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The Winter 2012 Anime Preview Guide

I find it amusing people are taking little details so seriously in an anime called "Miniskirt Pirates" in Japan and "Bodacious Space Pirates" in America. Its obviously just a cheesy anime where you gotta suspend disbelief.

Mad_Scientist wrote:

But consider that they have a "Yacht Club" at the school in the first place, and as I understand it, real life Yacht Clubs tend to be fairly exclusive things, not something that a typical high school girl can just sign up for.

But Ririka doesn't seem to be especially wealthy. Well-off yes, but rich enough to afford to send her child to the Eton Colleges of her world? Maybe the girl got in through scholarship, but so far there's been no evidence to suggest she did.

Princess_Irene wrote:

So yes, it isn't all that much of a stretch.

Firstly, the Maine Maritime Academy is post-secondary. In other words it teaches adults, not spunky schoolchildren. There is a big difference between it having a ship and a high school having a ship.

Secondly, the ship the high school has is much, much, much larger. It was also once a Q-ship. Even with all the weapons gone you would need a large overhaul to hide this fact.

So the kids get the larger ship. That's not a very good comparison.

Theron wrote:

This episode is very much about her learning what it may mean to be a privateer ship captain...

Oh, so now she's a privateer?

The girls school having a practice ship for the yacht club that is that large doesn't bother me either. Back when I was in Jr. High, only the very best math students were allowed to take Algebra in 8th grade. The rest of us had to take it in 9th. Now that my kids are that age, Algebra in 8th grade is standard curriculum, and some advanced kids get to take it in 7th. This show takes place several hundred years in the future. I recall an episode of Star Trek: TNG when a kid that was around 8 or so was arguing with his parents about not wanting to study calculus. It stands to reason that top-level prep school in the distant future would have the tools to educate their students and prepare them for life in the galaxy. Learning how to work in space is an important part of that in a space faring society. I also have a hunch that the school was founded by the former captain of the former pirate ship.

Ririka may not seem that wealthy, but she has something that is of extreme value: she is the guardian of the heir to the captaincy of one of the original 7 pirate ships. She may not have told Marika about it, but that doesn't mean other people didn't know. Heck, I think her weapon cache in the garage suggests that the authorities were aware of the "special circumstances" surrounding their family and were willing to look the other way about her having heavy weapons for "self-defense". That probably would also play out in enrollment in an elite school.

Think about it this way: If you told someone in the mid 19th century that in 100 years, there would be vehicles that could go as fast as 100 miles per hour, and kids would be taught to operate them by public schools, they would probably thought you were out of your mind! In Moretsu Pirates, it appears that a "large vessel" space piloting license is roughly equivelent to a chauffer's license now. The teacher having one is enough to allow them to take the ship out. Remember, the girls have already learned to pilot small craft and bring them safely to land. If that is the equivelant of a driver's license, then this isn't really that much of a stretch.

Well, it is clear that many opinions differ on what they like in a show. Some don't have the patience to watch shows that have little action and take their time to develop the characters and the setting. I personally love shows like that, as long as they have enough episodes to tell their story. This one is listed as having 26, so it should be safe.

RyanSaotome wrote:

Only reason I'm watching Brave 10 is for Isanami, since she's adorable. I woulda dropped it if it was just nothing but fujoshi bait. You need the token moeblob if you want to have any kind of appeal outside of fujoshi for an anime like that.

No, I think you can have a series with sexy women that don't make you want to smack them every 5 seconds with a pimp stick and still appeal outside of fujoshi. Also, why should an action/adventure series have anything moe in it? Why can't

Learning algebra is kind of different from piloting a spaceship.

Yes, she's the heir of an important ship. So where's her bodyguards? Where's the people trying to kidnap her to gain leverage over her father? Hmm? And I don't mean right now, I mean for the last fifteen years of her life. It is apparently no secret to the various organisations about who she is, so I severely doubt they just learnt of her as soon as her father died. They probably knew for a while, so waiting all this time before striking is rather silly. And letting Marika grow up without bodyguards was a stupid idea all-round.

Her mother's weapons are at home (so are useless if they get attacked while at - say - the dentist's) and designed to take out armoured vehicles, not kidnappers. She can't protect her daughter when she's walking home from school or at the movies or whatever, which means every hired thug in the surrounding star systems could have nabbed the daughter of an influential man with contemptuous ease.

You wanna kill off someone, then don't compress that in just less than ten minutes. Its impossible to buy that. Just because they want to get to the main bout doesn't mean you can kill off characters like that in an instant.

The kids didn't look traumatized enough to make me believe that their parents were dead. I believe we'll come to that but the whole situation was so badly handled that all I could do was facedesk.

Listen to me Girls ep2

You wanna kill off someone, then don't compress that in just less than ten minutes. Its impossible to buy that. Just because they want to get to the main bout doesn't mean you can kill off characters like that in an instant.

The kids didn't look traumatized enough to make me believe that their parents were dead. I believe we'll come to that but the whole situation was so badly handled that all I could do was facedesk.

And yeah, did they even get buried or are their bodies still yet to be found? Oh yeah, they're still missing and for a reason I believe. The last thing we need is that they recover in some unknown hospital suffering from amnesia, losing all identification and coming back in a year or two when they remember who they are while yelling, "Surprise, we're alive!'

spoiler[
Knight in the Area and Symphogear are other examples where they killed off vital characters in the cheapest and most convenient way possible. This is the third show of the season with death.]

What, did you expect them to dedicate a few episodes to developing the parents or something? Since the show is only going to be 13 episodes there isn't really time for that. Besides that's how it works in real life. Everything's all happy and fine one moment by the next you learn some one important to you died suddenly.

Everyone shows grief in different ways. Some do it by crying their eyes out, some do it by acting numb. There's no real standard you can hold to it. In this case, though, the older girls and Yuuta are holding in most of it namely for Hina's sake. She's 3 and doesn't understand the gravity of the situation so they have to act strong for her sake.

The viewer has hardly been given any time to cope up with the sudden twist, and before the whole thing could sink in, the episode was over.

vinamara wrote:

The viewer has hardly been given any time to cope up with the sudden twist, and before the whole thing could sink in, the episode was over.

Again, just like in life. Look at it from the characters' perspective. Their parents suddenly go missing, then they're told they'll be separated, and now they're going to live with their uncle. I'm sure these developments feel rushed and sudden to them too but that's just how it goes. Sometimes life doesn't give us time to breathe.

Doesn't mean that you could just rush through it haphazardly. 13 episodes isn't a good enough excuse for that. If they want people to be invested in that incident emotionally they could've done better. Their sudden departure could've been better followed by a well executed aftermath. The viewer has hardly been given any time to cope up with the sudden twist, and before the whole thing could sink in, the episode was over.

Its like a major incident was swiftly swept under the rug.

Guess I'm also lost here on how this is all getting "swept under the rug." For an early-series development, I felt that part had sufficient (though admittedly not exceptional) impact and adequate time to sink in. You don't need tons of time to pull of reactions like that, as Cross Game showed quite emphatically. Besides, the aftermath will be ongoing as the series progresses, as was the case with CG.

Personally, I am now very curious to see how the next episode gets handled and will certainly be watching it. Along with BSP, this is increasingly looking like one of my other 1-2 keepers for the new season.

I totally agree with you there. I've seen Angel Beats pull that off. Its all in the storytelling technique and its execution. Every back story in Angel Beats touched my heart because it was beautifully executed.

The parents going missing is basically the entire premise of Listen to me Girls, so maybe it's just hard for me to look at it from the perspective of someone who didn't know it was happening.

Like, if you were telling someone about the show, I wouldn't consider it a spoiler really. I was surprised they didn't do it in episode 1, actually.