Mouretsu Pirates Review

TheWrongAnswer here, and coming to you with the wrap-up of Mouretsu Pirates. The show was one wild ride aboard the Bentenmaru with Marika and the rest of the crew. So how wild was the ride? Find out after the jump!

When I first surveyed the Winter anime list, I was also following at the same time a live-action show called Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, a pirate-themed show in the ever-famous Super Sentai genre of live-action programming. Because I was enjoying the series thus far, I was eager to see more pirate-themed shows. Mouretsu Pirates filled that bill. Of course, though the show did catch my interest greatly, I also had a bit of hesitation, as it could just be a novelty show focusing on stuff like fanservice or forced gags aiming for canned laughter. Nonetheless, I sank my teeth into Mouretsu Pirates the moment the first episode came out. What I saw greatly surprised me.

 

An anime based on the "Mini-skirt Pirates" light novels by Yuichi Sasamoto, the show revolves around a lovely young woman named Marika Kato, the daughter of a legendary pirate captain named Gonzaemon Kato. With Gonzaemon gone, and Ririka retired from the business, Gonzaemon's crew from the pirate ship Bentenmaru choose Marika as the successor of the position of Pirate Captain -- a news that was welcomed greatly not just by the crew and Ririka, but also by Marika's friends at school, which included Chiaki Kurihara, the daughter of another pirate captain which Marika befriends. Starting from her candidacy, the show follows Marika's path as she chooses the path of the pirate, showing her victories and struggles as she juggles a dual life -- one aboard the ship, as the pirate captain, the other at school, as the high school student.

Though it can be said that Mouretsu Pirates is a novelty show, in a sense, it is one with substance. Expecting to see tons of fanservice the moment I started the show, I was surprised to see how little it had, given that the photo showed Marika wearing the miniskirt from her school uniform. Instead, the show comes off as a pretty serious study of Marika's character, from her motivations, to her support group, such as the Yacht Club from her school, Chiaki and her father, Kenjo, and Ririka. Though a bit of a hit and miss proposition, the show also manages to blend in lighthearted and hilarious moments with the predominant seriousness of the show.

 

For all the surprisingly good things I found with the show, there are also some glaring flaws I'd like to point out. First and foremost among these flaws is of how Marika is portrayed as a "Wonder Woman" of sorts. While they do show Marika as human by having her crew talk about her failing grades after she started working as a pirate captain, I just felt that Marika always won her fights whenever she donned the pirate coat, even in the final episode, when she tackled a pirate hunter with superior hardware over the Bentenmaru, as well as the various ships she led into battle. Never did I see a battle which Marika the Pirate captain lost. It just stuck to me as a bit unrealistic, as even in shows such as Gokaiger, the heroes, though exhibiting a high degree of awesomeness and flair, always experienced a sort of defeat against their enemies, which allowed them to become stronger. Another flaw I noticed with the show is the logjam of characters they introduced. While all of the characters play their role in being Marika's support, I feel that there are certain characters that deserved a degree of focus as well. One such character is Misa Greenwood, the school nurse and de-facto first mate to Marika. The other character is Ririka, Marika's own mother. I feel that both characters deserved an episode where their backgrounds are fleshed out. As it stands, however, Misa and the rest of the Bentenmaru crew are enigmas, save for their unwavering loyalty to Marika, while Ririka's transformation from pirate to mother seems jarring and abrupt. On the other hand, there are certain characters I felt were not all that necessary, for the most part, in the grand scheme of the show. One such character is Mami, Marika's classmate and co-worker at the Maid Cafe. Though she did play a vital role in the first few episodes, subsequent appearances throughout the show seemed rather unnecessary, as it just shows her sighing and wondering what Marika has been doing lately.

Despite the glaring flaws, Mouretsu Pirates is a pretty solid and entertaining show. While by no means it is a ground-breaking show like Madoka Magica, it is a show that has substance. A show that focuses not on Marika's curves (though viewers are given a glimpse of that once in a while), but rather on her genius and determination, which earned her the right to command the Bentenmaru crew. As of this moment, Sentai Filmworks has licensed the show for North American Distribution, though DVDs have yet to be released. The show is also available for streaming at Crunchyroll.

-- TheWrongAnswer