r/outlawstar

What streaming service can i watch Outlaw Star on?

Is 108 Suns/Stars the actual name of the Kei Pirate Guild? Or is it a subgroup/faction of the Kei Pirate Guild? To me, the lore within the anime itself seems a bit muddy on this. I don't think it really establishes a clear relationship between these two.

u/CurseHawkwind I'd like to pull you into this discussion because of your access to the manga glossary as that might prove to be helpful here.

I'm going to list all of the information I believe to be relevant below in hopes the community of this subreddit can help me sort this all out:

Episode 5

In one of the last scenes, Gene and Swanzo discuss the various pirate territories. Swanzo says that the territory of the Kei Pirates was originally the Tempa Empire. He also says that the area they're currently in is inside Ban Pirate territory and warns Gene to be careful if he goes past Heifong.

To me, this suggests that Heifong is within Ban Pirate territory, although I'm not sure how literally that should be interpreted but this will come up again in a point I will make for episode 14.

Episode 7

The introductory narration establishes several things:

1. There's four great pirate groups.

2. One of these four is after the Outlaw Star.

3. This group is from the Hoppo system and it's called the 108 Suns/Stars.

4. This group is the most brutal group in the "Chinese Guild"

5. This group is led by the Tendo King. (not to be confused with the emperor of the Tempa Empire)

6. This group is made up of small groups of 10 or 20.

7. There's leaders for these groups.

8. Hazanko is the boss of the pirates that is pursuing Gene.

9. Hazanko has great influence within the 108 Stars, to the point where the other leaders consider him their superior.

Episode 14

The People's Liberation Front refer to the viceroy of Heifong as a puppet of the Tempa Empire. This is interesting as episode 5 implied that Heifong was Ban Pirate territory and the Tempa Empire was originally Kei Pirate territory.

Episode 15

The introductory narration states "Under the direct command of Hazanko, leader of the 108 Stars pirate group..."

Now this could be taken in at least two different ways: Hazanko is THE leader of the 108 Stars or he is A leader in the 108 Stars. Given the information from episode 7 about the Tendo King and Hazanko, I choose to believe the narrator is saying that Hazanko is a leader in the 108 Stars, not the leader. This is further substantiated by a scene in episode 24 where an overseer confronts Hazanko saying "What's the meaning of this? You're not following the Tendo King orders!"

Episode 24

When speaking to the overseer, Hazanko says "Not just the Tendo King. The power of the Leyline surpasses even that of the Tempa Emperor." which positions the Tempa Emperor as more powerful than the Tendo King.

Side note: I don't have any sources for this but I believe that there's no actual Tendo Kingdom that exists somewhere apart from the Tempa Empire. I think the Tendo King is called that because he's the leader of the 108 Stars, a king of the pirates if you will, not the king to a kingdom. I'm saying all of this to clarify that the Tendo King might reside in the Tempa Empire.

And that's all I got!

I think the intro for episode 7 (and maybe the intro for episode 15?) is the most useful thing we have to try and figure this 108 Stars <->Kei Pirate Guild connection, but unfortunately the Kei pirates are not mentioned at all by name during that episode. Another thing worth mentioning is that these two episodes are the only ones that ever mention the 108 Stars by name.

Lastly an important note: All of the information I've provided here is from English subtitles or the English dub. It's entirely possible all of this is actually wrong and the Japanese is super clear on all of this. I have no idea. The English subtitles seem to be dubtitles so I tried finding fansubs from back in the day before the English dub existed but I could not find any.