You folks ready to explore a ghost ship? Having outwitted Serenity’s forces and survived a goddamn rip in space itself, the Bentenmaru and her crew have at last arrived on the golden ghost ship, and are preparing to disembark. As we recently learned, the ghost ship is in fact a generation ship, housing countless bodies that may yet be held in cold sleep, just waiting to be revived. Of course, that reveal only prompts a handful of further questions, like why exactly all these residents of Serenity agreed to this voyage, or why the true nature of this ship has been so successfully obscured. Even Gruier has yet to reveal her motives here, though it’s not hard to imagine how the sudden reappearance of millions of Serenity citizens might impact the nation’s succession conflict. With the answers presumably lurking within the bowels of this mighty ship, let’s not waste any more time, and step onboard the golden ghost ship of Serenity!

Episode 12

The narrator announces that this ship “once carried the people of Serenity.” So presumably it’s now empty, having deposited the people of Serenity at their current home

Also, unusually for this show, the cold open is actually just immediate recap rather than exposition. We’ve finally hit the point where the narrative’s urgency outweighs the need for supplementary worldbuilding

The OP always promises all these wacky shenanigans, but Bodacious Space Pirates itself is about as grounded as possible, with the only hint of bombast coming from their intentionally theatrical boarding operations. It’s like the author really just wanted to make hard scifi adventures, but included the teen girls conceit to keep his editor happy

Not that I’m unhappy Marika is here. I’m more frustrated when a show’s cast are all teenagers just because that’s how it is in anime – in this show, Marika’s youth is a genuine dramatic concern, and treated as seriously as the rest of the narrative

The ghost ship looks even more beautiful in subspace, with its intricate lattice work bathed in green and gold light

The show is doing some interesting tricks with lighting in the interior. Because it’s an entirely CG docking bay, they can actually make use of computer-generated light sources, and let the light fall across the environment as it would naturally. It creates an eerie effect, and more practically, the general darkness of this bay helps obscure the limitations of the CG models

As ever, Bodacious Space Pirates is full of well-observed practical reflections on space travel, like the importance of collectively agreeing on what is “up” and “down” in a zero gravity environment

“What you can’t do for yourself, you can rely on others for.” Marika is just an absurdly good natural leader. We already learned from the yacht club that she didn’t really need any training, but she keeps demonstrating a temperament that you’d expect would only come from long experience. She has total confidence in her own decision-making, but at the same time, absolutely no ego about asking for help when she’s out of her depth

Lots of good lighting tricks in general this episode, like their flashlights refracting off their helmets

Apparently, another ship is also attached to the ghost ship

Watching their investigation makes me realize one way space travel is very convenient for animation: when characters are floating in zero gravity, you don’t need to animate run cycles for them

Marika has no interest in getting the ship running, she just wants the treasure. Even in here, she’s acutely aware of the time restrictions on their mission

I really like these shots of the crew floating in front of the ship’s vast interior windows. They do an excellent job of maintaining the scale of the ghost ship, and are also just evocative compositions in their own right

“So they know where we are? Well, there’s nothing we can do about that.” One of Marika’s greatest strengths is her ability to instantly compartmentalize information that she has no useful response to. You can’t avoid risk as a goddamn space pirate, so if there’s a risk she can’t do anything about, she simply tucks it away and refuses to stress over it

The ship’s center is a sprawling artificial city, now overtaken by vegetation

Gruier asks Marika what has “universal value,” value that can never be diminished

Most of the ship’s traditional “treasure” has already been looted from its vaults by Serenity’s government, over years of financial crises

We’re just getting a buffet of impressive backgrounds in the heart of this ship. Someone on the art team loves wild geometric patterns; both the cityscape and the sleeper chamber are overwhelming jungles of metal pillars, all stretching towards the central column

Both the final locking mechanism and the edifice behind it are modeled as pink roses, which are presumably the insignia of Serenity’s royal family. They’ve also been leaning into some metaphors about Marika and Gruier looking like a prince and princess, and this motif furthers that metaphor with classic Sleeping Beauty imagery, something Gruier herself alluded to with “in olden days, this rose would have asked for a drop of blood.” The ghost ship is essentially framed as Sleeping Beauty’s glass casket – pricking your finger on the rose activates the ship/curse, sending all the ship’s inhabitants into a deep sleep

Oh wow. The giant rose is actually an artificial womb

That’s quite a secret: the royal family was born out of this womb, complete with customized genes

Ooh, I like these panning shots across the group as they prepare for battle. The large party can be split into multiple planes that rotate at different speeds which, along with the static guard rail and background, allow for rapid panning movement without requiring any redraws. With a touch of soft focus, the effect is quite convincing

“When the people of Serenity ceased to need the royal family, our purpose was over!” Gruier’s words fit everything into place. She wants to dismantle this thing, and thereby free the people of Serenity from the inevitability of divine rulers; but of course, everyone else within the royal family presumably enjoys their station, and has no interest in surrendering to democracy. I expected a coup against the royal family, but it turns out Gruier herself was the one essentially performing the coup, by attempting to destroy the source of her family’s power

I love these quick cuts as the two princesses argue, reflecting how Marika and her crew have very different immediate priorities – they’re sizing up the battle to come, and preparing for their moment

This contrast is great. Gruier and her sister argue as if they’re actually going to change each other’s minds, but everyone around them is quietly preparing for war. Every other person in this room understands that disputes like this are not settled through debate: whatever the merits of their positions, this is a power struggle, and only power will decide its outcome

Ahaha, Marika opens the fight by straight-up swatting Gruier to the ground

Both of the princesses are immediately gassed to sleep, and miss the fight entirely. Beautiful

Some nice character acting for Gruier, as she runs through phases of anger, surprise, recognition, and resigned acceptance in response to Marika tricking her

Apparently, Gruier’s mission was unnecessary: the bio-plant only had a single charge left anyway. The final member of Serenity’s royal family has been born!

And Done

Goddamn you, Bodacious Space Pirates! After all that time hyping up the ghost ship, it turns out Marika actually resolved this conflict by email about four episodes ago, and has since mostly just been humoring Gruier. It was certainly a bit anticlimactic, but also characteristically Bodacious Space Pirates – Marika never would have entered this ship without a clear plan, and the only reason she accepted Gruier’s evasiveness was because her victory didn’t require Gruier’s assistance. Like all great thieves, Marika plans to have escaped with the loot before her enemy even knows she’s there, and this mission has proven she has both the intelligence and mettle to thrive as a pirate. Marika’s Bentenmaru scores its first major victory!

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