“Space Pirate Captain Harlock” teaser

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This could be good… or not. Leiji Matsumoto’s manga (and anime) character is being brought to CGI life in a new theatrical movie from Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) is directing from a budget of over 30 million in U.S. dollars. The film will open in Japan this fall. Here’s a peak:

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  • geekzapoppin

    I really hope they can pull this off. Matsumoto is one of my all-time favorite Anime creators. I just don’t know if his visual style can be done with CG, though.

    • http://www.facebook.com/LesAraigneesdeMars Nazareth Craig

      Well if you’ve seen the teaser, they don’t do it in his art style, they went more realistic with it. I think it looks pretty good!

  • davidsm

    I just realized that other countries don’t put out animated features over the 100 million mark like those from the States.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Dudley/39610885 Alex Dudley

      I hear that. If we could churn out animated films that cheap, we’d get a larger variety of animated films in different styles or mediums.
      Or they’d release more of the same. Who knows?

  • MaskedManAICN

    Big fan of Harlock, hope this delivers :)

  • Wei-Yann Chen

    Aramaki is a competent director, I’m just worried about the writing. Appleseed and Starship Troopers were just awful…

  • SammyE

    I wrote up a blog entry about my general thoughts and opinions of this news:

    http://samueleihnorn.blogspot.com/2013/01/time-to-talk-about-captain-harlock.html

    I must say I’m pleasantly surprised Cartoon Brew reported this, I mean there are some occasional anime posts on here, two of which I suggested. I was going to suggest this to Jerry Beck too, and I’m glad the first thing I see when I log on here today is this awesome-looking teaser.

  • jordan reichek

    yeah, i think they tend to overdo this stuff and lose a lot of the original’s subtlety in generic CG cliche’s.

    Matsumoto’s
    work is fantastic as two dimensional drawings that CG just gilds the
    lilly. in many ways, his work is much more mind blowing in that it is
    hand drawn.

    i did like aspects of the live action Space
    Battleship Yamato, but probably more from the ten-year old in me than
    comparing it to the hand drawn stuff.

    this trailer looks like a
    million other things i’ve seen and the only thing that separates it are
    the flourishes that are patched on from Matsumoto’s work (ie; pirate
    imagery on space ships and lanky girls with impossibly stringy hair.)

    anyhow, this hat on a hat type stuff only makes me more appreciative of projects like Interstella 5555.

  • Gagaman

    For those curious, this is being animated by studio Marza, who are known so far almost exclusively for doing CGI animation for Sonic the Hedgehog games (seeing as the studio is/was owned by Sega), including a rather excellent short film called ‘Night of the Werehog’, which i think may of been featured on this site at one time.

    I’m also a little worried about the writer, as the CGI Appleseed had a really forgettable plot. Hopefully the same won’t be the case here.

  • Sam Filstrup

    That looks pretty cool.

  • Joseph Hudak

    Like Leiji Matsumoto’s other classic series, Galaxy Express 999, it is more of a series that is character-driven and relies more on imagination and sci-fi philosophies that action oriented like Star Wars.

    However, the trailer seems to evoke more of a Star Wars space battle feel than than what one would typically associate with Captain Harlock. I guess since Matsumoto’s recent passing, the likelihood of a modern bastardization of his work isn’t unlikely. Hopefully it is more faithful to the spirit of Captain Harlock than the trailers seem.

    • http://twitter.com/ChriSobieniak Chris Sobieniak

      Matsumoto isn’t dead. You’re probably thinking of someone else.

  • Stéphane Dumas

    Very good trailer. I wish it’ll be distributed in other countries. It could be interesting to see if French voice actor Richard Darbois, who provided the French voice of Captain Harlock alias Albator in French (some rumors and urban legends once mentionned then Harlock sounded too much like Captain Haddock from the Franco-Belgian Adventures of Tintin comics hence they renamed Harlock as Albator), could reprise his role?

    • Billy Bob

      Dude, I have heard Darbois’s work as DCAU Batman, he rocks!!! Now I have to track down Albator!

  • Elisa

    I don’t hate 3D animation. But sometimes it bothers me… Is like suddenly if you don’t make 3D animated movie your’re probably going to suck, and no one’s going to like you EVER! I mean… Does any one remember Astroboy’s 3D movie? Yeah me neither (I know it’s not that bad!) I’m a big fan of Matsumoto, and one of the many reasons is his drawing style! And if the movie is not going to preserve that unique desing well… Good luck but I don’t want to watch another generic and boring Final Fantasy Advent Children movie thank you, now you have 1 point minus! :P

    I want to watch it? Yes, yes I want to.

    Do I have high expectations? No I don’t.

  • cindy

    I’m just wondering if you Harlock fans would prefer to watch Japanese anime with your own language audio or Japanese with English subs. I think the original Harlock voice actor Makio Inoue is great, but don’t know the new Harlock will be his voice yet. I strongly hope he would be the one again. How do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ImmKJ1X6BiM this is Makio’s Harlock in case you don’t know.