Roving Thoughts archives

What we've become used to

In reaction to my entry on the one bad moment in Sora no Woto, Author tweeted :

[...] -- 2 thoughts: 1) IS THAT ALL?!! 2) Do not watch Juuden-chan

Author is quite correct in one sense; by the standards of a long-term anime watcher, one who has long since become acclimatized to juvenilia and fanservice, the one bad moment in Sora no Woto is almost nothing. Even if one dislikes crassness, it's easily ignored.

(I myself am one of these jaded people; I have been known to completely forget that certain anime series had some fanservice until I was gently reminded of it by someone who has a 10 year old son and so is sensitized to that sort of thing.)

But I think he's wrong in another sense. By the standards of a normal person, someone who is not a jaded long-term anime watcher, this may well be not such a little thing. And even among people who watch a lot of anime, tastes can differ substantially; to put it one way, there are still plenty of anime to watch if you don't like fanservice.

(Frankly, if you look at fanservice anime with the eyes of an outsider there is a lot that is kind of disgusting about it. Juuden-chan is an especially good extreme example of this in one direction, as is High School DxD in another.)

Or to put it briefly, we've become used to a lot of things that would shock outsiders. I have no particular editorial opinions on whether this is good or bad, but I want to note that it undeniably exists. What is routine for us is not routine for everyone, and we've become comfortable with things that outsiders would find startling and probably at least somewhat disgusting.

I'm conscious of all of this partly because I talk to people who are not jaded long-term anime watchers and even give them anime recommendations from time to time. This gives me a useful filter to look at anime with; I ask myself if I could encourage them to watch a particular series or if I would have to add a bunch of qualifications and cautions.

If you are a jaded anime fan, willing to ignore a moment of crassness, I feel that Sora no Woto is a great series (assuming you like its genre in general). But if you are not, that moment of crassness might ruin the series. And when I wrote my commentary I was conscious of that, especially because the series is something that I really would like to be able to recommend to everyone.

A theory about why piracy is still there in Moretsu Pirates (as of episode 7)

(There are spoilers here.)

By the end of episode 7 of Pirates, it's become obvious that the 'privateering' that the eponymous pirates are doing is in fact pretty much a stage show, admittedly a stage show that is sometimes conducted with live ammunition. This is rather odd, as noted by omonomono in Mouretsu Pirates Are Like Maid Cafe Maids. I was recently struck with a theory for why the privateers are still around in this odd way.

First, I'll run down some things that we know about the setting:

• the war for independence that spawned the privateers didn't come to a conclusion; it was suppressed by both sides being forcefully absorbed by (and into) the Galactic Empire.
• the privateers weren't shut down when this happened because the Galactic Empire respects each system's rights to self rule; the privateers fall under this clause (as long as they are privateers with a Letter of Marque instead of pirates).
• there is a bunch of bureaucracy and restrictions on the privateers, but at the same time there also seems to be a lot of assistance and good will from the government to the privateers.
• the Bentenmaru is said to be vastly more powerful than three escort warships combined.

My theory is that the privateers, or more exactly their ships, are a legal end run around limitations that the Galactic Empire imposes on the size and power of the Colony Federation's local naval forces (if it's even allowed to have any). Through the privateers, the Colony Federation has effectively managed to retain a bunch of battleships with a significant amount of firepower and keep them outside the authority of the Galactic Empire.

(This is not enough firepower to stop the Galactic Empire if the GE wants to put a big enough fleet together, but it may be enough firepower to make a difference in a lesser situation. And options are always good, especially when the Colony Federation probably doesn't really like having effectively lost their war for independence by being taken over by a third party.)

The Galactic Empire couldn't take the privateers over because they're private ships, not government forces, and they couldn't forbid them because as privateers they're a legitimate exercise of self rule. I'm guessing that the Galactic Empire can forbid issuing Letters of Marque to new ships and insist on a whole series of rules for keeping the privateer status valid in the hopes that it will winnow down the number of privateer ships over time. Meanwhile the local government is all for the privateer ships; it can't disobey the Galactic Empire or break its rules outright (because that would give the Galactic Empire the excuse it needs to shut down the privateers), but it can give the privateers all sorts of assistance in fulfilling those rules.

The privateering shows that the Bentenmaru puts on function as a way to funnel money to the privateers to keep the ships in operation and crewed and to satisfy the Galactic Empire's requirements for continuing the Letters of Marque. It also helps keep the privateers in something approximating fighting condition for genuine battles. (It may also make privateers seem romantically cool, instead of something that you might lobby the Galactic Empire to put a stop to somehow.)

This also sort of explains the Odette II, which we are told is one of the original seven pirate ships and is still being maintained in something approaching fighting condition. The government can't own the Odette II outright because then the Galactic Empire could take it away, but it can arrange for it to be owned by a school yacht club, maintained properly, and regularly taken out on cruises by a bunch of interesting people who could make up a scratch crew if it became necessary (drawing both from current club members and from past graduates). This is not as good as the Odette II still being in active service as a privateer but it's a lot better than being completely decommissioned.

(I suspect that when the Odette II stopped being a privateer, its ownership carefully never passed through government hands. I would not be surprised if it was owned by the school yacht club instead of the school itself as extra insulation.)