"Under this flag, I live in freedom."
—Captain Phantom F. Harlock
Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a recurring character created by
Leiji Matsumoto in 1953. Harlock's first appearance in anime was in the 1978
Space Pirate Captain Harlock series; the series was succeeded by
The Movie,
Arcadia of My Youth;
Endless Road SSX, which followed the movie; and two
OVA series.
Harlock's creator,
Leiji Matsumoto,
was never a stickler for continuity, so it's impossible to give a coherent description of Captain Harlock's history. Nevertheless, his character has always been clear: Captain Harlock is a man of honor who, betrayed by either a corrupt or
Vichy Earth, chose to sail the Sea of Stars as a
Space Pirate to remain true to his ideals. Although he has left behind an Earth which hates and fears him, Harlock remains willing and able to fight for his homeworld in its times of need. Nevertheless, he's not motivated by patriotism; he swore an oath to fight for only what
he believes in.
Funimation currently has subtitled episodes of the original anime series as streaming video on its website.
For more information, visit
The Captain Harlock Archives
.
The Captain Harlock anime contain the following tropes:
- The Ace: Takashi as a pilot.
- Action Girl: Kei Yuki.
- A Glass Of Chianti: More of a wine in a brandy sniffer thing with Harlock.
- Alternate Continuity: Every single series takes place in a similar but slightly different universe.
- Anime Accent Absence: Harlock is canonically German but speaks perfect Japanese. (Though this is justifiable for his WWII-era ancestor in My Youth In Arcadia)
- Arcadia: The name of Harlock's Cool Starship.
- Batman Can Breathe In Space
- Big Damn Gunship: The Arcadia in the first episode of the original series.
- Bottle Fairy: Mimay appears to subsist on alcohol, although she does get flushed while drinking. Harlock himself is often seen with a glass of red wine, and never appears to e drunk.
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: Harlock's first mate Yattaran, who is very good at his job despite spending all his off hours as a stereotypical plastic model otaku.
- Burial In Space: Arcadia of My Youth
- Call To Adventure
- The Captain: Harlock, obviously.
- Emereldas in Queen Emereldas.
- Cosmo Warrior Zero has the titular Zero.
- Colony Drop
- Conspicuous CG: Experimented with for spaceship scenes in the Queen Emeraldas OVA and Cosmo Warrior Zero.
- Crossover: Harlock and company frequently cameo in Galaxy Express 999.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu: At the beginning of Endless Odyssey, Harlock says point blank, he doesn't care to save Earth from the Noo. It's implied he views this as indirect revenge upon the leaders and population that ostricized him. Either way, it distracts The Noo from Daiba's presence. Birdie number one. Number two comes from the entire crew, when the Noo are unable to possess Harlock or anyone else. They're simply to baddass to fall for the scare-tactic.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Same show.
- Distaff Counterpart: Emeraldas.
- Emotion Bomb: The Noo from Endless Odyssey, using fear.
- Eyepatch Of Power
- Genetic Memory: Used as a plot device in Arcadia of my Youth to include a story about Harlock's ancestor in World War II.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: And the French love "Albator".
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: In Endless Odyssey, Harlock Brightslaps Daiba in their very first scene together, before Daiba can even start Wangsting properly over his dead father.
- Gonk: Several characters, including his best friend Tochiro. In fact, sometimes it seems that humanity has evolved into two distinct races in the Leijiverse: a race of beautiful Noodle People and a race of hideously deformed midgets.
- Good Scars Evil Scars: Harlock and Emeraldas.
- Green Skinned Space Babe: The Mazone are a race of these.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Harlock and Mimay.
- It's actually somewhat questionable whether or not Mimay isn't just flat-out Harlock's mistress.
- Honor Before Reason: Harlock's the type of man who always keeps a promise, no matter how small, even if he has to put his life on the line to do so. For instance, landing on Vichy Earth while a wanted fugitive to keep a promise to visit a young girl on her birthday in the first episode of the original anime.
- Hypertime: Matsumoto's general approach to continuity.
- Matsumoto deliberately makes all of his series impossible to reconcile yet containing elements from his other series.
- Identical Grandson: Virtually all of Harlock's ancestors are duplicates of him.
- Jonas Quinn: La Mimay in Arcadia of my Youth and SSX, for Mimay from the original series.
- Macekre: Several times; most egregiously, Carl Macek himself combined one series with Queen Millennia to create Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years.
- Mook Face Turn: Zoll and the Tokargans from Arcadia of My Youth, who served the Illumidas so they would take mercy on their homeworld. That didn't work out for them.
- Multiple Choice Past: A few different explanations are given for Harlock's past: In Space Pirate Captain Harlock, he and Torchiro know each other since grade school, build the Arcadia, and then meet Emeraldas for the first time My Youth in Arcadia, however, states that Harlock and Tochiro meet for the first time in the military, but Harlock apparently knows Emeraldas already. One of the oddest explanations (more fan speculation at this point) is that Harlock is actually Alex Wildstar/Mamoru Kodai of Space Cruiser Yamato. They do actually look alike, but that would negate all the important plot elements about Harlock and Tochiro's ancestors in MYIA.
- My Hero Zero: We have a Doctor Zero and a Captain Zero.
- My Revenge Is Mercy
- Peek A Bangs: Harlock's hair covers his eyepatch.
- Perspective Flip: Cosmo Warrior Zero follows a Vichy Earth crew on a mission to defeat a younger Harlock.
- Pirate Parrot
- The Pirates Who Dont Do Anything: The instances when Harlock and friends actually steal and plunder are exceedinly rare. "Pirate" is more a name given to him by his detractors.
- Ramming Always Works: The Arcadia — it even has a retractable battering ram in the bow that looks like a giant Bowie knife.
- Revival: Captain Herlock Endless Odyssey
- Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: Takashi against the Mazone.
- Screw The Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Captain Harlock turns to space piracy because of the corruption of Earth's government, but still fights for he believes in and is willing to defend the Earth if need be.
- See You In Hell
- Smug Snake: Murugison, the Number Two of the Worthy Opponent from Arcadia of My Youth
- Space Is An Ocean: "The Sea of Stars is my sea" from the opening theme, a sterncastle on the back of the Arcadia, a skull-and-crossbones flag flapping in the nonexistent breeze...
- Space Pirates
- Spell My Name With An S: The Endless Odyssey series was released as "Captain Herlock". It was still pronounced the same way.
- The Movie is also known as My Youth in Arcadia, inspired by Gratuitous English on Japanese promotional materials; Animeigo re-translated the Japanese title to get Arcadia of My Youth, instead.
- Star System
- Twist Ending: The end of Endless Odyssey where Harlock reveals he killed Tadashi's father, then tells Tadashi to kill him—earlier he promised Tadashi that he would deliver his father's killer to him.; this verges on being a Shocking Swerve. Or even a Wall Banger.
- Ubermensch: Harlock, and to a lesser extent his shipmates and Worthy Opponents. The Vichy Earthlings are almost always Last Men.
- Ugly Guy Hot Wife: This is pretty much Tochiro and Esmeraldas in a nutshell.
- The Unpronounceable: The correct title for The Noo is literally impossible for humans to vocalize.
- Vichy Earth: Arcadia of my Youth is largely about Earth turning into this after losing a war, and how Harlock decided to rebel.
- Voice Of The Resistance: Arcadia of my Youth — "This is the Voice of Free Arcadia..."
- Wallbanger: Earth's behavior in the original series is so ridiculous that it doesn't even bear mentioning.
- Wave Motion Gun: On several other vessels (e.g. the Karyu from Cosmo Warrior Zero), but averted on the Arcadia. (See Ramming Always Works.)
- The Woobie: Mayu in the first series. The television show takes a perverse pleasure in torturing the seven year old girl in increasingly horrible ways. She's never actually abused, but has her pet bird eaten by a hawk. Gets attacked by wolves (!?). She even is forced to clean a church by herself with water dragged from a nearby stream.
- Worthy Opponent: Harlock tends to feel this for his opponents.
- Zero feels this for Harlock.
