Waga seishun no Arcadia, released in America as Arcadia of My Youth, is a 1982 Anime feature giving an origin story note for Space Pirate Captain Harlock and his Distaff Counterpart, Emeraldas.
Set on a future Vichy Earth, the planet has been conquered by the Illumidas and opens with Harlock being the last to surrender, deliberately crashing his ship Death Shadow in such a way as to render it and the runway unusable.
Then Harlock meets Tochiro Ooyama, a short, unattractive little man who is, nontheless a brilliant inventor. Harlock is impressed with Tochiro's determination to live when Tochiro wrests a drumstick from an Illumidas thug and Harlock comes to his defense. Both are arrested and learn that they have a connection via being the Identical Grandsons of Phantom F. Harlock, a fighter plane pilot, and an earlier Tochiro Ooyama who met during World War II.
Harlock is also looking for Maya, a woman he knows from his past who has become the "voice of Free Arcadia", an illegal radio program that is encouraging underground resistance to the Illumidas. In an effort to keep Maya safe, Harlock loses his right eye to a gunshot.
He also meets Zoll, a soldier of Tokarga, another race under the thumb of the Illumidas, who he had come to respect even when they fought during the war.
The plot escalates soon after Harlock and Tochiro meet Emeraldas, a free space trader whose starship had to make an emergency landing. Tochiro repairs the Queen Emeraldas while Harlock suffers his injury; by the time he comes to after struggling back to their camp, he decides to heed a new broadcast from Maya, and beg Emeraldas to steal her ship and just leave the Earth behind. Zoll and the other Tokargans then show up — because they also need to steal a ship in a hurry: they've learned that the Illumidas are going to attack the Tokargan homeworld now that it has outlived its usefulness.
Then Tochiro shows Harlock his masterpiece, a powerful ship that puts anything in the Illumidas fleet to shame, the Arcadia, which would become Harlock's signature ship. With this ship, they can sail to Tokarga to aid Zoll's people without raising the Illumidas' suspicions.
As they put to space, it is revealed that Maya has been captured, as well as Emeraldas; they are threatened with execution if Harlock does not return and surrender. However, they are saved when Zoll leads an insurrection and frees the pair, though Maya is gravely wounded by Murugison, Zeda's Smug Snake of a second in command, who also gives Emeraldas her signature scar, grazing her face with a bullet. When Zoll starts to hunt Murugison down for revenge, the human Quisling leader Triter shoots Zoll in the back.
His friends freed, Harlock ventures to Tokarga to try and save their people. Unfortunately, they arrive too late, and only save a few soldiers and Zoll's little sister. Zoll's sister, the last Tokargan female, dies soon afterwards; as a result, the remaining Tokargans aboard the Arcadia perform a Heroic Sacrifice, allowing the ship to pass the "Owen Stanley Witch of Space", a series of plasma streams between two stars.
Knowing this same fate eventually awaits the Earth, Harlock returns to collect the bodies of Maya and Zoll, along with anyone willing to leave with him under his flag.
The Illumidas commander Zeda, who has been fascinated by Harlock and his companions, challenges them to a duel of battleships before leaving Earth again. Zeda is defeated, and the Illumidas fleet that challenges them soon follows. Harlock and company set out with a new resolve to leave the corrupted Earth behind to sail the sea of stars under their own moral code.
This work contains examples of:
- Chekhov's Gun: Well, in this case, Chekhov's gunsight. The Revi C-12D given to Tochiro's distant ancestor by Harlock's, still exists and becomes the emergency gunsight of the Arcadia when her original unit is damaged.
- Cold Equation: Harlock is forced to escape the planet Tokarga after the Illumidas destroy it, with only Zoll's little sister Mira and a few Tokargan soldiers surviving. To escape the Illumidas fleet waiting for them, they pass through the "Owen Stanley Witch Of Space," a passage between twin suns with multiple prominence streams — and a Negative Space Wedgie that attracts Life Energy. Despite the efforts of Harlock and Tochiro, the Arcadia is almost drawn in until its engines miraculously go into overdrive. Afterwards, Harlock and Tochiro discover what happened: Mira died from the strain of the passage, and the other Tokargans, realizing that they are officially extinct, decide to march out the airlock in order to ease the ship's load and repay Harlock for risking his life to save their people.
- The Constant: The present-day Harlock and Tochiro inherited the copies of the "Arcadia of My Youth" books their ancestors from the World War II flashback carried, as well as the gun sight given to Tochiro's ancestor.
- The Determinator: Tochiro and Harlock are both determined to live freely or die in the effort.
- Despair Event Horizon: The death of Mira, Zoll's sister and the last known Tokargan female, drives the remaining Tokargan soldiers to sacrifice themselves to save Arcadia.
- Eye Scream: This movie reveals how Harlock lost his right eye. It was hit by a gun shot when he was trying to protect Maya.
- Genetic Memory: Used as a plot device to include the story about Harlock's ancestor in World War II, and the birth of his friendship with Tochiro's ancestor at the time. (In the story, the Tokargan guard Zoll uses the genetic memory analysis — with faked results — as a way to hide their activities from the Illumidas.)
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Harlock and Emeraldas have near identical scars going across the bridge of their nose and their cheek. This film shows how Emeraldas came by hers.
- Identical Grandson: Both Tochiro and Harlock have ancestors who met in the past. There is some hint they may be reincarnations of these two individuals.
- Meaningful Name: Every Harlock's ship or airplane is named Arcadia. Arcadia represents the idyllic and carefree land of one's childhood, and is what Captain Harlock fights to restore.
- Nazi Protagonist: The Phantom F. Harlock from the World War II sequence is a Luftwaffe pilot in the death throes of Nazi Germany. He expresses that he has no real love for Nazi ideology (in his own words, he's "paying rent"note ), and winds up helping Tochiro (a Japanese scientist studying German gunsights) defect to Sweden before walking back over the border to face pursuing Allied soldiers and the consequences of his own actions.
- Space Is an Ocean: Called out repeatedly as people refer to space as the Sea of Stars. Arcadia is a spaceship based on a World War II battlship with a galleon's aftcastle and ship's wheel, and Emeraldas' ship is a space-worthy dirigible with a galleon as the gondola.
- Vichy Earth: Earth has surrendered and its government officials are compliant and complicit with the Illumidas. Zeda and Triter repeatedly attempt to recruit Harlock to be the captain of the Earth volunteer force being sent to attack Tokarga before Harlock's rebellion comes into the open. The Illumidas even organize a squad of Earthlings to carry out the attempted execution of Emeraldas and Maya.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Maya. Emeraldas calls her out as such after she dies. Her death reinforces Harlock's decision to become a pirate, and inspires Emeraldas to follow suit.
- The Quisling: Prime Minister Triter, the leader of the Vichy Earth government under the Illumidas. He serves as the Illumidas lapdog and is looked down on for it, even by Zeda. During the botched execution of Emeraldas and Maya, he shoots Zoll In the Back. Despite all of this, the film gives him the dignity of a Villain Has a Point dialog with Harlock, and the film ends with him still alive and in power, as Harlock and his companions leave him behind to sail the Sea Of Stars.Harlock: For what purpose must humans go to Tokarga?
Triter: You pledged total loyalty to Earth, right? That's fine, so did I. Now, you must kill your mother or a stray dog.
(...) If we cooperate with Illumidas and send a volunteer corps to Tokarga, Earth's safety will be assured forever! You called me scum, but would I not be scum if I let Earth be destroyed to save another planet? - Worthy Opponent: How Harlock and Zeda see one another. After his defeat, Zeda and Harlock promise to one day toast each other in Hell.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Tokargans are no longer of use to the Illumidas now that they've conquered Earth. Harlock tries to warn the Earth that they will suffer the same fate, eventually, but most don't heed his warnings.
