Yet another Harlock Film page

GyaO! is a Yahoo.jp baby company that deals with internet, videos, and advertising.  More details on them [here].  They’re hosting a new Harlock film page [here].

I have one negative comment, so let me make it quickly and then move on to the positive stuff: there are a number of videos embedded in that page (some we have already seen, some are “coming soon”).  I clicked on one of them toward the bottom about “Harlock’s way of life, in 5 minutes”.  I immediately got a message that said I cannot watch the video because I’m in the wrong region (USA?  Not-Japan?).  And guess what’s immediately underneath?  A lovely paragraph on how international audiences are really excited about the film.  PEOPLE: if you are aware of the fact that international fans are so excited, why not allow them to see the videos?  And while we’re at it, why not provide an equivalent English page to this one??

OK, now I’ll go through the page from top to bottom.  [By the way, GyaO! is going to be running the original Space Pirate Captain Harlock series on their website, and so along the right side of the film page there’s information on that, plus descriptions on how the manga differs from the anime, etc.) In this post I’ll only cover the main stuff though.]

A. Images.  On top there are some lovely scenes (I keep using the word “lovely” today for some reason, just like Oguri and Miura with their “sugoi”s).

B. Intro Material.  The text itself is rehashed from earlier promos pretty much.  Harlock is reborn, looks better than ever, the world has been waiting for this [no kidding!] yadda yadda yadda.  Then there are two videos: on the left, the first 12 minutes of the film; on the right, the mini-impressions clip with Oguri and Miura followed by the 3 minute trailer.  My YouTube page has subtitles for both.

C. Harlock video.  I can’t tell what this video is about (as I said, none of these play where I am), but the shot is of Harlock when the dark matter engine is starting.  The blurb talks about how it’s a must see whether you just heard of Harlock for the first time or you actually saw the first series as it aired in the 1970s.

D. Two coming soon videos.  These look very promising: interviews with Scriptwriter/Dramatization Creator Harutoshi Fukui and Director Shinji Aramaki.  I’d be curious to see if Fukui mentions Yamato and other Leiji works, and if Aramaki mentions international interest in the film.

E. Harlock Character Introduction.  There’s a closeup of Harlock here, followed by some intro info on the pirate.  The original series is mentioned, and then Galaxy Express 999.  There follows a list of “Key Points about Captain Harlock”.  Here’s a translation of the list:

1. Regular pirates are all cool, but he is a space pirate.

2. He rebels against authority under the flag of freedom and follows a hard road.

3. Boldly arranged skulls are his fashion.

4. He speaks little, but his words are wise.

5. You might not think it, but he cares for his friends and he cares for his subordinates.

F. Another Harlock video.  This is the one that promises to explain the man’s way of life in 5 minutes.

G. International Interest in Harlock.  The paragraph opens with the quote from James Cameron, then talks about how the series had 70% ratings when it aired in France.  Space Pirate Captain Harlock is an “anime of the nation” in France.  French in their 30s and 40s are called the Albator generation (Albator=Harlock).  The film will debut in Venice and there are tons of offers to distribute it abroad.  Back when a clip was shown at Annecy, there were people from 40 countries there to watch.

H. Secrets of the Arcadia.  This section is on Harlock’s ship.  There are 3 secrets:

Secret # 1: The ship heals instantaneously when damaged. 

Secret # 2: Even though it’s a battleship, it has its own will.  (And yes, there is here a brief description of how Tochiro, Harlock’s best friend and designer of the Arcadia, uploaded his soul to the ship’s main computer when he died.  I hope now people will stop complaining that Tochiro isn’t in the film.  He is, dudes.)

Secret # 3: It disappears and reappears like a god or a demon.  The Arcadia disappeared after the last great war and now has reappeared, but for what purpose?

There’s also an Arcadia-focused video, which I can’t see.

I. Story, Staff and Cast.  All information we’ve had before, including a video that’s probably one of the earlier trailers.

J. Correlation Diagram.  Simple but interesting.  I added some translations in yellow.  Click on it to make it large and…wait, who’s that on to the top right?  Is that Frodo?  Harry Potter?  No, wait!  OMG…

[EDIT: In the last few hours, I used my transdimensional portal to travel all the way to Japan so I could access the videos.  I’ve just returned, as I have to go to work tomorrow (it’s not all fun and games you know).  There’s really only one new video on the page (and even that has old scenes in it).  It’s almost 6 minutes long, with lots of footage and new statements from Oguri and Miura.  As to the new footage, there’s stuff from what seems to be the climactic part of the film (Yama and Harlock struggling, Yama and his brother arguing over Harlock).  It’s ridiculous how spoilerish it is.  Oh, and most exciting of all, I do believe we get a glimpse of Miime wearing a suit with the downward-arrow motif~]

~ by Haloed Bane on August 1, 2013.