Captain Harlock SE [HGM 1986 English dub] - 01 - Enemies of Earth

[theENGLISHconection]

wish they bring ssx to english

[VVAproductions]

BACKGROUND 1 - Following the success of ROBOTECH in 1985, Harmony Gold's staff was looking for another hot property to import from Japan. Carl Macek, the brains behind ROBOTECH, already had a suggestion - CAPTAIN HARLOCK. He knew how big the show had been in Japan and was sure it would do well Stateside. Unknown to him, however (by his own account), Harmony Gold went ahead and sold the show BEFORE he was ready to do it. That meant he had less than a year to get it ready ....

[VVAproductions]

BACKGROUND 2 - People nowadays tend to forget that back in the mid-1980s, it was a rule of thumb that you needed three seasons (approximately 78 episodes) of a TV series for it to market well in syndication - selling it to various TV stations across the country, who would "strip" it five days a week in the same time slot. ROBOTECH fit that bill nicely - after all, it had been made from three different anime TV shoes. CAPTAIN HARLOCK, at only 42 episodes (about two seasons), did not ....

[VVAproductions]

BACKGROUND 3 - Macek's solution, as he had done with ROBOTECH, was to combine it with another show with the same look-and-feel and rewrite both so they would play off of each other. ENDLESS VOYAGE SSX was the obvious choice, but Toei wanted too much money for a show that had not done all that well ratingswise. GALAXY EXPRESS 999 was the obvious choice (113 episodes!), but money was again was the issue. It cost too much. Macek wound up being forced to find another, cheaper Matsumoto show ....

[VVAproductions]

BACKGROUND 4 - Now you know how CAPTAIN HARLOCK got combined with QUEEN MILLENNIA to come up with CAPTAIN HARLOCK AND THE QUEEN OF A THOUSAND YEARS. Simply put, not enough time and money for Macek to do what he really wanted, and that was have a new anime TV series that was purely about CAPTAIN HARLOCK. That's the main reason, two decades later, why we at VVA rescued Harmony Gold's 1986 hack job and separated the shows. Macek intended for HARLOCK to be a separate, standalone show all along.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 1 - Our dedication in this production to the late Cark Maeck is twofold. First of all, it recognizes his desire to have Captain Harlock brought stateside. Second, it acknowledges the pivotal role had in making sure that the anime phenomena in the U.S. didn't die out after the initial success of STAR BLAZERS. Carl Macek, more than any other single person, helped keep the anime dream alive in the U.S. and was pivotal (via Streamline Pictures) in getting the U.S. anime market started.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 2 - The reason for the Toei and Harmony Gold logo splashes is to acknowledge our sources. We believe in giving credit where it belongs. That's why we don't cut such things off as logos, titles, and credits - like most anime fans on YouTube are guilty of doing.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 3 - The fact that Captain Harlock was the 99th (XCIX) and last to bear the name of his ancestors (Phantom Frank Harlock) comes from the 1986 Harmony Gold press kit for CHQ1K. There are some copies floating around the net, if you want to look it up yourself.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 4 - "Captial City" is a common English dub misnomer for the main metropolis in almost any anime TV show adapted for U.S. television in this era (1980s). You hear it a time or two in the old Ocean dub of DRAGON BALL Z, for example.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 5 - The name John Drake (Professor Drake) comes from the British adventure TV series SECRET AGENT.

[VVAproductions]

COMMENTS 6 - Professor Drake held the science chair at Miskatonic University, which we get to visit later in the series. H.P. Lovecraft fans will instantly recognize this institution, as it figures in a number of his horror stories.