So, interestingly enough Tatsuo Sato decided for both this series and Rinne no Lagrange to just completely cut the romance. I like that. I believe that adaptations nowadays are too scared to make concessions, and instead either do them half-heartedly, or try to adapt a story, only to run into huge pacing problems at the end. Mouretsu Pirates in particular is different: it’s both faithful to the spirit of the original source, and yet it also tries to be itself. By cutting out the romance, it can focus on the other parts of the story. And I must say, it takes balls to drop the romance of all things. In most stories it just gets inserted for the hell of it and because it sells better.
In any case, after three episodes Mouretsu Pirates turned out to be a completely different series than what I imagined it would be. The big reason for that is that the main character isn’t even a pirate yet. Heck, if you didn’t know the title of this thing you could be fooled into thinking that this is going to be a show about a yacht club. Instead,, this show is carefully building its world and concepts.
The big danger of this is it becoming boring before the build up can pay off. Unlike Rinne no Lagrange, which immediately started off exciting, this show is really taking its time… and therefore isn’t the most exciting. The key for this series will be to remain interesting while it builds up. Right now it still is because of the details on the yacht club, but that can’t take forever.
Rating: * (Good)
Actually it feels more ‘real and believable’ this way because of the small details. And yes, it seems slow, but I think we need this kind of build-up to get the most out of the anime later.
I’d like to agree, but then for all the trouble they go to being harder than most sci-fi, they make some pretty classic mistakes. Stars twinkling in deep space? Does the ship have an external atmosphere? And what’s with the hatch making grinding noises AFTER they depressurize the bay? That, and the fact that a critical system like life support is externally “hackable” is just.. weird.
Life support systems (like fans, circuit breakers) require electricity and unless the entire system is separate without any sorta remote access then it is vulnerable to hacking. I doubt most spaceships can afford to have independent generator and space for all wiring required for life support.
If they need time to surrender they can put on space suits for extra time.
Think of it this way: why would (say) battery-charging equipment need to be so hyper-advanced? And why would it piggyback on the life support systems in any way? Something that critical shouldn’t have well-known security holes that even a highschooler is aware of them. It’s things like this that makes the sci-fi softer to me. Not that it matters, though.
By the way, it seems the first episode covered 128 pages and the 5 first episodes will cover the first novel. They skipped lots of material already from what I’ve heard.
Phi Brain is better than this toss.
ITS PUZZLE TIME!
I’m not at all worried about the lack of romance, though the boredom really is keeping me from enjoying this. Hope in an ep or two they start with the “piracy” (or privateering or whatever).
Watching uninteresting highschool girls fart around on a space yacht has been less interesting than some of the more tedious hard sci-fi stuff I’ve read/watched.. at least they generally didn’t make dumb mistakes like sound in a vacuum or twinkling stars in deep space.
Well, they can take things slow if Marika becoming a full-fledged pirate-captain is supposed to be some kind of journey of self-discovery. But this story really needs an antagonist or some other way of building up drama or tension. It’s just too laid-back right now to make it seem like anything matters in this series.
Yep, that’s one of the things that make this series good, I think. There’s no unnecessary moe-clumsiness for the sake for fanservice. There should be more animes out there with that kind of mindset.
Yeah, I was able to get through (and enjoy) Aria, and that was a moe “journey” anime that took forever to get to a point. So I’ll keep hoping for the best here.
It’s just that the protagonist here isn’t all that great a fit for a “self-discovery” anime (so far). There’s no sense of exploration, adventure, or even goals or dreams.
The lack of tension isn’t really an issue for me (I enjoyed Aria after all), but the boredom’s inexcusably thick.. some tension would definitely go a long way to alleviating that.
You’re right a lack of tension isn’t so bad but this show just needs something to make it more entertaining. Right now it’s more like a nice relaxing holiday than an adventure.
I’ve heard some people have interpreted the lack of romance comment to mean more of a chance for yuri/sromance (I mean, two of the Marika’s classmates are even holding hands in the OP) which is what I have my fingers crossed here for (both here and in Rinne).
I hope that’s completely wrong, because it would be a rather hypocritical double standard. Friendship with subtext is still very difference from actual romance, yuri or otherwise.
Then again, I’ve also heard other people say there’s no true romance to begin with, at least not for a long time, so it’s less about “cutting” something out and more about not focusing on it.
Besides, Rinne no Lagrange is apparently an anime original, so they definitely can’t “remove” anything because there’s no previous source material.
Like I said, that’s just how I’ve seen people interpret the original tweet so only time will tell there (although personally I would love yuri/sromance, regardless of what the director says).
Yeah. I would like some yuri.
Well, to be 100% sincere, Im going to watch Lagrange and Mouretsu Pirates mostly for the hope of yuri. 😛
Would be nice if the director be more specific about that.
Bet PSGELS is regretting dropping Hunter x Hunter after todays brilliant episode.
I bet he doesn’t because, as always it sucks compared to the 99 series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkBqfRWYS1Y
Watch that and compare it to the most recent episode.
Tell me how the most recent episode sucked in comparison to the original series?
Even without the horrible English dub the entire tension and special feeling of that episode was destroyed by stupid over-acting, bad angles, stupid censorship changes, too much talking, pivotal moments absent, incredibad characterisation.
So how was 99 series better again?
PSGELS I honestly think you should give the series another go as this episode was just brilliant. I’d love to see you review it.
By the way,I just noticed this from a comment in another blog:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKAROS
Sailor-sailing is actually a real thing lol, didn’t think it was possible.It seems the serie is actually using many more real life references than I first thought they would (there’s already references to the American war of Independence, the way technology works, autolib, etc…)
I meant “solar-sailing”, not “sailor-sailing”.
3rd episode was the weakest.. I think it’s like what earlier commenters have said, it’s just too laid back, there’s no tension at all, and the characters aren’t really developing, I don’t feel like I know more about anybody after this episode.
In the voice over for the very first episode a comment is made about the war/revolt ending “surprisingly.” That’s a red flag to me that there’s some deep and unexpected secret lurking out there to be revealed. This director tends to make fairly complicated stories — I fully expect there’s going to be plenty of tension and adventure as things go along. This is a 26 episode series, don’t forget.
And of the the things this episode did show us about Marika is that she’s got the ovaries to take the initiative and make decisions. A pretty necessary attribute for a Pirate Captain.
Kinda funny how you pointed out Tatsuo Sato directing both this show and Rinne no Langrange, especially considering both are from different studios…wow, Sato-sensei must have the gift of multitasking 🙂
That said, I found this episode oddly reminiscent of Irresponsible Captain Tylor as far as the humour goes. Then again, that may be just me…