeah, it's Gonzaemon.

One more prediction: Gonzaemon is a full-replacement cyborg now. That's why he didn't need a space suit. He was massively wounded in an assassination attempt, which is why Marika became captain. The only way to save his life was to rebuild him completely, but it was going to take too long to keep the Letter of Marque fresh.

We've now seen several pirate captains, and they are middle aged or older men who are massively macho. I wonder if Marika is the only female pirate captain out there? It was fun watching her talking to the other captain; she didn't let herself be intimidated at all by him. (Nor should she. She's young, but time will cure that. She's clearly qualified, and she commands a good ship and a good crew, and she's already done some pretty amazing things. She has nothing apologize for.)

No clue yet about just who it is that's hunting pirates. Whoever she is (and it's a woman), she's got one hell of an amazing battleship. It's immense and it's terrifically powerful. It's also strange; how does it move the way it does? Why did it power down for a while?

The other one? A complete mystery. Likely it opposes the first mystery ship, but we won't know that until next episode.

Lynn seems to know about the pirate hunters. Presumably that scene of her was foreshadowing. I assume she'll be hacking, and will call Marika with critical information she's stolen at some key point.

Doesn't it seem as if we've lost a bunch of time? The Hakuoh Pirates arc took place at the beginning of Marika's second year as a student, and it seems as if this story is taking place near the end of her second year. Marika's been chosen to be president of the yacht club, and Lynn is going to attend the same university as Jenny. We seem to have skipped ahead about 9 months, maybe more. If so, they may have started receiving payment from Jenny, which may be why Schnitzer was talking about potential weapons upgrades.

Chiaki is going to be in the next episode, which suits me fine. It makes sense. A pirate hunter is just as much of a threat to Barbarossa as to Bentenmaru, and Chiaki makes sense as a liason. She knows Marika, and the two are friends. (Though if you asked Chiaki that straight out, she'd get all flustered and deny it.)

And Gruier is going to be involved in all this somehow. I can't imagine how yet, but she's one of the major characters in the series and they won't waste her. Sending out the Serendipity Navy doesn't seem likely; they aren't her toys and they have work to do. And friendship notwithstanding, it isn't Gruier's fight.

I'm back to eagerly anticipating the next episode.

The conversation between Marika and Kane was interesting. She is, eventually, going to have to decide whether she's a land-lubber who works in space, or a spaceman (woman) who sometimes visits planets. When she graduates from high school, will she start to think of Bentenmaru as her home, the way her crew does? Yes, of course, and we're starting to see the beginning of that process.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:20 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 533 words, total size 4 kb.