Folks, I think it’s about time for more Bodacious Space Pirates. This show hasn’t really taught me anything about the meaning of life yet, and it’s actually been mostly my comment section that has been teaching me about the meaning of piracy, but Bodacious Space Pirates is a very entertaining time, and I’m happy to return to it. When last we left off, Marika was at last starting to crack through the emotional defenses of her new classmate Chiaki, as the pair of them prepared to fend off an electronic assault on their class ship-slash-pirate relic. Having already demonstrated her strong piloting skills in the first episode, it seems like it’s time to test her leadership, quick thinking, and courage under pressure all at once. Let’s get to the pirating!

Episode 3

“The Odette II Leaves Port!” is a promising episode title

I’ll be interested in seeing how this show makes electronic warfare visually exciting. As they say, hacking enemy ships would be an integral part of space piracy, but film and television frequently fail in finding an exciting way to convey a hacking battle. One of the few counterexamples I can think of is Evangelion, largely due to the dramatic strength of its diverse bridge screen readouts

Marika intuitively understands the importance of symbols and leadership. Even though there’s only the two of them, she demands they open with a “Begin operation!” or something of the sort

Chiaki’s framing of electronic warfare as quiet and subtle feels like a rebuke not just of Marika’s methods, but her whole personality

The attack begins with a familiar visual trick – a rapidly opening series of new windows in Chiaki’s monitors, implying a fast and thorough invasion

Apparently the ship’s own systems are perfectly capable of handling the hack. Very charmed by Marika just cheering the computer on at this point

Some nice open compositions and backgrounds as we return planetside. This planet’s quasi-Venician architecture aligns neatly with this story’s focus on piracy and classic adventure structure; this feels like a “port city” in the old fashioned sense, even if the seas these characters will be sailing are up in the stars

Having learned a bit more about the history of professional piracy, all these outsiders’ interest in Marika makes a great deal more sense. Marika is the inheritor of a very rare and valuable pirating license; there are legal pirates, but only so many Letters of Marque are given out, and the fate of hers is currently up in the air

Chiaki advises Marika to just embrace destiny and be a pirate

Marika’s own lack of reaction to these absurd events transpiring around her makes it hard to feel much urgency or tension regarding this narrative. I wonder if that’s intentional? It does seem like the show is deliberately downplaying the inherent danger of piracy, or presenting it as a totally farcical occupation. That does successfully make this feel like a fairly breezy and upbeat adventure, but it can also make it tougher to invest in Marika herself, since her reactions feel almost inhumanly calm

I like this conversation with her normal friend from school. Marika’s confession that her friend helps keep her grounded is a nice way of conveying that she is genuinely anxious about this situation

It’s an interesting balance – more vulnerability from Marika makes her more compelling as a protagonist, but simultaneously makes her adventure feel less lighthearted and larger-than-life, which is clearly an effect the show is also going for. There are no hard narrative rules when it comes to balancing tonal and characterization decisions like this; at times, storytelling can be very much like cooking, where you’re actively managing contrasting balances all throughout. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful character arc might be a core structural issue, but it can also be a “pinch of salt” situation, where that character perhaps needed just two more earnest personal moments

Marika only really seems to express much doubt when it comes to her mother. She’s happy to instigate electronic warfare, less comfortable telling her mom about how her day went

Ah, the joy of finishing exams. Few things can ever feel as satisfyingly concluded as a school year; in adulthood, our challenges tend to not include clear expiration dates

It’s time for the club trip! As always, Bodacious Space Pirates’ skies look tremendously inviting; you can always see the stars waiting beyond the clouds, ready to be explored

This show is really taking a lot of time to set up the mechanics of space travel in this universe, which makes for an interesting mix with its inherently farcical style. In our current era of mostly single cour shows, you wouldn’t generally see pacing like this

The CG holds up quite well. They seem to have smartly blurred the edges of these CG ships, letting them visually bleed into the background in a way that mitigates much of the usual disconnect between CG and traditional animation

CG also just looks better moving over strict darkness then it does moving over a fully hand-drawn scene, as Simoun is all too happy to demonstrate

I’m actually quite enjoying how thoroughly the team is explaining the course and potential dangers of their school trip. This feels like the establishing sequences of a sports drama, where the mechanics of play are explained fully enough for the audience to meaningfully invest in the back and forth of future conflicts – in this case, the relatively low-stakes school trip is a fine opportunity to teach the audience the dramatic fundamentals of space travel

The ship runs into trouble before they even truly launch, as the process of raising their masts hits a snag. Of course ships in the show about Space Piracy would have Space Masts

Even this active conflict is teaching us more about the complexity of making these ships fly. Sports narratives are kind of like videogames; the more complex the systems the audience/player is taught to appreciate, the more satisfaction they will receive from demonstrating mastery, whether “demonstrating mastery” means actively completing a challenge, or simply comprehending the finer points of a complex on-screen exchange

Kane is surprised by the design of modern spacesuits

They spend an interesting amount of time focusing on the reasons you might separate communications into different channels, making me assume that will somehow end up being key to this episode’s conflict. Presumably they’re going to be ambushed when they leave the ship

I love the collective, echoing “ehhhhhh” as all the girls are informed their personal readings will be included in the ship’s log

We’re emphasizing some often overlooked elements of space travel here; this sequence of the room depressurizing, after all that focus on making sure your helmet is correctly sealed, is pretty intense

Nice sound design. The commotion of the ship opening up is replaced by the dull hum of the helmet’s interior, emphasizing the claustrophobia and loneliness of this experience

I like how much emphasis this sequence is giving on the simple wonder of space, and the absurd scale of the ships we place within it. It’s something I also appreciated in Crest of the Stars – many properties have a tendency to make their immediate fantastical assumptions, things like “we’re in space” or “we can fly,” feel mundane. But there is magic in those basic conceits, if you’re able to convey it

Once again, Marika demonstrates quick, confident decision-making

Kane is smartly using this trip to both coach and test Marika

“Sea of the Morningstar is pretty. But it’s so small.” SHE’S CATCHING THE BUG

And Done

Heck yeah! That was easily Bodacious Space Pirates’ strongest episode yet, and went a long way towards answering my concerns regarding its narrative trajectory and dramatic grounding. This show’s relatively light characterization and outright farcical storytelling had left me wondering until now what sturdy, consequential narrative elements this show would be centering its drama on. This episode’s answer seemed to be “the carefully articulated mechanics of space travel itself,” with its introduction to Marika’s club trip serving as an engaging and creative statement of intent. Additionally, Marika herself is also starting to come into closer focus, and proving herself to be a natural-born leader. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode’s close examination of the complexity of simply activating one of these massive ships, and am eager to see where this club adventure goes!

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