Ask John: Can You Tell Us More About Captain Harlock?

Question:
I grew up watching Captain Harlock on TV when I was about seven years old. Recently, I re-ignited my nostalgia when I purchased “My Youth in Arcadia,” and I was overjoyed with the “Queen Emeraldas” DVD. Can you tell us more of the history of the Harlock saga, and of noteworthy/upcoming releases? I have been informed that there are no further “Emeraldas” episodes.

Answer:
I probably know more about Harlock and Matsumoto’s “Leijiverse” than some fans, but certainly not as much as others, so my response may be curtailed a bit. Harlock premiered on Japanese television in a 42 episode TV series titled Space Pirate Captain Harlock on March 14, 1978. This successful series was followed up by a 22 episode prequel TV series titled Endless Road SSX and the motion picture My Youth in Arcadia, which was a prequel to SSX. Both premiered in 1982. This sudden popularity of the enigmatic Captain Harlock suddenly had him cameo in both of the Galaxy Express 999 films. Harlock made his appearance on American television 1n 1985, courtesy of Carl Macek and Streamline. Following up the success of Robotech, Captain Harlock & The Queen of a Thousand Years took the original 1978 Harlock TV series and the 1981 Millennium Queen TV series and patched together into a single ill-conceived amorphous series, even though the original Japanese series were totally unrelated and had no common characters between them. In 1999 Harlock returned in a new 6 episode OAV series titled Harlock Saga: Der Ring Des Nibelungen Das Rhein Gold, a loose sci-fi interpretation of the opera by Wagner that told the story of an attempt to overthrow the gods of Valhalla. You can learn more about Harlock Saga from this review from EX Magazine and from the official American Harlock Saga homepage.

Leiji Matsumoto sort of faded into relative obscurity in the late 1980s and early 1990s after being a hugely influential creator in the 1970s, with titles like Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express, Space Cruiser Yamato, and Millennium Queen to his name. Especially in the late 1990s, Matsumoto made something of a massive comeback with several anime titles including The Cockpit, DNASights 999.9, the theatrical release Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy, the Queen Emeraldas OAV series, Harlock Saga, several Playstation games including 2 Yamato strategy games and an append disc, and the current Matael Legend OAV series and the new Daft Punk music video “One More Time.” The first 2 Queen Emeraldas OAVs were released in Japan in 1998. My recollection is hazy, but I want to say that it was roughly a year later that OAVs 3 & 4 were released. There have been rumors for years that a new Yamato series is in the works, and each year that goes by, the rumors change to “it’s coming next year.” The short lived Yamato 2520 OAV series from 1994 survived for an episode zero “making of” special and 3 episodes but is really only tenuously connected to the “Leijiverse” as Matsumoto was not directly involved in the production and the Yamato 2520 series has virtually no references to the classic Yamato or any other Matsumoto staples. It’s very possible that more Yamato, as well as more Captain Harlock anime will be coming someday, but at the present time I haven’t heard of any plans for any new Yamato or Harlock anime.

Addendum added January 7th, 2003:
After intense controversy and production being canceled then re-started, Captain Harlock will be making a return appearance in the Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey 13 episode OAV series. Space Cruise Yamato will also be returning in 2003 in an original, new continuity television series titled Great Galaxy Series: Great Yamato Arc: 7 vs 7.