Hello everybody, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today I’m excited to dive back into Marika’s celestial adventures, as we join her intrepid team for another episode of Bodacious Space Pirates. The show’s previous episode served as the climax of its second mini-arc, as Marika, Chiaki, and their classmates managed to fend off an enemy boarding attempt, making excellent use of resident tech expert Lynn’s hacking skills, as well as Marika’s own confidence and quick thinking. Having passed what was essentially her pirate captaining practical exam, Marika has also come to a personal decision: she’s ready to take on her father’s legacy, and assume leadership of the Bentenmaru.

Of course, we’ve still got some preparations to consider before setting sail on that great starry sky. For one thing, Marika should probably set about actually recruiting her yacht club classmates, who’ve already proven they’re pretty much bridge-ready. And also, apparently Chiaki is a pirate captain too? That seems worth investigating. Regardless, the sails are beginning to unfurl above our young leads, and I’m eager to see their journey begin. Let’s get to it!

Episode 6

We open on the narrator once more impressing upon us the absurd danger of space, where the environment around you is utterly inhospitable to human life, and a single mistake or oversight can cost your entire crew their lives. The inherent danger of space is a tricky thing in narrative drama, because while it’s ever-present, it’s not really visually or dramatically apparent that characters are in danger until suddenly they’re dead

The work of fighting back against the inherent danger of space is crucial, but largely invisible, and is more about preparing in order to avoid bad outcomes than actively grappling with them. As a result, most space dramas tend to either focus on overt combat between ships, or ratchet up the frequency of disasters in space, while downplaying their generally fatal consequences. Bodacious Space Brothers is doing neither – it is instead attempting to educate us, the audience, on the genuine complexity and difficulty of surviving in space. By doing this, it can then offer more realistically grounded conflicts that still possess a sense of urgency and tactical coherency for the audience, because we’ve been actively taught to understand the significance of these conflicts

In addition to helping the audience understand these hard scifi conflicts, storytelling of this sort also benefits from another base quirk of human psychology: it is fun to learn things, and fun to put things we’ve learned into practice. There’s a natural sense of satisfaction born from seeing a conflict introduced, and immediately knowing something of its contours, threat, and potential resolution via the knowledge the show has imparted on us. It’s a trick you commonly see in sports or shonen anime (which frequently have to establish the game-like terms of their drama), but it also applies to things like general worldbuilding, or our knowledge of characters. There’s a unique sense of satisfaction and almost kinship with a story in seeing a character walk through a door and thinking “oh, that bastard is going to completely fuck up this situation”

The transition out of our previous arc is completed by the first cut of this episode, panning us down from the sky to Marika’s planet

After taking so many steps forward into the unknown world of pirating, Marika recenters herself by going on a beach date with her friend from school

Unfortunately, her crew have other plans. These G-men politely handing her friend an inflatable dolphin is a great gag

It’s everyone’s favorite part of a space journey – visiting government agencies to make sure all your forms are in order!

I really should have expected that Bodacious Space Pirates would somehow include a trip to the spaceship DMV. This is a special show

Oh man, I love the distinct architecture of all these water-born cities. Combining these narrow canals with ramshackle, vertically stacked apartments is a beautiful trick

The diversity of architectural styles represented just on Marika’s planet is making me very excited for this show’s future adventures. I also appreciate that even in the context of a “water planet,” the show understands that an entire planet wouldn’t possess one specific architectural style

Apparently the Bentenmaru’s got to get pirating in the next fifty days, or Marika’s Letter of Marque is rescinded

Keeping this held shot on Marika’s face as everyone dumps their expectations on her is a good choice. Really emphasizes how alone she feels now

We jump to the Bentenmaru in flight with Marika at the helm, and suddenly they’re under attack! A funny consequence of Bodacious Space Pirates’ incredibly grounded, methodical approach to worldbuilding and conflict is that it’s obvious from moment one that this is a nightmare, because this show would never introduce a conflict with this little setup, or present a bridge with only one officer commanding the vessel

Ah, it’s a simulation, not a dream

“A captain must be able to laugh and make decisions, even at the toughest times.” I like it when shows emphasize that an important part of being strong is presenting strength, to encourage or impress those around you

It must feel pretty embarrassing to be the “trainee” on your own pirate vessel

A wonderful range of designs for the Bentenmaru crew. This show is completely unafraid of bombarding the audience with a large amount of new characters or information at once, which makes think it was probably adapted from a particularly dense series of light novels, like Crest of the Stars

Apparently Chiaki is the daughter of the Barbalusa’s captain, so her situation is a bit less urgent than Marika’s

Seeing Marika overwhelm Chiaki with affection is a very funny twist on the classic Kirk-Spock dynamic. Replacing Kirk with a genki heroine and Spock with her kuudere glasses-pushing rival is goddamn inspired

“The colonies’ war for independence began at the Sea of the Morningstar.” Interesting

Apparently pirates were initially given Letters of Marque by colonies seeking independence, but eventually the Galactic Empire swept over both sides of this conflict

Considering these pirates’ initial role as supplementary forces in an old war has long been irrelevant, I’m interesting in seeing exactly who they’re legally allowed to plunder from

Marika and Chiaki’s discussions regarding the vastness of space works as a tidy enough metaphor for the sense of disorientation anyone feels stepping into their adult life, and being forced to reorient themselves to the vastly broadened scale of their new surroundings. That said, I think it actually works even better on its immediate, literal level; this show is very good about observing and articulating elements of space travel that are often overlooked, and the weirdness of orienting yourself relative to an entirely new conception of ground and sky is a good example

Chiaki is constantly caught off guard by the disconnect between Marika’s carefree behavior and underlying thoughtfulness

Marika’s passing all their tests, but as Misa points out, you can’t really become a rebel leader by passing exams

They’ll be doing a practical ship boarding now, including some swordsmanship, because “pirates use swords,” of course

Based on the responses of these luxury cruise passengers, it seems like pirate attacks are at this point a rare and valued form of diversion on long space rides

I like how she gets more confident and starts embellishing as her speech continues

I guess this goes some distant to explain their mismatched, outlandish costumes – they are essentially performing artists

Hah, I love her theatrical bow with the cape while introducing herself

I guess if insurance covers everything and pirates are legally obligated not to genuinely hurt anyone, why wouldn’t you just kick back and enjoy getting raided by pirates?

Wait, no, Kane just faked getting shot, I guess pirates can hurt you

And Done

And so Marika has completed her first pirating mission! While this episode moved Bodacious Space Pirates’ overarching narrative forward a lot faster than I was expecting, I’m ultimately left with even more questions than I started with. With piracy no longer serving any larger political purpose, it appears that it’s been left to linger as a sort of “cultural tradition” the galactic empire offers limited approval to – but does that mean pirates are legally allowed to steal from the empire’s own ships? Marika’s first raid felt more like performance art than thievery, but given the scale of the Bentenmaru and its crew, it seems like they’d have to commit crimes on a greater scale than “everyone empty your pockets” to keep the ship floating. I’m not really skeptical so much as just very curious, as this show has gone to great lengths in terms of fleshing out its conflicts and worldbuilding up until now, and I’m eager to gain a fuller picture of how her new career actually works. The days of pirating have finally begun!

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