Waga Seishun no Arcadia

80s, this is the time when you can see the remaining traces in each frame that it was created by a human hand. Digitalization at their early startup era, and сomputers helps but don't yet replaces humans.
Godlike level painting.

Story sometimes may be annoing due to unrealistic characters, where women are charmingly stupid, and men are epic. There are no previous side-level history for love story, but friend story does. And due to this love story doesn't make you believe for this scenes.

Creators prepared to make an epic - an orchestra is playing, but this is often redundant, and a single instrument in many scenes ... would be more appropriate. "One instrument - one character", but heroes doesnt have theirs own instrumental voices.

[REVIEW WITHOUT SPOILERS]
A very good movie for an epic saga

Premise: I watched this movie with the intention of starting the Captain Harlock's series (never seen before), so this review values the individual movie, and also its value if you are interested to give Captain Harlock a try.

STORY: 9/10
As a newcomer to the Harlock's saga, I have to say the plot was rather intriguing. Seeing the young captain, and how his adventure started, was quite entertaining. The whole movie is well written, and provides for a very good sense of suspence, plot progression, and final climax.
There are some dialogues that, for today's taste, may sound a ... bit too emphatic/rethoric, but they anyway fit well within the epic setting that the plot builds. And of course, you also have to remember this is an eighties movie, so the "heroic" mood has to be understood and appreciated within its historical context.

SOUND: 7/10
The sound was good and appropriate. Nothing exceptional, but it does its job well. If you have a subwoofer in your home theater, don't play this movie at late night, the basses of those spaceship engines will rock your house ;)

ART: 9/10
I really liked the art part of the movie. My edition was blu-ray, so maybe this also contributed to the higher enjoyment, but anyway the art is very good, the color palette is vibrant but never too cheesy, the artistic choices (character drawing, spaceships and so on) really top class: for being a movie done in the eighties, this is really a feast for the eyes.

CHARACTERS: 8/10
All characters have something to say, and they manage to stand out and provide solid contributions to the plot. Sure, this is "just" a single movie, but the long duration (2 hours!) makes for a satisfying development, allowing each character to leave its unique emotional mark.

OVERALL: 8/10
I really liked this movie, so much that it gave me impulse to proceed with the rest of the Harlock saga.
Even if you are not interested in going on with the other Harlock series, this movie is self-independent, and as said is a very nice and entertaining single epic view, which manages to get together a very good plot with high artistic values, and which should not be missed by anime fans.

Captain Herlock: Arcadia of My Youth strips down sci-fi into a dramatic and somewhat dull affair. Unfortunately, after watching what felt like an incredibly long and meandering film, I didn't get much out of this particular story. It's an extraordinarily self-serious and dramatic film, but it does not really justify this feeling with how dull it is at the same time. Overall, Captain Herlock was a letdown, and simply far too long for what is a pretty shallow plot, while having some decent moments.

A quick synopsis: Captain Herlock is a dark and depressing take on a dystopian sci-fi future where Earth has been occupied by ... an alien force. These aliens, the Illumidus, are manipulative and malevolent leaders. The Illumidus' plan has already succeeded by the time the story happens, but Herlock has to stop them from further destroying everything he holds dear, travelling to different planets to fight them every step of the way.

Firstly, the positives. The orchestral score is gorgeous; it complements the seriousness of the story and characters, and is usually the highlight of most scenes. The character designs can also be pretty neat, with some genuinely remarkable characters like Herlock alongside some goofier ones, although some of them fell a bit short. The art and style also tended to be quite solid and impressive, particularly seeing the Arcadia ship later in the story.

While the plot and story is the number one issue, there were times when it was good. I enjoyed it for the most part until about the midway point. While it starts slow and doesn't get to the real meat of the story until later, it's at least interesting. You see Herlock's history and get a sense of how he is following somewhat of a doomed path. The movie plays with the idea of using flashbacks, and I thought maybe we would get a story about how these different generations of Herlock have all paved the way for our very flawed main character and his doomed mission. That would have been a much better movie, but there are many things I would have changed about this story.

Into the negative, the story is by far the biggest one. For starters, I just don't see what the central point is here. War is bad? That would not be enough to carry the movie, but even that isn't really it. Pride comes before the fall? No, Herlock seems to fall up in every scenario, and there's even a significant lack of tension because it's obvious these one-dimensional villains are far too incompetent to stop him. One who doesn't learn from history is doomed to repeat it? That one is interesting because despite literally being a Nazi pilot in World War II through a shared flashback with an ancestor, Herlock never references it or any of the other strange remembrances. I ended this story confused with what is meant to be the takeaway. Despite its self-seriousness, it never tries to tackle any exciting ideas. If Herlock was portrayed as a flawed anti-hero or straight-up antagonist, this would've been an interesting case study.

Another significant issue is tone. I have a soft spot for the goofier characters, who provide some of the only moments to breathe. But they really do not go with the extremely dark and grim tone. I would've preferred wholly serious or more goofiness, and probably the latter because it would not change the film much. Watching this film can be excruciating, with only a few moments of hit-or-miss comedy.

While it does take itself very seriously, the conflict is just confused. The Illumidus are not compelling antagonists, and their central leader figure is just disappointing. Herlock seems to steamroll through them. While there are stakes and losses, it's an incredibly black-and-white, simplistic battle that doesn't have much, if any, weight.

One odd thing about the film is the feeling of repetition. I felt like I saw the same panning shot of the Arcadia several times, and there was a lot of waiting around. I don't usually feel like an animation like this one with such high quality needs to be edited down. It's a rare case where I would have preferred significant cutting to make it more digestible because there just isn't enough to justify two hours of run time.

In conclusion, Captain Herlock was a letdown, although it had some okay elements and was an interesting film to dissect. The animation and music are great, and it has some promise early. However, it really goes downhill later on and fails to say anything meaningful while also not being entertaining. Overall, despite high hopes, I thought it was pretty close to forgettable, with the few moments of intrigue and good presentation barely keeping it from being outright bad. Captain Herlock ultimately squanders most of its potential and is a surprisingly pointless space adventure.