Marika is a normal high school girl. She goes to class, she studies hard and she lives with her mom who is a respectable member of society with a regular job. Or so Marika thinks. Marika soon learns that her father, whom she never knew, has passed away leaving her to inherit his job – as a space pirate! While Marika is trying to absorb that fact she finds out that her mom used to be a space pirate too and that not only was her father a space pirate, he was the captain of one of the few pirate ships still around. Marika’s simple easy life has just become very complicated. She is now the captain of a pirate ship with a rag-tag crew of pirates that pester her about keeping up on her schooling.

This show presents a very interesting view of (space) pirates and piracy in general. According to the story, many years ago in order to fight a war space piracy became legal by planets giving out letters of marque. The planets did this to allow them to fight without raising their own army. Now, as the war is behind them no more letters of marque are given out, however pirate ships that already have them get to keep them as long as they continue to do piracy.  And by piracy they mean they are basically mercenaries for hire. Usually on jobs such as “robbing” space-liners, doing security for events or even just escorting foreign dignitaries. It also presents a very different twist to the usual “high school student living on their own and working a job to survive”. Marika lives with her mom, but her mom is a very small part of the show. In fact you can go 3 or 4 episodes without seeing her. While Marika doesn’t need to work to make money to survive, she has to work at piracy if she wants to keep her letter of marque. More than that, she has to work if she wants all her shipmates to be able to keep working.

There is really no central theme in the story other than the fact it revolves around Marika. There are a few mini-stories that span a handful of episodes each, but the writers did a really good job of making sure the stories tie into each other. It doesn’t feel like a bunch of disjointed episodes all slapped together. The content is also very clean. I don’t remember ever seeing one sexually inappropriate thing, which is a rare thing to be able to say about newly made anime shows. There are a few episodes left that have not aired yet, about 4 or so, but I don’t expect them to have gone for 20 episodes perfectly clean and then throw in a bunch of fan service at the end (usually they do that at the beginning).

I mention above that there was no sexually inappropriate scene, which is correct. I specifically stated it that way because there is one scene, around episode 16 or so, where two girls kiss.  A long kiss. I see that kind of thing around town, so it’s not like it really bothers me but it may bother you (or you may not want to have to explain to your kid why two girls are kissing “that way”). This is not a recurring theme.  If I remember correctly it happens once at the end of an episode and they pick it up at the beginning of the next episode. Later on in the episode they drop one of the girls off at a school so she is out of the picture – meaning this doesn’t happen again and again.