Harlock Space Pirate

HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT [2013 / 2015] [Collector’s Limited Edition SteelBook] [3D Blu-ray + 2D Blu-ray + DVD] Exciting and Epic . . . A Lavish and Thrilling Feast! Brings CGI To The Next Level! It Looks Ab-so-lu-te-ly Stunning!Far, far in the future, or perhaps the distant past... 500 billion displaced humans long to return to the planet they still refer to as home. Captain Harlock is the one man standing between the corrupt Gaia Coalition and their quest for complete intergalactic rule. Seeking revenge against those who wronged both mankind and himself, the mysterious space pirate roams the universe in his battle cruiser, the Arcadia, defiantly attacking and pillaging enemy ships. Gaia Fleet leader Ezra sends his younger brother, Logan to infiltrate the Arcadia and assassinate Harlock. But Logan will soon discover that things are not always what they seem and that legends are born for a reason. Based on original characters and stories created by Leiji Matsumoto.Voice Cast: Yû Aoi, Jessica Boone, Ayano Fukuda, Arata Furuta, Adam Gibbs, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, David Matranga, Haruma Miura, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Rob Mungle, Emily Neves, Shun Oguri, Chikao Ohtsuka, Maaya Sakamoto, Miyuki Sawashiro, Rebekah Stevens and Mike YagerDirector: Shinji AramakiProducers: Joseph Chou, Rei Kudo and Yoshi IkezawaScreenplay: Harutoshi Fukui (story), Kiyoto Takeuchi and Leiji Matsumoto (manga)Composer: Tetsuya TakahashiVideo Resolution: 1080p and 576iAspect Ratio: 2.39:1 and 1.78:1Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Japanese: 5.1 Dolby DigitalSubtitles: English SDHRunning Time: English: 1:51:18 and Japanese: 1:50:24Region: Region B/2Number of discs: 2Studio: Manga EntertainmentAndrew’s Blu-ray Review: Captain Harlock and his skull-faced space train steam around the galaxy getting into spectacular space battles in an adventure that impresses with its dazzling CGI manga reboot visuals more than with its original story.“Unleash the dark matter!” “Activate the Jovian accelerator!” “Prepare to enter the IN-skip!” You have of course two versions of the anime manga film, the Blu-ray disc you can view with the dialogue dubbed in English and of course with the DVD you can watch the original Japanese film subtitled in English with the animated epic ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT’ is an absolute riot for the geeky imperatives fans, very fitting for a film that’s all about urgency, pseudo-science and speed. Helmed by Shinji Aramaki, this is a glorious marshalling of state-of-the-art technical expertise that boasts top-notch 3D stereoscopy, but the portentous script is too nerdy to cross over to the mainstream. Fans of the original 1970s manga-turned-cartoon “Harlock” and younger anime buffs, however, will wolf this down at home and in a number of key offshore markets.While the anime film revives the situation and main characters from the manga by Leiji Matsumoto, which inspired Toei Animation’s TV series known as “Albator” in Francophone territories, where it was a huge cult hit, the emphasis of this update is much more on post-millennial gloom and environmental anxieties, rather than the original’s mix of sci-fi swashbuckling and anti-Fascist subtext. Taking a leaf out of the ‘STAR TREK’ sci-fi film franchise and is not dissimilar in setup, especially with the help of Helmer Aramaki and screenwriters Harutoshi Fukui and Kiyoto Takeuchi have cannily rebooted the basic concept to suit the 2013 zeitgeist. Still, the anime film will likely not to break out beyond the franchise’s core audience of fanboys, especially getting turned on by the attenuated-yet-busty femme characters and videogame aesthetics, the latter referenced directly at several points by shoot-’em-up-style shots that herald the inevitable tie-in games.Having it both ways for reasons made clear towards the end, the opening action “far, far in the future or perhaps in the distant past,” sometime after humans from a resource-exhausted Earth have scattered 500 billion members of their species across the universe in search of new homelands. The whole colonization project didn’t work out so well, and when humans tried to return to Earth, a huge conflict called the Homecoming War broke out some hundred years before the plot proper starts. In the end, no one was allowed back and Earth became a kind of planetary wildlife preserve, worshipped as a symbol by its scattered, doomed descendants throughout the galaxy, while a repressive state called the Gaia Coalition governs all.And as to the backstory, here you have the main premise is that Captain Harlock [Shun Oguri], the eponymous immortal space pirate of the title, is in perpetual rebellion against the Coalition, and flies about the universe in his super-cool-looking if suspiciously phallic intergalactic man-of-war, the Arcadia, both ship and man running on “dark matter.”The plot’s main engine of conflict is that high-ranking Coalition leader Ezra [Toshiyuki Morikawa], who looks like a futuristic wheelchair-bound Sgt. Pepper, has sent his kid brother Logan [Haruma Miura] to infiltrate and spy on Harlock and his crew. Naturally, the kid, who looks uncannily similar to Harlock or at least goes to the same barber, starts to sympathise with pirates, especially when he learns of bitter secrets kept by the Coalition.Either way, the dark matter ends up getting unleashed, the Jovian accelerator is activated, and then all hell breaks loose when they enter IN-Skip, all good fun as the very fate of the universe hangs in the balance. The important thing is that it should all look awesome, and with the huge amount of coin clearly spent on rendering, motion capture and incredibly detailed background work, it duly does.The odd thing is that, especially for Western audiences used to more expressiveness in animated character design, the faces here seem to have all been injected with cartoon Botox, given how static they are in relation to the rest of teeming visual world Aramaki and Co. have created. One can only presume this is a cultural or aesthetic decision, so that everyone should appear congruent with the limited-movement look of the original series. Indeed, a lot of Japanese animation, especially more laddish fare like this, shows the same disconnect between statue-like characters and hyper-detailed surroundings. Sometimes the pace feels really dragged out by the time animation crawls to its apocalyptic end, but it’s hard to see how anything could have been cut without making the story even more incomprehensible.3D Blu-ray Video Quality – Manga Entertainment presents us with a spectacular 1080p encoded image that really enhances the 3D image is so fantastic and has an incredible depth of field that is mind blowing and I do not hesitate to give it a five star rating. We also get an equally impressive 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Everything was sharp, clean, and again with outstanding detail, both in the 3D and 2D versions. But again the 3D image wins hand down and makes you get involved with the action that bombards you with every twist of the plot. But again the 3D image wins hands down for me as the people at Manga Entertainment certainly have done a most professional job. Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.3D Blu-ray Audio Quality – Manga Entertainment presents us with a spectacular, with of course two alternate audio presentations of either the English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Japanese: 5.1 Dolby Digital [subtitles]. Both are equally impressive, but the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio wins hand down, as it has a much more dynamic presentation and gives all of the speakers a brilliant surround sound experience with the big battle scenes, especially those taking place on the Arcadia are expertly achieved, with various "bells and whistles" dotting the surrounds and crafting a believable ambience of what life on the spaceship is like. Dialogue is presented very cleanly and clearly and is well prioritised. Also again the fidelity is top notch and with also a very dynamic range extremely wide on both of the surround tracks.Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:The DVD disc contains the original Japanese film with English subtitles.Special Feature: The Making of Harlock: Space Pirate [2013] [576i] [1.78:1] [22:48] With the start of this special documentary, that is narrated by an unknown Japanese person, but luckily it is subtitled throughout in English. We are informed that Harlock’s early conception was with an early anime Japanese TV children’s series, which has had a massive fan base around the world, especially with the legendary characters. Harlock’s legend began thirty years ago from the original anime series. The TV series began airing in japan in 1978 and it began airing on French TV the following year, and was a massive success and the viewing figures reached 70%, exceeding all expectations. Then suddenly it was reborn after thirty years of this legendary Japanese anime animation, because the Harlock character was so appealing to the entire fans world-wide. We see about the appearance of Leiji Matsumoto (manga) at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France in 2011 and which brought all the news media from around the world because of the appearance of Leiji Matsumoto. The anime film was finally completed for a big screen world premiere at the Tokyo International Anime Fair and while viewing this special we get a long sneak preview of what people were going to see when it was released in 2013. But we are informed that it was just not a simple remake, but was more of a reboot, especially with the stunning new animation visuals, while still maintaining the original story line premise. The production was led by the director Shinji Aramaki, who startled the world with is film ‘APPLESEED,’ where a civilisation was controlled by computers, and the moral dilemmas faced by who monitor computers, but similarly featuring a modern message with fantastic visuals. The anime film was written by the best-selling novelist Harutoshi Fukui, whose works have been adapted to the big screen numerous times. But with the Captain Harlock in the anime film, he returns as a darker version, where Captain Harlock is depicted with his laden past revealed. But also where is also an antihero to dissipate his role in the anime film. What we also see is personal views from Leiji Matsumoto himself, where he informs us that he wanted the Harlock character to live freely by his own flag and to have his desire to live out his life by one’s own creed, and to also live out one’s dreams in the universe, and he also wrote the story so that people could treasure that wish. We also get to view the faces of the voice cast, like Shun Oguri, Haruma Miura, Yû Aoi, Arata Furuta and Ayano Fukuda, and we also get to see an image of the One Ok Rock group who sing the theme song “Be The Light.” We also get to view behind-the-scene of the FX action with the extras, and how the effects were turned into the anime film, it also digitally analyses the actors facial expressions, which is then converts the data into the characters animation. The anime film used the latest up-to-date CGI technology throughout all aspects of the film, in making ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT’ a never-before-seen visual experience. A lot of the efforts was put into making something of this visual calibre that is inconceivable, and not just the effort and time put into the anime film, but also physical and emotionally as well, especially for something on this scale. They feel this anime film proves how imaginative and creative people can be. But with the extracts from the film, the subtitle says, “What is the secret?” But we get the final prophetic words from Leiji Matsumoto, where he says, “Everyone around the world who watches this film, are all part of the same human race. Let us all help one another to live on this planet together. That’s the future I dream of.” But what of the anime film itself, well the Japanese narrator wants you discover the answers by watching the anime film. This was a TOEI Company, Ltd production.BONUS: You get four stunning full colour rare postcards with images from the anime film, sealed in a cellophane envelope. I have not taken them out to view them, as I do not want to spoil the unique quality cellophane envelope, as in time they will be a very rare commodity.PLUS: The Limited Edition SteelBook has a stunning design, with nice colourful images on the inside of the SteelBook.Finally, ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT’ [2013] visuals are absolutely stunning, epically in the equally awesome 3D images, that have totally awesome depth of field, but as to watching the 2D disc, I found it totally flat and totally uninspiring. Again the breadth and depth of the space vistas in 3D are simply breath-taking, in both definition and execution. For the military sci-fi fans among us, the space battles are also truly awe inspiring, and I should imagine seeing the film in 3D IMAX would blow you away. If you're a fan of manga anime animation, then ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT’ will appear as the culmination of decades of technological advancements in animation technology and art. It will most certainly become the standard against which all other animated anime films will be compared with for quite some time. On visuals and technology alone, ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT’ stands as the true progeny of trend-setting anime films. Sci-fi movies are rarely known for their astronomical accuracy, and Anime is no exception. Dark matter is thrown in for good and used liberally in ‘HARLOCK: SPACE PILOT,’ but it appears more as a supernatural force than a force of nature. Technical merits are first class, but with is Region B/2 Blu-ray the supplementary material is totally lacking in something decent, but despite this, it is still a good purchase in my opinion, still that up to your personal decision on whether it is well worth purchasing, but to me it ticks all the boxes. Highly Recommended!Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film AficionadoLe Cinema ParadisoUnited Kingdom

Fair waningYou will get dropped into the middle of a decades spanning classic sci-fi (1978 galaxy express 999) with zero explanations.The main theme is simple but the rest will make little to no sense for you.I loved almost every moment of it and will be watching it again another dayfor the uninitiatedMinimal character development beyond the one focal character (it's a coming of age story where a boy becomes aware of the wider universe)under-explained setting & characters (the source lobves to play it mysterious)broody atmosphere (borderline moping)space ships of dubious scientific believabilitybattles where style trumps everything elsecharacter designs that would set the many hued heads of outrage-merchants beyond their already limited emotional bursting pointobjectivelythe overall CG is crisp while having a slightly "moving rubber statue" effect to character animation, the mechanical side is almost flawlessthe story beats are broadly nonsense (no less than 3 super-weapons deployed, not counting the main space ship which is itself a rule of cool powerhouse)character motivations are broadly unexplainedthe lip-synch is ~eeeh~, not much effort put in herethe voice dubbing is remarkably good, some may not like the choice of tones but it's up there with titan AE/ (not quite disney-ghibli but whose were poducts honed to perfection by a master then handed over to an at the time that company with near unlimited-money at the top of their game with a vast array of talent to-hand)the movie setting is faithful to a remarkable amount of the source (I have seen about 2/3 of the total source, it can be hard work at times due to the age of the animations and deliberate mystery trumps exposition tone)

A pretty good film with beautiful 3D animation, it was certainly cutting edge for its time. It is a Dutch version, so the menus are in Dutch, but that isn’t a big problem as there aren’t any special features, at least on the Bluray.As noted elsewhere, sadly there is only an English Dub audio track, the original Japanese audio is NOT included and there are only Dutch subtitles, but no English ones, so you’d better not need them!On the bright side the English voice acting isn’t bad, but the syncing of the audio dubbing could be better.

Somewhat similar to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, except this one was produced over a decade later with not much if any improvement in the visual department, likely the reason why most people never heard about it. Like Star Wars, it's not purely scientifically based in both story and combat but somewhat between Sci-Fi and fantasy, but unlike Star Wars, this movie has far less depth or moral lessons, except that no one is truly good or bad, so even if this is aimed at high school students at best, this is not just another out of touch fantasy about pure good and evil fighting between each other but rather about various interests groups which decision making is further complicated by human flaws of emotional bias.I am not giving it 3 stars because it is bad, even though people that watched plenty of movies may be bored at times because it brings nothing new in terms of visuals nor storytelling, yet another story of the underdog that showed to be more than he looks like at the beginning that will ultimately decide the fate of the humanity (oh god, not again).Thus most likely scenario is that you will watch it, perhaps even enjoy it for what this is, at least if you are not too demanding even towards popcorn entertainment by expecting that everything will behave according to the laws of physics or include complex innovative story, and forget about it.

The dvd came undamaged. I watched the entire movie. I love this movie, love it! One of the best of this genre. I'm so glad I finally have this in my dvd collection. I can watch it any time I want.

I'm 71 and life long lover of science fiction - books and movies. It really started with my love of animation as a kid (in the 1950's). I still love cartoon animation and watch it with my grandkids. Seems like there are three streams of cartoon animation: the daily junk churned out on various channels; high quality stuff from various studios (e.g., Pixar, Disney); and, then there is anime. By anime I am thinking of the hours of stuff shown Saturday nights on Cartoon Network. The appeal of this anime totally escapes me (repetitive, poorly drawn, insipid plots, etc.). I have seen some passable anime movies (e.g., Spirited Away) at my daughter's insistence. Then, I stumbled on Harlock. Now, I'm told that this, too, is anime, of the 3D CG variety. This I like. Fantasy-Sci-Fi (like steam punk) I find engaging if well done. Here the characters are interesting and the story line engaging, enough so I have watched it several times. I collect movies so I added the Blu-Ray version to my collection. But, to the point, the animation is detailed and lifelike (just far away enough from the "uncanny valley". So, it depends on what you like. This is nothing like the "Toonami" version of anime, so if that is your thing, you might not like this. Otherwise....

liked movie

Fast shipping. Would've loved having the Blu-ray but the DVD was just fine. Brought back memories. Satisfied with my purchase. Recommend.

1st, I've been a Harlock fan since 1978 including all the spinoffs...That being said, While this CGI ReBoot was astheticaly appealing I was really not happy with the new Paradigm.I won't spoil it for ya since as a stand alone movie it's pretty damn cool though a bit dry, as is the entire series is which is part if the Harlock "feel", but if your a fan of the original series then this reboot will kinda piss you off.Enjoy