Literature / Bodacious Space Pirates

In a far future in which space travel has become the norm, Marika Kato is a high school girl living a rather ordinary life as a member of the space yacht club and a part-time job at a high-class retro café. One day, Marika meets subordinates of her recently deceased father who reveal her father was a space pirate. By law, only direct descendants can inherit her father's spaceship, the Bentenmaru, which her father's subordinates ask that she takes over as their new Captain. Thus begins Marika's life as a Space Pirate.

Bodacious Space Pirates (also known as Mōretsu (Go-getter) Space Pirates or Miniskirt Space Pirates) is a light novel series written by Yūichi Sasamoto and illustrated by Noriyuki Matsumoto. The novels were published from October 2008 to August 2014 for 12 volumes under Asahi Novels. In 2018, the Kadokawa publishing group obtained ownership of the series and reprinted all 12 volumes from December 2018 to May 2019.

A 26-episode anime adaptation aired from January to June 2012. It can be watched legally at Crunchyroll and The Anime Network. A dub from Sentai Filmworks, who released the show on DVD in the US, is now available. Also available on Hulu.

A movie based on the series, titled The Abyss of Hyperspace, was released in February 2014. Featuring revamped character designs, it follows Marika and her friends as they help a young man stop running from his family history, and make a decision that would impact countless people across the galaxy and beyond.

In July 2019, the light novels started a sequel series, Super Miniskirt Space Pirates, and has two volumes published as of June 2021.

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Bodacious Space Pirates provides examples of:

• Ace Custom: The Bentenmaru is highly modified but could be considered to zigzagging this trope as while the Electronic Warfare suite is highly advanced the engines are so old that one of them just barely works much of the time.
• Ace Pilot:
  • Kane McDougal, Bentenmaru's helmsman and Marika's new substitute teacher. Marika manages to impress him. Also, twin brother Shane.
  • Ai Hoshimiya, new member of the Space Yacht Club and rookie pilot. In episode 21 Ai star-navigates by sight after her dinghy's electronics are knocked out. She also saves the Bentenmaru by predicting the wind currents to help them shoot down the enemy.
• Action Girl: Jenny Dolittle in her wedding gown. Chiaki falls into this trope occasionally as well.
• Adventurous Irish Violins: The hard-work montage sequences and "exploration" sequences of ''Bodacious Space Pirates" deliberately uses this trope to take you back to the Golden Age of Piracy, albeit in a futuristic space setting.
• Amusing Injuries: Played with/invoked at the end of episode 6. Chiaki asks Kane when he's going to change out of his tuxedo, which has a realistic looking gunshot wound on it from an earlier stunt with Marika. Kane mentions that he likes seeing the crew's reaction and hearing their gasps. Cue a random crew member walking by, staring at it, and gasping in horror.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Averted! It's not a perfect depiction of weapon handling by any means, but the characters display trigger discipline, weapons are unloaded prior to firing, and safety gear is employed during training.
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Despite being set in space in the far future most of the clothing worn by pirate raiders is based on the clothes worn by pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Beach Episode: Subverted in episode 6. Marika and Mami start the episode getting ready to go to the beach... only for Misa and Kane to pick Marika up for completing all the paperwork necessary for the letter of marque.
  • They finally give us one in episode 20, but it's completely free of fan service. Well, save for a load of shots of Kane in a speedo. And a few shots of the girls' swimsuit clad behinds. Including tiny little Ai.
• Beautiful All Along: Coorie, for a few minutes in episode 24.◊
• Beam Spam: The Bentenmaru fires off a particularly impressive spread in Episode 9. This being the type of show it is, though, they're communications lasers.
  • They do it for real in ep 10.
  • They do it by accident in ep 15!.
  • The mysterious ship that attacks the Bentenmaru in episode 22 utilizes this trope as well.
• Beergasm: Or more accurately, Winegasm.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Do not mess with the Hakuoh Academy Space Yacht Club. It's pretty likely that if the Odette II had been armed they would have blown the Lightning 11 out of the sky.
  • Exemplified by Jenny Dolittle being pretty handy with a pistol.
• BFG:
  • Ririka's gun range practice with Marika.
  • Schnitzer carries one that no one else could even pick up when the pirates board the Grand Cross.
• BFS: Warships employed by the Galactic Empire and its vassal-states, like the Corback-class destroyers and Talbot-class battleships, tend to resemble gigantic blades with engines stuck on the end. It seems to be an intimidation method.
  • Maracot-class battleships (Queen Serendipity and Jabberwocky) are Dual Wielding
• Big Damn Heroes: The climax of Episode 21 has a bunch of these turn up in a row. First an aircraft looking to kill Marika appears and attacks the racers indiscriminately as they don't know which dinghy is hers, she saves everyone by identifying herself while Chiaki leads the racers away. Then the race organiser appears in a dinghy almost identical to Marika's, she gets shot down but the Bentenmaru drops into the atmosphere and puts the ship between Marika and her would-be assassins and pick her up. Then just as the crew realises they can't maneuver well enough to take out the aircraft Ai returns in her dinghy to help them use the wind to shoot down the enemy.
• Blue with Shock: Grunhilde after accidentally downing a spoonful of hot mustard.
• Boarding Party: Bentenmaru deploys something that looks out of Pirates of the Caribbean for their normal jobs on liners. The Ghost Ship arc also shows that the same boarding party is quite competent at actual boarding operations a naval vessel would undertake.
  • In Episode 26, Marika, Schnitzer, Hyakume and several other captains and pirates, board the Grand Cross.
• Bowdlerization: The Hakuoh Pirates arc, when Jenny confronts her fiance. In the original novels, Jenny and the girls are shocked to discover her fiance organising and participating in a massive, drug-fueled orgy. This was changed to the ineffectual revolutionary meeting. Given the controversies over what is appropriate or not for anime broadcast in Tokyo, this decision is understandable.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The book Marika read during the pirate scene of episode 6? The script of the episode itself, complete with the same subtitle. (Though it uses the name of the Light Novel).
• The Bridge: Each ship seems to have one with the standard layout. Exept for the Odette II, which lacks gravity and has its main entrance in the "floor". All the terminals face inwards toward the center and there is no dedicated captain's chair.
• Bubbly Waitress: Marika Kato, before she became a space pirate, was a waitress at a maid cafe. She was cheerful and boistrous, even greeting Chiaki with an exuberant, if unwanted, "Chiaki-chan!"
• Call-Back: A comically ironic one in the opening narration of episode 16: The narrator states that manuals exist for piracy, electronic warfare and FTL jumps. In the previous episode the Bentenmaru's regular crew just about had a heart attack when Marika suggests a practice jump, which isn't in the manual they wrote for the ship.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Main heroine Marika refers to her single mother as Ririka-san, without much explanation, only calling her proper variation of "mom" when announcing decision to pursue that sudden chance of being a space pirate that starts the main plot. To some other people The Ace-y Marika admits on-screen to have always been inspired by Ririka and avidly admiring her, all the while not excessively aware of Ririka's past career as a famed space pirate.
• Cassandra Truth: When the second raid on the Princess Apricot doesn't go as smoothly as expected, the Captain suggests that maybe the crew has taken ill and been replaced by trainees. This is dismissed as a ridiculous idea.
  • The captain wasn't guessing. He'd been briefed by Shou at the insurance company. (Shou also asked him to prepare a bag of goodies for the girls.)
• Casting Gag: It's not the first time Luci Christian (Marika's English VA) has voiced a pirate, except the last time she was a pickpocket.
• Catchphrase: Marika: Saa! Kaizoku no jikan da! (It's time for some piracy!)
  • This seems to be a general pirate/Kato Catchphrase as it's also used by "Blaster" Ririka in a flashback and Chiaki when she covers for Marika.
• Chekhov's Gun: Ai picks up a book on local constellations before the race in Ep. 21. This comes in handy at the end; when her navigation system is disabled, Ai pops the hatch and navigates by eye, using the constellations as her guide.
• Cool Car: Misa drives a pink Rolls Royce with some lawyer friendly modifications.
• Cool Starship: The Bentenmaru.
  • The Odette II appears to be a rather cool looking large yacht... and then it's revealed to have been an armed merchantmen, a pirate cruiser, and is one of the few surviving ships of the Original Seven privateers authorised by the Sea of the Morningstar.
  • The Silent Whisper that Jenny uses to make her escape in Episode 17: it's a fast, agile Space Fighter outfitted for recon and electronic warfare, capable of making FTL jumps. And it's worth more than the Bentenmaru. (Which is understandable - an F-35 costs more than a WW2 cruiser.)
  • The naval warships shown in the series look like massive blades.
  • The Grand Cross and the Parabellum.
• Cosplay: The Girl's Yacht Club perform their pirating role in episode 16 in various cosplay costumes, provided by Mami. While it does surprise the guests of the ship they're pirating, it doesn't seem to affect the job too much, although Marika is clearly uncomfortable with the lack of seriousness the costumes present.
  • Specifically they have: an Angel, a cheerleader, a Cowgirl, Cute Monster Girl/Kaiju, Cute Witch/Dark Magical Girl, Fair Cop, Fair Folk, Naughty Nun, Naughty Nurse Outfit, Playboy Bunny, Race Queen and a soldier in a formal uniform or possibly (especially in light of the next episode) Prince Charming.
  • Episode 18 adds Chiaki as a Miko
  • And Jenny uses her wedding gown as a cosplay costume.
• Cosplay Café: The Lamp House, where Marika works part-time, is a Maid Cafe. Slightly downplayed in that Marika and her coworkers act like ordinary waitresses without any performance aspect.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The pirate hunting vessel, Grand Cross delivers quite a few of these to various pirate ships (Only the Bentenmaru escapes it). In Episode 26, the pirates return the favour... interestingly enough, against 3 Grand Cross ships.
• Darker and Edgier: Episode 21 starts to hint at this with the attack on Marika's escort plane during the race, and in episode 22 ships really start getting attacked and destroyed out of the blue, unlike earlier episodes where almost no one died or even had their ship disabled, aside from the Lightning 11 in the first arc/few episodes.
• Designer Babies: Evidently the entire Serenity Royal Family is this.
• Dramatic Wind IN SPACE: In his first appearance, Ironbeard's Badass Cape flaps dramatically in the vacuum of space... because he's actually inside his ship, and a hologram is being projected on the hull. Additionally, his communication data stream includes wind sound effects for the drama.
• Drives Like Crazy: Misa, the school nurse/medic aboard the Bentenmaru. In episode 8, after arriving at the airport, both Marika and Gruier have a physically exhausted look on their faces. A short flashback then shows that they were screaming the entire drive there due to Misa driving really fast.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Kane gets a friendly chat at docking station with a knowledgeably-looking relaxed gruffy mechanic in green, outside of earshot of Yacht Club girls in episode 2. The guy appears again, as Kane's fellow elite crew member staffing The Bridge of pirate ship Bentenmaru when Marika is learning the ropes of captainship, in episode 6. He's doing his job, and his name (Hyakume) is dropped on-screen eventually, but the more proper introduction is no sooner that episode 8, done by Marika for Gruier.
• The Empire: The Galactic Empire, the most powerful faction in the series. Surprisingly, despite being an expansionist force that conquer other star systems, the Empire is rather benevolent to the planets they ruled, allowing them the right to self-rule and have their own defense force in exchange those planets swear allegiance to the Empire and their forces becoming a part of the Empire's forces. The Empire was the reason the War of Independence ended because their fleets were ten times bigger and overwhelmed both the Federation and Alliance fleets.
• Evolving Credits:
  • The ending for episode 9 is different from the previous episodes.
  • Episode 14's end credits reflects the modifications Mami makes to Marika's pirate uniform. In addition, the Serenity princesses are also shown walking alongside Marika, Chiaki, and Mami.
  • For some reason, around episode 22 she reverts back to her original outfit without the Mami additions on them.
• Expressive Hair: Combined with Idiot Hair. Kane's hair seems to be able to do this in episode 24. Revealed to be actually his twin in episode 25.
• Expy:
  • Chiaki is Kuroneko + Futaba Aoi, with all three sharing the same Japanese VA.
  • Visually, San-Daime and Misa strongly resemble Simon and Nia from Gurren Lagann.
• Failed a Spot Check: The "Revolutionaries" in episode 18 fail to notice that the Bentenmaru has docked and they've been boarded until Chiaki starts shooting off her rifle and brings down a chandelier that's right above them while giving them a "The Reason You Suck" Speech!
  • It's more understandable in the original novels, where the Revolutionaries are instead partygoers attending a massive drug-fueled orgy. They were obviously too distracted.
• Flawed Prototype: The Grand Cross could be an example of this. It is certainly a deadly opponent with its gravity control which allows high-speed zig-zagging, its Beam Spams and other systems. However it often powers down after using these to a certain degree. Also, while its shields can cope with beams, they aren't as effective against physical [[{Macross Missile Massacre}} bombardment.
  • Also, it only has one pattern of zigzag. Once Courie saw it a few times, she became able to predict where it would end, thus providing several seconds of warning.
  • The biggest flaw was the captain. No amount of high tech can compensate for a captain who is stupid and arrogant.
  • Heavy automation, with only a single living crewmember, also means that this ship is ridiculously vulnerable to being boarded. Bonus point for the relatively small amount of robots guarding the interior of the ship.
  • No underside weapons whatsoever.
• Food Porn: Marika's chocolate parfait. Ririka's cooking also gets some inordinate attention. Episode 9: the melon.
  • One of the secrets unlocked by the Captain's Ring for the Bentenmaru... is the secret Kato family pot-au-feu recipe, handed down through generations.
• For Science!: Marika learns that the Grand Cross is attacking pirate ships in the region partly to get combat data for the prototype ship, and partly because, according to the Grand Cross captain, "pirates are no longer needed". Marika does not take that message very well.
• Frame-Up: Volume 9 has the Bentenmaru fall victim to one.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Marika activates the pirate song to assemble all the pirates together again in episode 23. How effective this will be remains to be seen, as the Grand Cross is destroying quite a few of the pirates before they can reach the designated area.
• Great Offscreen War: 120 years ago, The War of Independence was fought between the Colony Federation, colonial planets who were fighting for independence and the right to self rule, and the Stellar Alliance, the alliance of suzerain planets that ruled over the colonial worlds before they started to rebel. Not much is know about the war except the planet Uminoakehoshi (Sea of the Morning Star) issued Letters of Marque to Space Pirates to help the Federation's space fleets and the war ended in an unexpected way. The war ended with neither side winning because the Galactic Empire got involved and forced both sides to surrender and become part of the Empire.
• Gun Ship Rescue:
  • Bentenmaru, Barbaroosa, and several Stellar Alliance warships arrive while Marika is aboard the Odette II after their little fight with the Lightning 11 in episode 5.
  • The Parabellum privateer ship rescues the Bentenmaru and the remnants of the Big Catch fleet in episode 23 by attacking and scaring off the Grand Cross which was curb stomping them in the previous episode.
• Handy Feet: Coorie has them, as she can type with her toes.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Both Ririka and Misa.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted. Marika is an honor roll student only because she puts a lot of time and effort into studying; when she tries juggling her pirate work and school, her grades take a massive nosedive, going from straight As to F.
  • Also, while she has a natural talent for being a pirate captain, she still has to work very hard to learn what's required of her.
• Hero of Another Story: Chiaki probably qualifies. She has her ship that she works on with her dad, and does a lot things which often forces her to suffer from being Out of Focus. She also fills in for Marika's pirate role in some episodes while the real one is working on a more covert mission.
• The Hero's Journey: Marika's role early in the series follows the Departure phase note-for-note:
  • Call to Adventure: Kane and Misa provide this, drawing Marika away from her high school life and into filling in her father's role as The Captain of the Bentenmaru.
  • Refusal of the Call: Marika decides to do some research on the Bentenmaru before going in to her life as a pirate.
  • Supernatural Aid: It comes in the form of her mother Ririka, who helps her wield guns and tell her what a pirate captain truly is. The space yacht club also provides help to Marika during their summer vacation.
  • Crossing the Threshold: She finally decides to become the captain of the Bentenmaru during her summer vacation. The Lighting XI serves as the Threshold Guardian and fighting it is her first step across the Threshold.
  • Symbolic Hero Rebirth: Marika has decided to become the Bentenmaru's captain and live her life as a Space Pirates.
• Hidden Depths: As the movie reveals, there's a whole lot more to Gruier and Grunhilde than apparent even in TV the series. For one, they detect and disable the majority of bugs and listening devices planted in and around the school grounds, and comment that compared to how it was at home, it was childs play.
• Hot-Blooded: Kane becomes this during his second stint as the Yacht Club's advisor, channeling the spirits of Hot-Blooded sports anime club advisors.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The series uses the English word "sailing" in place of "episode".
• Improbable Age: What, you're a teenager with no experience whatsoever commanding a spaceship? No problem! Just become that pirate ship's captain and go for it!
• Insistent Terminology: Chiaki really objects to Marika or Mami adding -chan to her name. It doesn't stop them from doing it constantly.
• Is This Thing On?: This happens almost word for word when Marika raids the Princess Apricot, causing her to get flustered and botch her intro. Becomes a Running Gag as in episode 16 it happens again when she raids the same liner with the Yacht club members
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Even though Grand Cross has shields powerful enough to repel any kind of beam attack, they are essentially useless at stopping missiles, making the ship very vulnerable to a Macross Missile Massacre.
• Large Ham: Show, the guy at the insurance company. Kenjo Kurihara comes close, and Chiaki lapses into this during Pirate raids. And Ironbeard, later in the series.
  • Kane does this when he shows back up at school as their coach in episode 20. To the point that Marika wonders why he's speaking in a normal tone at the end when he's simply piloting the Bentenmaru.
  • Ironbeard also has a flair for the dramatic. His first appearance is standing on top of his ship, cape flapping with dramatic wind, and he later steals the spotlight from Quartz on another occasion.
• Latex Space Suit: The female students wear them on their cruise. Kane notes that the guy who provided them must've done so on purpose. A more realistic one appears in the intro, and the Bentenmaru's own stock are about as un-latexy as you can get, resembling Mini-Mecha instead.
  • Misa and Marika wear latex space suits in episode 12.
  • Quartz Christie also wears one.
  • Marika goes for a latex space suit when boarding the Grand Cross. Even Quartz takes a moment to admire it.
• Lethal Chef: Ririka, when she first joined the crew of Bentenmaru. Fortunately, she got better.
• Little Stowaway: Gruier sneaks onto the Bentenmaru during the end of episode 7, and is properly introduced in episode 8.
  • She does it again to get aboard the Odette II with Chiaki's help in episode 15, and brings her sister along too.
• Long-Lived: In the novels, the Methuselah have far longer lifespans than normal humans. One of them is part of the Barbaroosa's crew, having served on the ship during the War of Independence.
• Macross Missile Massacre: How the pirates defeat the Grand Cross
• Made of Explodium: Thoroughly averted. Most ships could take a lot of damage before getting destroyed, and when they got critically damaged, would simply go "silent" (read: have their systems knocked out with the hull relatively intact) instead of exploding. The only ships that exploded throughout the TV series are the 'Big Catch', a ship that got an on-board fire reaching the magazine AFTER all of the crew escaped, and the three 'Grand Cross'-class prototype battleships, which were self-destructed to Destroy the Evidence.
• Magic Skirt: The Yacht Club wears their school uniforms on-board the Odette II, with not a panty shot to be seen. Did we mention this happens in zero gravity?
• Male Gaze: Pretty prominent example during the first ending credits with Marika.
• Meido: Marika and her best friend work in a Maid Cafe at the start of the story.
  • Catherine is a Ninja Maid.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • At the beginning of episode 13.
  • In episode 25, the atmosphere is grim and serious, due to the discovery that Luca's been replaced by an android double, and is presumably killed. And then the real Luca appears and nonchalantly reveals she's been at a vacation resort.
• Mundane Made Awesome: It would not be a terribly large exaggeration to say the show runs off this, through everything from communications laser Beam Spam to extreme paperwork.
• Mundane Utility: The Odette II is one of the legendary original seven pirate ships. It is now used as a training vessel for a high school's yacht club.
  • Marika's Silent Whisper, an FTL-capable electronic warfare/reconnaissance Space Fighter worth more than the Bentenmaru, ends up being loaned to the Yacht Club as another training vessel.
• New Transfer Student: Chiaki Kurihara in the first episode and again twenty episodes later
  • Gruier becomes one in episode 8.
  • Grunhilde later in episode 13.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Mami does one during one of Marika's Imagine Spot in episode 9.
  • Chiaki does this as well in the beginning of episode 10, in a very Large Ham type fashion while filling in for Marika.
  • Jenny does it in episode 17, but it isn't very convincing.
• Non-Indicative Name: It's discussed in episode 6 that, at least From a Certain Point of View, the Letter of Marque means the crew of the Bentenmaru are not pirates, they're Privateers of course the saying about "One man's freedom fighter" also applies.
  • That scene makes more sense when you realize that Japanese history contains many pirates, but Japan never had any equivalent of privateers.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The regular crew of the Bentenmaru, confined in a hospital under quarantine, has that look/attitude as they hurriedly scramble to come up with an impromptu manual for the Girls Yacht club for the ship after Marika decides to use them in episode 15 for a pirate raid.
  • Robert Dolittle in episode 18 when Marika plays his phone recording.
  • Pretty much every single pirate in episode 22 has that look on their face at various points in time when a huge ship starts attacking them out of nowhere, including the Bentenmaru's crew.
• Only in It for the Money: It seems that cruise-ship companies contract pirates to give their passengers a little excitement. Cruise liners have a "stage" on which the pirates appear, Marika follows a script on the Princess Apricot raid, and Kane even tells some of the passengers on the Apricot (while acting as a passenger himself) that the passenger line's insurance will pay for any valuables the pirates "take". In Episode 10, the bridge crew on one of the liners is shown relaxing during the raid that Chiaki is leading and looking forward to seeing the "new female pirate". This not only allows for the passengers to have a fun show (they cheer the pirates) but funds the pirates' activities as well. It's cabaret with lasers and swords.
  • It's also an easy way for the pirates to maintain a high rate of raids so the Letter of Marque doesn't expire.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Marika before she is recruited as a pirate.
• Out of Focus:
  • Chiaki, who gets a lot of screentime in the opening and closing credits, goes down in importance shortly after Gruier is introduced around episode 8, but she makes some appearances here and there, then shows up again during the Hakuoh Pirates arc around episode 15, and seems to be making a full comeback as an important character again around episode 22 onwards.
  • Gruier herself falls into this trope towards the end, around the time Chiaki makes her comeback in the final arc of the anime season. She's seen again at the very end, but doesn't play much of a role otherwise.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Gruier's idea of a cunning disguise is outfitting Marika and herself in business suits with Cool Shades and really short skirts. Nobody is fooled.
• Parental Abandonment: Inverted, as Ririka apparently left Gonzaemon herself, probably wishing a quieter life for Marika.
• People Fall Off Chairs: First time talking to insurance agency in episode 14, Marika drops her chair in a jump at news of Bentenmaru crisis threatening to end the pirate license. She also falls backwards with the chair in the very end, when Show, the insurance agent, suddenly yells out.
• Pirate Girl: Marika and Chiaki.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The space pirates seen throughout the show don't actually do any of the raiding and plundering that pirates would do. This is because they're actually privateers, and each ship is effectively a Private Military Contractor. In addition, privateers with a Letter of Marque have the legal standing of naval reserve officers.
• Privateer: The pirate ship Bentenmaru is operating under a Letter of Marque, given to it during the War of Independence.
• Playful Hacker: Lynn Lambretta and Coorie. And Hyakume is no slouch, either.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The death of Gonzaemon, Marika's father and Ririka's husband, starts the plot.
  • It's revealed in the final episode that Ironbeard, Captain of the Parabellum, is Gonzaemon himself, which leaves the question: How did he fake his death to enable Marika to inherit the Bentenmaru?
    • The short story accompanying the Blu-Ray Box reveals that he faked his death at the behest of the Queen of the Galactic Empire.
• Powered Armor: Mentioned briefly in the anime as being included among Mr. Doolittle's forces.
• Private Military Contractors: The Hugh & Dolittle Interstellar Trading Company has its own fleet of naval warships. It's worth noting that presently, Lloyds of London is preparing its own small escort fleet, and the East India Company had its own private navy.
• Punch-Clock Hero: In a literal version of this, Misa refuses to allow Marika or Gruier to stay on the bridge for longer than 8 hours a day due to child labor laws.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The Serenity special forces troops under Grunhilde's command in the Ghost Ship arc. They're opposed to the Bentenmaru's crew only because they're following orders, and when Marika proposes a compromise that satisfies all parties and lets everyone go home alive, they enthusiastically go for it.
• Rule of Funny: Coorie's in-universe justification for refusing to block the Parabellum's sound effects (see Space Is Noisy, below).
• Running Gag: Absolutely no one at all listens to Chiaki's embarrassed requests to stop calling her "Chiaki-Chan".
  • Marika making a certain shout when she is surprised, best transcribed as "!!!"
• Run or Die: Pretty much the only thing the Bentenmaru can do when facing the Grand Cross. Marika feigns putting up a fight largely to buy time for them to be able to escape, as they are hopelessly outmatched by the much bigger/faster ship.
• Scenery Porn: Especially in episode 12 when they are inside the Golden Ghost Ship.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: When Chiaki questions Marika's decision to take the job to save Jenny from an Arranged Marriage even though it could be dangerous and may cost her pirating license this is part of her justification for doing so, the other parts being she is the ''Bentenmaru's'' captain and it sounds like fun.
  • The real reason is that Marika's friend Jenny is in deep trouble, needs help, and can't wait. You don't turn your back on your friends.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: It's stated at the end of episode 18 that Jenny's uncle will most likely escape prosecution and keep his job, despite being exposed as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, because of this.
• Shout-Out:
  • Armalite, the company that designed the M16 and M4, makes the beam gun Marika uses.
  • One of the Space Yacht members name is Syoko Kobayashimaru. Anyone familiar with her surname knows it's a reference to the famous Kobayashi Maru test from Star Trek. Made even better since the Kobayashi Maru and Syoko Kobayashimaru are both from the Tau Ceti system◊.
  • The name Lightning Eleven is a particularly well-hidden one that might double as a Take That!: in Japanese, one common translation of Lightning is Inazuma.
  • Jenny's "Fools!" message from episode 5 is a nod to the first episode of Uchuu Senkan Yamato or the famous "Nuts!" response from General Tony McAuliffe during the WWII siege of Bastogne. Her surname is also a reference to Jimmy Doolittle, a USAF Colonel Badass aviation pioneer.
  • The challenge and response used by Ririka and the pirates in the first episode is the first line of the theme song for Captain Harlock.
  • The Original Seven privateers, of which Hakuchou/Odette II and Bentenmaru are survivors, are a nod to seven privateers paid for by George Washington during the Revolutionary War; while none of them survived, they were the first ships of what would become the United States Navy.
  • The Bentenmaru gets much of her work from the Harold Lloyd Insurance company, a play on real life Lloyd's and the silent movie star.
  • Princess Gruier Serenity's odango hairstyle is a homage to another well known Princess Serenity. Meanwhile, her sister Grunhilde's formal uniform combined her tomboyish appearance gives her a striking resemblance to Char.
  • The first passenger liner that Marika pirated was named the "Princess Apricot", obviously a reference to "Princess Peach".
    • "Princess Apricot" is also a character from the Wii game Little King's Story.
  • The emblem on the Bentenmaru marines' uniform is a hockey mask with crossed bones, a fairly obvious send-up to the Irresponsible Captain Tylor, whose Gunnery Sergeant was apparently no other than Jason Voorhees himself.
  • In the third major arc of the show, we encounter the hospital ship Ben Casey, named after the eponymous main character in a famous '60s medical drama.
  • Also, before they were sidelined by the quarantine, Bentenmaru was supposed to raid the liner Queen Esmeralda, a shout out to an OVA continuing the Harlock Saga.
  • Like First Mate Yattaran, San-Daime likes to build plastic models in his spare time.
  • The Chairwoman of the Nebula Cup strongly resembles Team Fortress 2's Announcer in appearance and temperament, if not motivation.
  • In addition to the Bentenmaru bearing a resemblance to the Outlaw Star itself, both anime also feature McDougal brothers. Coincidence?
  • In the second episode Kane stresses to Marika that becoming her teacher and yacht club adviser was all just a coincidence. Kane and Marika's English voice actors are Chris Patton and Luci Christian who voiced Sosuke and Kaname from Full Metal Panic! who had a very similar conversation in one of the early episodes in regards to Sosuke following her around.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Marika turns the Odette II's solar sails into a variation on this during the showdown with the Lightning 11 in Episode 5, blinding her optical targeting system and heating the hull. Lucky for them Marika decides to stop before melting their ship.
• Space Battle: In episode 26, when 11 pirate ships take on the Grand Cross (three of them).
• Space Fighter: Jenny grabs one, and later transfers its registration to Marika. It ends up being loaned to the Yacht Club as a training vessel.
• Space Is an Ocean: It emphasises this by having sailing ship sound effects in the background most of the time.
• Space Is Noisy: Played straight (using symbolic sound effects to spice up action sequences), and parodied with the pirate ship Parabellum, which broadcasts electronic sound effects onto any ships in range when it goes into battle, much to everyone else's amusement/irritation.
• Space Pirates: The main premise of the series, though strictly speaking Bentenmaru and her crew are Privateers who style themselves as pirates (and, in fact, have the legal status of naval reservists). A less savory type of pirate is shown with Lightning 11, which tried to capture the Odette II.
• Spell My Name With An S: In the DVD release the subtitles have Ms Lambretta starting out as Rin and then changing to Lynn to match her profile in the closing credits about half way through.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Arguably Gruier. She doesn't show up till about episode 8 (technically she boarded Marika's ship in 7 but we don't know its her at that point), then gets a lot of focus, and seems to end up replacing poor Chiaki. Even Marika's classmates nor Mami get to spend nearly as much time with her as Gruier does.
• Spy Catsuit: Ririka wears one when she joins Ironbeard's crew.
• Squee: The Marika's class girls' reaction when Kane McDougal shows up as a substitute teacher and Chiaki Kurihara as a New Transfer Student.
  • Episode 17: The Big Damn Kiss.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: In episode 8, Gruier does this when she mysteriously appears in the backseat of Misa's car while they're trying to get to the airport and stop at the school gate. Marika is sitting in the other seat, and yet she's just as surprised as Misa to learn that Gruier has managed to get herself both into the car and belted in without notice.
• The Stoic: Chiaki, until she encounters a chocolate parfait.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In one episode, Chiaki claims to only be at the cafe where Marika works for the parfait, until Mami mentions Marika's name, which causes Chiaki to stumble/choke a little bit.
• Sweet Tooth (bordering on Genius Sweet Tooth): Coorie is nearly always shown eating some sort of candy.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Chiaki had some hot sauce slipped into her meal during the Hakuoh Pirates ark.
• Techno Babble: Oh yes, lots of it regarding space travel. For the most part it's correct, too.
  • Could also be considered a case of Shown Their Work since most of the tactics and strategies shown regarding space combat and orbital mechanics are spot-on, technically speaking.
• Technology Porn
• Tempting Fate: Several examples:
  • A passenger on a cruise liner states she is quite sure Pirates don't exist anymore, right before Marika appears and announces she's taken over the ship.
  • In episode 9, right before heading out to find the golden ghost ship, Marika says she hopes this doesn't turn into some kind of action movie. Then the preview for the next episode shows action movie stuff happening...
  • In episode 22, Marika offers to escort a pirate ship named Big Catch from a ship that's mysteriously attacking pirate vessels. The captain of that ship is rather bold and cocky, and thinks that anyone stupid enough to attack them will get quickly defeated by them. Till they actually see said ship show up...
• Totally Radical: The title. The original novels take it even further. That said, Bodacious is an actual word, and a portmanteau of "Bold" and "Audacious", two things which pirates definitely are.
• Transfer Student Uniforms: Chiaki's comes with Zettai Ryouiki.
• Transforming Mecha: Not in the series proper, but in the Abyss of Hyperspace movie.
• Twin Switch: Sometime around the Hakuoh Pirates arc, Kane swaps places with his twin brother Shane, the helmsman of Ironbeard's ship Parabellum.
• Unusual User Interface: The Holographic Terminals are par for the course, but some controls are based on a row of mixing desk faders.
• Uterine Replicator: This is essentially how the entire Serenity Royal Family is born, from one aboard the Serenity Ghost Ship.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Quartz Christie did this after the Grand Cross was defeated handily. She had also promised Marika that she wouldn't flee, but still did.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: The Grand Cross delivered quite a few Curb Stomp Battles to the pirates near the end of the anime series, is defeated along with two identical ships rather easily by Marika and her fellow pirates in the final episode. It's largely due to the captain being cocky and overconfident, Bentenmaru crew surviving a couple of attacks by the ship, and by learning about the various tricks and tactics it uses in combat and employing counter-strategies against them.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Marika's school grades take a big hit after she starts pirate captain training.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Bentenmaru is stated to represent the lower end of the scale in terms of firepower among the surviving Letter of Marque holders but makes up for it by focusing on the skill and training of its crew.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 22. Any semblance of a Slice of Life show about Space Pirates is blown away, along with the Big Catch's fighters - who, incidentally, give us our first confirmed onscreen deaths.
  • Another one occurs in episode 24. Turns out there may be a spy within the Bentenmaru's crew sending reports secretly to the Grand Cross.
• Wham Line: Episode 16.
  Lynn: I wish to kidnap the former president of the Hakuoh Academy Yacht Club, Jenny Dolittle.
  • Episode 23.
    Marika: "If you want a fight, you've got one."
• What Does This Button Do?: Asked pretty much word for word by one of the yacht club members in episode 15. Answer: it fires the Bentenmaru's main guns.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gruier invokes this on herself in the denouement of the Ghost Ship arc; she planned on destroying the Uterine Replicator, but hadn't quite realised that there was an unborn baby in the tank. She doesn't take the idea of being an unknowing murderer very well.
  • However, Marika does point out that if they hadn't gone to the ghost ship in the first place, the baby would never have been discovered in time before being put in permanent stasis.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Marika actually does that in her fight against one of the guests during her first pirating job. He duels with her, and wins easily, causing Marika to lose her sword. She then pulls out a small hidden gun and shoots him. However, it's subverted because the man she's fighting was actually Kane intermingling with the guests, and the shooting was faked to make it the fight and pirating raid more elaborate.
• You Don't Look Like You: Several character designs were heavily altered◊ between the novels and the animated series.

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