AoY Podcast #51 – Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013) Review
Also known as: “It’s a giant penis gun, INNN SPAAAACE!!”
And also: “Well I came to school a day early, I must be special ed in some way…”
Download Episode HERE!! (Total Time: 55:56)
So, you could say it’s been about mid-July since the last time we did a review of some kind, and you would be totally right about that. Well, thanks to the power of selecting anime off Netflix, Jonn and Zeonic were able to find the treasure trove of freedom in the recent works by Shinji Aramaki. So, Jonn and Zeonic take our oaths to the Arcadia and TAKE TO THE SKYYYY with the 2013 Space Pirate Captain Harlock movie.
(0:00 – 33:55) Review: Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013): When it comes to knowing the world of Captian Harlock, Zeonic and Jonn have only really seen Arcadia of my Youth (aka SECOND TOO THE GREATNESS OF VENGEANCE OF THE SPACE PIRATE!!), and Zeonic saw some of Harlock Saga he rented back from Blockbuster in the early 2000’s during his high school anime renting days. So, we really don’t know a whole lot about the world of Harlock compared to people like Corn Pone Flicks, Dave Merrill, and a bunch of other Harlock fans stretched across the interstellar maps of the internet (I should note, Dave Merrill and CPF are one in the same entity BTW.) So Zeonic and Jonn decided to give this recent movie by the fantastic mecha designer/ not so fantastic director Shinji Aramaki. Aside from phallic weapons IINNNN SPAAACE, poor politics and trying to reverse time; we SPOIL a lot about this film, for good reason. This of course has us talking about Aramaki as a director in general, and maybe a strong accusation on how he makes every movie ever.
(33:55 – 55:56) Social “In”justice Warriorz Segment: Jonn and Zeonic decided after blabbering on about Harlock for far too long, they get into some current issues (as of August 2014) with the riots in Ferguson MI, RIP to Robin Williams (really just a mention there), the trial details of OJ Simpson, general anime talk, The Eltingville Club comic, phone company problems, and much more.
Others who have taken to the sky with Harlock: Anime World Order Podcast
Music Selection:
OP – TAKE TO THE SKYYYYYY WITH ME!!!!
ED – What Aramaki hears as he passes out in ficus trees…
This show has:
For FREEEEDOOOOOOMM!!!!
Zero G Hover Round fights…
Backhanding your holographic sister…
The Penis Gun, INNNN SPAAAAAAAACE!!!!
jonnjonzz01
zeonicfreak
The Anime of Yesteryear Podcast 
Yeah.. This new movie wasn’t that great. I think its worst offense was that it’s just kinda.. boring. I can’t think of any memorable music, which is a big problem for me. -and the pacing definitely has issues which is strange because I like slow burn movies. Just kinda felt like there was a lot of dead air.*
In regards to the characters, I think they just renamed some because in the subtitles the japanese audio never calls the character “Logan” and the English subtitled name for Tochiro is some German name I can’t remember.
The best Harlock things I’ve watched has been the Galaxy Express 999 movie, The ’79 TV series, and Arcadia of My Youth. Those are worth checking out for good Harlock material.
You can skip SSX because it gets cancelled before its actually ever to go anywhere. It’s got good music but its 22 episodes of Harlock, Tochiro, and Emeraldas being chased by Aliens who teamed up with a human dude and it gets cut off when Tochiro finally becomes a part of the Arcadia.
Man I love Evan Dorkin and The Eltingville Club. So much. I’ve seen that cartoon pilot several times.
09/20/2014 at 5:56 pm
Man, I’m super curious about the english dub that was on TV that Macek handled in the mid 80’s.
Yea, I know Daryl Surat’s claim is that there isn’t a lot of good Harlock, which seems to be just stick with the Arcadia of my Youth movie and the original show. I still need to rewatch/finish Harlock Saga that CPM put out years ago, maybe one day. Even when I rented the DVD from Blockbuster I did not finish it because I got bored with it. I seriously don’t think I made it halfway through that to be honest. And that was over a decade ago when I saw that.
I’ve seen the pilot to Eltingville Club as well, several times. I own it on DVD from the Adult Swim In A Box they released a few years ago along with the other specials like Korgoth and some other crappy stuff that came with it.
09/20/2014 at 6:13 pm
Not to nitpick, but Corn Pone Flicks is a collective. Matt Murray has directed most of the films and done all the subtitling projects (and manages the website), CB Smith has written a good deal of the material, they both have worked on special effects and intricate camera shots, and they’ve both been in front of the camera acting and behind the camera shooting. I’ve worked on many CPF projects, but others I had no involvement with at all. There are quite a few other people who’ve been involved with CPF’s work, as well.
My favorite Harlock iterations are his appearances in the Galaxy Express films, the 1978 TV series, and SSX. The newer Harlock Saga/Ring Of The Niebelungen stuff was… I dunno. Something was off. I kinda liked this new film, myself; it has gigantic outer space super-science weapons, and tries really hard to put emotion into the characters (fails, but tries really hard), and Harlock looks up at the Arcadia and murmurs “My friend…”, so that sells me on it. Too bad the characters all look like reanimated corpses. Still, it mostly works, mostly.
10/15/2014 at 11:14 pm
Wow, I guess name dropping hooked you into commenting on the site. Thanks for stopping in and commenting.
I know that you are one person that makes up part of a bigger group that is CPF. The only things I have seen in the past that were on the site is the Star Dipwads 30 minute movie you guys did, Matt Murray Star Blazers Retrospective, the Bad Anime Dubbing videos, and Matt reviewing some bad alien movie on UPN back in the 90’s. I guess I ment in that statement was my way of saying that you are involved with CPF, even if you make up one part of it. Sorry it came out that way when I wrote that.
Arcadia of my Youth seems to be the only good Harlock I have seen, and seems to be the only good Harlock out there from what I gather. I do own the GE999 films by Rintaro that we will see and review on this podcast eventually, so we do look forward to doing that. The only thing im curious in is watching episodes from the TV series that were dubbed by Macek, which I found the intro to that very catchy enough to use as a fitting intro to this podcast.
I liked the first half of this movie, it just got towards the end is when my co-host and I had our problems with it. I am not even sure if Aramaki has gotten better in terms of telling a story, because I saw Appleseed Alpha recently and…. it is about what I expected it to be. I think he’s toned down on the acrobatics a little, which seemed off the wall from what I remember in Appleseed Ex Machina. I guess I really can’t bash on the guy…. too harshly?
10/16/2014 at 12:11 am
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