Harlock: Space Pirate

There's a strange tendency in Japanese animation , it often uses cryptic and vague script to give the illusion of depth. Those who are familiar with animes or games would recognize this outdated pattern, the quirky storytelling would seem to be meaningful as the characters brood over a crisis, yet it barely tells anything relevant to the audience. In some cases it might even alienate the viewers.

This is the persisting problem with Harlock. It certainly presents good quality visual as it floats across the light show, but the vague narrative hurts the presentation. The dialogues may sound flamboyant, yet it is actually shallow and superficial. Backstory is glossed over while the interactions are deprived of enjoyment. The characters, even though looking attractive, just can't generate enough interest as they banter with foreign jargon.

It even resembles teen drama instead of space voyage at times. Development is often crude, only to give dramatic scenes without substance. The main story follows Yama as he tries to catch the titular Harlock. Both of them are not that audience friendly, they are already in lamentation with barely any introduction. It's hard to relate since they look like generic RPG cast with average mellow issue.

Then it becomes heavily convoluted as the movie tries to mix strange terms, they sound ominously impaction like dark matter or ancient race, but material is too thin. After a hefty amount of scenery changes, cool poses and starship fights, the movie can barely hold interest for characters and with relatively long runtime it turns into a plodding endeavor.

This is Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within all over again, glossy effect and drab boring story. It will be hard to either garner interest for new audience or please old fans with such lackluster narrative, but at least it works for an eye candy.