Forum - View topicREVIEW: Bodacious Space Pirates Blu-Ray 1
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4074 |
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My complaint of the series, and the one that's preventing me from watching more than one episode at a time {even now, I'm still only at episode 16 or so and it's been in my Hulu list for as long as it's been streamed} is that while they are very fine characters, well drawn and developed, they don't do anything interesting.
Save a planet, fight a real battle, get a pirate rival, romance a governor's daughter/son/whatever, do actual piracy that's more than a stage production or find buried treasure that's more than metaphorical in a race against someone that's an actual opponent - something that's, you know, plot worthy to being a pirate. Or a spaceship captain. Or main character. It looks great with some fine music over the beginning narration and a great opener but I find myself usually just stopping after the opener. It's nice, yes, but that's not enough.
I loved Crest of the Stars and that was a 12 episode series about one space battle, one betrayal and one escape surrounded by a lot of politics. But that one had actual stakes, lives in danger and a bit of romance; Oddly enough, all stuff from more typical pirate fare. I would amend the flaws to "light on true plot" because even if you have some of the best characters around, if the best thing they can do is stand around explaining what they see on the viewscreen, you're better off with Star Trek. Also, there's never any doubt that she can't captain a pirate ship. I know it's a Japanese thing about bloodlines giving descendants informed abilities, I just don't believe being a swashbuckler is one of them. She got charisma and her quick thinking ability from her mother while she got her father's ... ship so she's the captain? |
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Panzer Vor
 Posts: 648 |
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Pretty odd definition of electronic warfare that you're using. Even if you can't hack into aircraft or ships and override their controls, there's still a lot of things you can do to screw with things like communications, sensors, and weapons guidance without having to remotely access their systems. That's how real electronic warfare is done now, and that's how it will be done in the future. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18168 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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No, there's most definitely a clear plot in both main arcs. Every episode contributes to those plots and no episode (in this half, anyway) involves the characters just doing aimless things. There might not be an overall plot at this point, but the story arcs are solid. Thus the criticism on the series progressing its plots slowly, rather than actually being light on plot, is accurate.
I may be misunderstanding your complaint here, but the series is quite specific about explaining why she's the captain because it's her father's ship. The Letters of Marque are very particular about being passed down through bloodlines, and the writing either outright states or strongly implies that this was done that way partly as a limiting factor on any unintended expansion of pirating rights and partly to allow the government to gradually wheedle the pirate numbers down over time via attrition while still keeping them under regulation. (That is almost certainly why the Odette II isn't active anymore as a pirate ship, for instance.) |
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誤称
Posts: 549 |
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Except that all of those things ARE done in this series. Maybe not quite as cleaning or obviously as they would be in a more traditional space drama, but Marika and her crew do save a planet (Serenity's), fight a real battle (the end of the series is a sequence of battles), there is arguably a yuri relationship blooming between Princess Serenity and Marika, and find "buried treasure" by finding the Serenity clone-ship in the event horizon thing. Never mind that Marika and Chiaki are from "rival" pirate families. Your complaint is rather baseless. Did you actually watch this show? |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Even if it were a heavy plot, I expressed in the Shelf Life response that I don't feel any of the importance of it. Serenity is saved offscreen, and all of the political turmoil is also offscreen. We only ever hear or know it from the princesses' mentioning. That's part of why I felt let down during the Golden Ghost mini-arc, aside from them cutting away from the action and the exploration of this massive super colony being reduced to a mere 20 minutes. I had trouble really finding any tension in this series, or finding the stakes for the characters to be anything but fluff. It's not a serious show, but it wants to be.
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Lynx Amali
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You mention Serenity but don't mention Chiaki? OK. 
Fun show, albeit rather slow. That's the issue with the novels too. The pacing is pretty slow but the payoff's pretty good, assuming you stick with it. Still sad about Rial doing the role she got. For some reason, I pictured her doing Chiaki. Would've preferred that actually. Either way, excited for my copy to arrive. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18168 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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While Monica has shown that she can do lower-pitched roles, she typically only gets them if a series has a heavy female cast but a dearth of high-pitched roles (see Claymore). Chiaki's voice is more of a middle pitch, and BSP has a wealth of higher-pitched female roles, hence there was never any chance that Monica would be Chiaki. I think she fits better as Gruier anyway, even if she did have trouble consistently pronouncing her name correctly. (But she wasn't the only one who struggled with that.) |
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getchman
 Space CowboyPosts: 9120 Location: Bedford, NH |
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speaking of pronunciation, no one but Kane ever pronounced Chiaki correctly.
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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At the risk of restating Key's points, did you even watch the show? Real battles are fought (especially in the next set), Marika has a romance/rivalry with Chiaki (and Griuer wants to jump her bones baaaaad) and in the next set there's even a completely non-metaphorical race! |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Not to mention that bazillion dollar intergalactic company's daughter doing some romancing.... |
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ShinnFlowen
 Posts: 141 |
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I've only watched the first 6 episodes from my disc, but the whole electronic warfare doesn't last the whole series so it should be a temporary nuisance. I think it was the lack of adrenaline pumping action with space ships that made the whole electronic warfare boring.
It isn't as bad as saying a mad man got 10,000 people as his hostages and the world could do nothing for 2 years for SAO. |
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Nandosagi
Posts: 36 |
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I'm disappointed to hear this series only got what sounds like an average dub. I actually thought Sentai's dub of UN-GO was quite good, with only Ross Bautsch as Seigen Hayami sticking out as poor, so color me a bit surprised to hear about the quality of this and Penguindrum.
Anyway, getting off the quality of Sentai's work and onto the actual series, I enjoyed this as simple, lighthearted fare when it was streaming. It is indeed slow for much of the series, but I would urge anyone who maintains at least a passing interest to go all the way through. The Quartz Christie arc at the end of the series is significantly different and fulfills a lot more of peoples' expectations; I was watching one episode a day in the previous arcs but the final arc got me interested enough to marathon it. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Oh, I know what real electronic warfare entails. But it seemed like Theron was praising all the electronic warfare that the show did, including (and by the context of his words, especially) the hacking seen in the early episodes. That's why I said something. |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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...Okay, off topic, but..... what was wrong with the Canaan dub?! No, I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I watched that and thought it was one of Sentai's best dubs yet. That's been the general consensus of most of the people I know who have heard it as well. At the time, it was pretty much on par with anything FUNi had put out that year. 
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Theron seemed to like the CANAAN dub. He gave the dub the same grade as the sub, and said:
That certainly doesn't sound like a dub so bad it should be mentioned in the same breath as Guin Saga Part 2. So yeah, maybe he was just misremembering something. |
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