HARLOCK -- Most Expensive Anime Ever?

The Captain's finally docking on America shores. Years after our eyeballs exploded over those pretty, pretty international trailers, an English-dubbed edition of HARLOCK: SPACE PIRATE will be screening here for very limited engagements at the end of this month. According to ANN, if you're in LA, NY or San Francisco, you'll basically have two days to catch the flick on the big screen, in 3D.

Presumably the home video release will swiftly follow. Netflix is already streaming sub-titled versions.

== TEASER ==

I continue to be impressed by the state-of-the-art digital animation here, of course, but I also continue to be confused by a number of details. For one, Toei is boasting that HARLOCK is their most expensive project to date, with a budget around $30 million USD. Considering that STEAMBOY was the last movie to claim the title of “Most Expensive Anime Ever,” and it only clocked in at $20 million, doesn't that presumably make this the current outlier?

You'd figure that Ketchup Entertainment would throw that fact around; it's just as impressive as James Cameron's glowing pull quotes. However, if you try to do some digging on this online, the rankings of anime feature budgets aren't nearly as available as live-action movies. Maybe this continues the anime tradition of under-reporting budgets that Tezuka set in the 50's, because HARLOCK certainly looks like it stretched every one of its pretty pennies.

Toei's decision not to revamp any of the designs is questionable, as well. Considering how GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY was such a runaway, global success last year, there's clearly an ample appetite for movies updating 70's space opera. A lot of potential for crossover here seems to have been unnecessarily limited by the insistence on keeping Harlock's old hairdo, swashbuckler duds and... ah... steering wheel that literally makes his ship a boat in outer space.

from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://ift.tt/1EtIyYh