Mouretsu Pirates – Episode 21 – Unexpected Company

Unfortunately, Marika’s perfect streak comes to an end as she faces some unexpected company.

Oddly enough, this episode didn’t focus too much on the race. Sure, the race organizer went crazy over Marika stealing one of the dinghies. On the other hand, the main reason she was also angry is for the fact that Lynn hacked the course, thus causing a freak accident that left all but two from finishing the race. Although the same thing happens with a coronal mass ejection (basically a burst of solar wind), it appears that everyone handled it with ease. However, that isn’t the main part of this episode as an outsider comes out of the blue.

Believe it or not, I had a gut feeling that someone would interfere with the race. However, I never expected a group of unlicensed pirates to go after Marika because of her achievements. As they say, jealousy will always lead to failure with Marika shooting them down with her ship. However, it’s not without any difficulties since her ship got some environmental and bullet damage. Even so, it’s nice to see some difficulties instead of her being perfect all the time.

Also, Ai amazed me through sacrificing her chances of winning to help Marika out instead. That takes a lot of courage considering how dangerous it is. Although she successfully guided Marika into the right positioning to take down the enemy ship, it came at a price. All of her electronic instruments died from the enemy’s attack except for the mechanical ones. Not only that, she lost the race despite not giving up. Even so, she is still happy for participating. Something like that shows her passion for piloting and I respect that.

Aside from that, it seems that Chiaki won the race with Grunhilde as the runner-up. At least she won something while competing with her sister to win Marika’s attention. While the race is nothing special, it sets us up for the last arc that finally involves something with pirates! They are going after the pirates that don’t have a license. I hope something good comes out of this as they take a risk and weed out enemies.