Bitchin’ Space Pirates 26 – Quartz Christie Is a Shit Pirate (END)

Curse you, Marika, and your ability to execute basic strategies using a force of pirates against a single ship!

As expected, Quartz Christie is the shittiest pirate. Disrupting communications and positioning a ship to intercept the Grand Cross when it escapes the chaff field?????? That is clearly some Lelouch Lamperouge-level tactics going on there. How could Quartz Christie possibly see any of that coming?! She’s only one of the original pirates jumping around the galaxy.

I’m pretty sure nobody was surprised at how thoroughly Marika and crew beat the everloving piss out of the Grand Cross. When you’re an arrogant villain who takes zero advantage of several opportunities to get one over on the pirates you’re fighting in a series that has become known for resolving its conflicts in the neatest way possible, you’re basically asking to get run over by the Marika Plot Steamroller in the finale. The best part is when Christie says she won’t run and hide, and roughly half a minute later she blasts out of the Grand Cross in an escape pod. I suppose it’s better to learn basic deception late than never.

The ending hints rather loudly that Christie will be back to fight another day. After this insane blunder of a battle, though, who the hell would supply her with a ship to bring the heat to the Bettenmaru? I wouldn’t trust her with the Jenny x Lynn ship at this point, much less an insanely expensive prototype ship like the Grand Cross. To be fair to Christie, though, I’m undecided whether she’s a bigger failure than the dude who angled to eliminate Jenny so that he could take over the company she would inherit. I mean, he left all his incriminating files where they could be easily accessed. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat a dummy!

That said, much like the rest of Pirates, a shitty villain and hilariously easy endgame didn’t keep me from enjoying the finale. I sympathize with the Pirates defenders who think people are being too hard on the series due to the plot. I like the characters, the fun, flighty feel of the series and its sense of humor (which, for me, leaks into how every plot point is resolved with such ease). Pure plot isn’t so important that it alone determines how “good” or “worthy” or whatever a series is.

That said, the way Pirates handles its plot does make for some weirdness. I honestly don’t think the audience is meant to be taking this pirate business all that seriously — how could they be expected to do so? Sure, Marika and friends get into what are supposed to be dangerous situations every so often, but they make it through them with such little trouble that everything is but a trifle. That’s OK for what the show is doing. But the characters clearly do take this shit seriously, and they often comment on Marika’s growth as a pirate . . . but I don’t see much of that.

She is of course better than she was at the start — compare her during her initial training and her at the end of the series, and there is a clear difference. But after that, everything falls into place so well and Marika is so easily able to plan her way through every situation that she is an awesome pirate captain almost from the start rather than growing into the role. I don’t have a huge problem with that, but it does make those in show comments on character growth rather silly. The plot is basically a thin excuse to put characters in crazy situations so that they can be awesome. It’s enjoyable on that level, but not particularly engaging.

Overall opinion on the piratey business: I like the show overall because it’s silly and fun to watch. Despite the characters taking their goofy pirating seriously, I don’t believe the show takes itself that seriously. I feel like a massive tool for breaking out the “Hey, it’s cute girls going on adventures! Just enjoy it!” argument, but that is the level on which I like the series. Also, I can’t help but enjoy any series where the director has the two main characters sing in an old timey radio studio for the lulz.

So there you go! This is the final post on this trashy blog unless I decide to post something random and troll all you losers who are still paying attention for some reason.

See you, Space Pirates!