Waga seishun no Arcadia
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
"At the end of their lives, all men look back and think that their youth was arcadia." — Goethe
During the early 20th Century, some time after World War I, aerial explorer Captain Harlock F. Phantom is embarking on what is to be the magnum opus of his long career, the traversing of the Owen Stanley Mountains in New Guinea. His major obstacle is the phantom of the witch that haunts these mountains. In a last desperate attempt to cross the mountains, Harlock ditches all but ten minutes of fuel in order to gain altitude. He carries on to his fate, amidst the mocking laughter of the Owen Stanley Witch.
Near the end of World War II, Harlock F. Phantom II is an Iron Cross-wearing German fighter pilot that flies a Messerschmitt Bf 109. During a major defeat for his side, he meets Tochiro Oyama, a Japanese exchange technician working in Germany. Tochiro's project is to design a new gun sight for use in fighter planes. Harlock's most treasured possession is the Revi C-12D gun sight which he calls his "eye". Both men believe the war to be wasteful and pointless and Tochiro especially hopes that the rockets being developed by Germany may one day lead to a more positive application, such as a trip to the moon. Tochiro wishes he could escape from the war and possibly go to neutral Switzerland where he might be able to fulfill his dream. Harlock offers to take him in his plane. Stowing Tochiro in the plane's fuselage, Harlock is able to fly to Switzerland, but only after surviving a fierce aerial dogfight which disables his plane and forces him to crash land just short of the Swiss border. Carrying an injured Tochiro across the river to sanctuary, Harlock departs, giving Tochiro his Revi C-12D, before crossing back into the warzone where Harlock expects to face the consequences of his actions. Although this Harlock's ultimate fate is unknown, Tochiro pledges friendship between their two bloodlines for all eternity.
At some time in the late 30th century (circa 2960s), a Solar Federation officer named Captain Harlock returns home in his battle cruiser Deathshadow to find that aliens from the Illumidus Empire have conquered Earth and enslaved humanity. However the remaining humans blame him and other warriors like him as they were not there to protect the planet when they needed it. Harlock, along with the Tokargans who are ashamed of their role in Earth's downfall, sets out to lead a resistance against the aliens and adopts the fighting strategy of ancient marauders. During the course of the struggle, Harlock meets a former Solar Federation engineer; a Japanese man who he's never met before but feels he knows. This man, Tochiro Oyama reveals his secret project, the dreams of all his ancestors. Hidden in a deep cavern under the occupation headquarters is a space battleship that he designed and built. This ship is called Arcadia, in honor of the eternal friendship forged between Harlock F. Phantom and Tochiro Oyama during another ancient war.
Harlock also meets Emeraldas, an old friend, who immediately offers herself to the cause. The Tokargans, after witnessing the death of the last female of their race, sacrifice themselves to save the Arcadia from the life sucking flames of the Flame Stream Prominence (aka the Owen Stanley Witch of Space). Harlock's lover and voice of the Underground, Maya is killed by Illumidas gunfire. After Herlock has honorably defeated the occupational commander in ship-to-ship combat, the quisling ruler of Earth, Triter, nonetheless declares Harlock and Emeraldas outlaws and exiles them to space. Amidst an Earth that prefers servitude to their new masters over the hard but noble fight for freedom, Harlock, Emeraldas, Tochiro, and their new pirate crew of idealists and romantics set for the stars, heading out for parts unknown.

Review: Great movie. In my heart, I believe this to be a great movie, for its time.  The 1982 animation was acceptable, but doesn't compare to Queen Emeraldas Or Harlock Saga.Now, on with the praise.  I have grown up with Captain Harlock, under the guise of Albator (which is the French name) up here in Canada, and though I didn't see much of the series back then, Harlock stayed in the back of my mind to this day. I own Arcadia of My Youth, and love it.  Its story is very straight forward, and easy to follow.  Essentially, it is to fight for your dreams and survive to enjoy them, no matter the cost. I find the characters to be believable, such as Maya (Harlock's only love, and the Voice of Free Arcadia), because of her fragile nature and her devotion to try to save Earth from its catastrophic fate.  Emeraldas a free-spirited, space-trader and Harlock's old friend, who crosses Harlock's path after she crash lands on Earth attempting a difficult passage in space. Tochiro, Harlock's new friend, a master engineer and kind of the comic relief in this movie, but not to the point of distraction.  And then there is Harlock, which I identify with, because of his strong, silent presence. He is willing to do everything in his power to help his friends, just so long as they try to help themselves as well.  He lives by his own personal code of honor, which echoes my own..."upon my honor, to do my duty." He turns his back on Earth, because they decide to side with the invaders, The Illumidus, instead of fighting for its freedom, and Earth's government doesn't want any rogue elements such as Harlock's group.  Harlock and company are exiled from Earth, which Harlock couldn't care less, because he doesn't want to cling to something that is dead anyway. This movie is meant as an introduction to the characters of the Harlock series and try to make some sense of the convoluted mess that is the Matsumoto Universe, and I find it succeeds in this undertaking. I feel this movie is worth seeing, if only to see how it all began, due to the fact that the Harlock series characters are enjoying some renewed interested in the past couple of years with the release of the Queen Emeraldas OVA and Harlock Saga OVA. "I Live in freedom, under my flag.". Good intelligent anime. As a big fan of the original Harlock television series I got this film with big expectations. It's good, dark anime that has a few confusing moments. My real problem is the departure from the storyline established in the series. It makes the film a little incoherent if you remember the show.. A Nutshell Review: Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Arcadia of My Youth (Waga Seishun No Arukyadia). The second movie for the festival is another anime, albeit an older one, belonging to the 80s. I vaguely remember watching the series on television as I recall the familiarity of the pirate motif spaceship. But maybe I remembered wrong, as there are plenty of such space aged cartoons in those days, like Macross, Gundam, and the likes.The introduction already put me off, with a really repetitive Phantom Harlock flying his red biplane and monotonous introduction of his name, over and over again. The plot takes some getting used to, with the bombastic names as we follow this rogue pilot/pirate in his quest to duel with Commander Zeda of the Illmidus alien race.Watching this early 80s animation brings about the obvious comparisons and observation of how advanced animated movies have become. It's obviously 2-D drawings here, and plenty of details which were not possible to be included. Things like background characters having continuity presence issues (varying numbers amongst a crowd in a constant setting), and objects appearing and disappearing for the same reason that drawing by hand, takes up time, and yet draws attention to themselves. And having to draw many, well, sometimes animators do become lazy. This is most unlike today's computer generated graphics where crowd and objects are rendered with a click of the button, and possibly given some artificial intelligence along the way so that they can seem to "act" independently.Space battles have become a dime a dozen, and watching this film today, sadly, the battles are not as exciting as it should have been, with its numerous laser cannon scenes. Some scenes were repeated by showing stock clips over and over again, and brings back fond memories of how, as a kid, you tend to see past these shortcomings, and enjoy the animation for what it is. In today's standards, this will be judged more like stemming from the indifference from the animators, and the lack of pride and professionalism.The characters here are typical of Japanese anime, with weird coloured hairdos, and quite surprisingly, this movie loads up on the melodramatics and exaggerated dialogue. Compared with anime of today, there has been vast improvement in story pacing, setting, and character design.While there were families and kids watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and this one, it wasn't unexpected that this anime too had its fair share of walk outs, probably because of the hard-to-grasp storyline for toddlers, or the insane need to read subtitles and then explaining to the kids what some of the imaginary words meant.P.S. somehow the screening was marred by the speakers set to maximum volume. The dialogue and musical fanfare just got drilled through your ears into your head and probably gave everyone a splitting headache watching it. The first boo-boo for the festival, and I really hope it's the last.. Sadly the most horrible thing i ever saw.. First of all it has to be said that i saw the movie in Italian language, so maybe the translation didn't help.The movie jumps from a scene to another without any sense, the "deus ex machina" director solves EVERY problem the characters may have: they must find someone? next scene somehow they meet him/her/them. They look for someone in a planet and magically they land right next to them. And this happens for EVERYTHING and anyone looking for someone/something.The story itself has many holes, some of them very disappointing, the dialogs are sometimes absurd: "it's impossible to find any weapons!" (said by the captain 20 seconds after punching an enemy soldier and taking his rifle). The characters are absolutely flat and do not evolve : the story adds nothing to the characters development: they start and end exactly the same characters like nothing happened.The appearing of Mr Bird is somehow ridiculous. This is a sad stain on my memory of the Captain.