One of the things my pal Matt Murray has done, besides making wacky short films as part of the Corn Pone Flicks filmmaking collective, is set up a comprehensive website all about Leiji Matsumoto's space pirate hero, Captain Harlock.
Matt's website covers every anime appearance of Captain Harlock, his spaceship the Arcadia, its crew of willowy girls and potatoheads, the aliens and bureaucrats who try to destroy him, and the various continuities and timelines they all appear in. It also means that I never have to write about Captain Harlock on this blog, I can just point everybody to Matt's website.
For instance, didja know that Harlock's pal Tochiro, the guy who built the Arcadia, has at least three separate, completely different animated death scenes? That there are two Arcadias? That most of Harlock's animated appearances completely contradict each other? It's this kind of incongruity that keeps Matsumoto's work fresh and gives scholars things to argue about for years and years.
So do yourself a favor and check out Matt's Harlock website, if only to learn about "Malibu Graphis" (sic) and their amazingly bad late 80s Harlock video release. Tell 'em Dave sent you!
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oh god the continuity
ReplyDeletejust reminds me that I'm so behind on my matsumoto watching :(
testing one two five!
ReplyDeleteWorking here, but I'm gonna only view and post on Safari because Blogger doesn't like to play nice with Netscape.
ReplyDeleteAnother suggestion: need that 'type this nonsense to post' safeguard, or you're gonna get slammed by the spambots.....
As to matt's site, I always point people there. There are some quibbles I have but I always do, like I really don't think the Ziv International dub (the FIRST one) deserves to be slammed as hard as that insane worthless second dub (the Tommy Hairball one), but that's just otaku pissing contest stuff, I guess.
Long live Let's Anime!
Thanks Steve, suggestion noted and taken.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, the first Ziv Harlock errs in the completely opposite direction of the second Ziv (Jim Terry?) Harlock - the first dub is grim, dull, underacted... bad, but in a different way. Serviceable, though.
Heh... we're actually watching fansubs of the original Harlock TV in our anime group right now. Just got to the episode where he breaks into an earth naval base to use the phone.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff.
M.C.Wagner
Matt's website covers every anime appearance of Captain Harlock, his spaceship the Arcadia, its crew of willowy girls and potatoheads, the aliens and bureaucrats who try to destroy him, and the various continuities and timelines they all appear in. It also means that I never have to write about Captain Harlock on this blog, I can just point everybody to Matt's website.
ReplyDeleteReally, I know how you feel about it Dave, as I often point people to that direction too!
Speaking of the ZIV Harlock tapes, some fly-by-nite DVD company out there seem to have release them illegitimately on DVD under the monoker, "Captain Harlock & Friends" (evokes the weekday afternoon mentality of any UHF station to come up with a better title than to stick "& Friends" after a cartoon character's name)!
http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Harlock-and-Friends/dp/B000P21XFY
On another topic, I bothered to shill out good money on 5 volumes worth of the Captain Harlock manga I bought off eBay recently. Only wish I had learned how to read Japanese or it would've helped me to read these!