If you’re a space opera enthusiast, chances are you’ll love the works of Japanese manga and anime artist Leiji Matsumoto. Or maybe you’ve admired the videos he made for the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, such as Again, Digital loveAnd Harder better faster stronger. Since he was 15 and until his death in 2023, at the age of 85, Matsumoto continued to portray his trademark ethereal, tall, slender female characters with large, dreamy eyes and ultra-long eyelashes, and his moody, rebellious, wavy-haired male characters.
In 1974 and 1975, Matsumoto directed his first successful film animated series, Space battleship Yamato, which spanned 26 episodes and followed a mission in the year 2199 to the planet Iscandar to retrieve a neutralizer that would save Earth from the radioactive meteorite bombs of the Gamilon race. It spawned several spin-offs, movies, and remakes, and is known to inspire Gundam, Evangelionand the Space invaders video game.
But when you think of the Leijiverse, you think of the following connected stories: series like Space pirate Captain Harlock (1978-1979), Galaxy Express 999 (1978-1981), Queen Millennia (1981-1982), Queen Emeraldas (1998), Cosmo Warrior Zero (2001), and Space Symphony Maetel (2004), and movies such as Arcadia of my youth (1982), Queen Millennia (1982), ed Maetel legend (2000). Here are the most interesting characters you’ll encounter in those intriguing and complex stories, where crossovers and cameos abound, but the timeline isn’t always clear or continuous.
Queen Andromeda Promethium II
Queen Andromeda Promethium II is the ruler of The Machine Empire and has two daughters, Maetel and Emeraldas. With their planet of origin, La Metal, becoming unbearably cold, the Queen decided to protect herself and her subjects from freezing to death through mechanization and a collective hive mind. What started as a survival project quickly turned into corruption, greed, slavery and intergalactic domination.
Emeraldas
“The vast Sea of Stars is my home. Some call me “the woman who does not cry” – let them call me what they will, for they are but the foolish words of those who have little understanding of the reason of my journey.
Emeraldas rebelled against her mother’s mechanized world and became a formidable space pirate aboard her title ship, the Queen Emeraldas. She has long reddish or blond hair – depending on the film or show – lavender eyes and a scar on her left cheek, and she wears crimson clothes, white gloves and a hooded black cloak. Her favorite weapons are a pistol and a saber. She has a daughter with Captain Harlock’s best friend whom she keeps safely hidden on Earth.
Maetel
“One day you will feel nostalgia even for your sad memories and hardships.”
Emeraldas’ twin, Maetel, couldn’t be more different from her. Officially the Queen’s favorite, she is responsible for transporting youths from across the universe on the Galaxy Express 999 space train to be mechanized on her new home planet. In reality, she secretly plans to destroy her mother’s work.
Maetel’s slender silhouette, soft voice, perpetually sad eyes, and signature black coat and furry hat make her the franchise’s most melancholic and ethereal protagonist.
Captain Harlock
“I’m not fighting for anyone. I’m just fighting for something in my heart.”
The tall, thin, tousled, caped Captain Harlock (aka Herlock or Albator in some countries) fights the totalitarian regimes of the universe and Earth’s invaders aboard his Arcadia starship. His right eye is covered with a spot and his left cheek with a cruciform scar. He is rather aloof and moody, but also noble, generous, loyal and honorable. When one of his crew members or divisions is in danger, he does everything he can to save them.
Tochiro Oyama
Tochiro is a technical genius, a designer of battleships in space, Captain Harlock’s best friend, and Emeraldas’ main love interest. He has a daughter with the latter named Mayu, whom Harlock often visits on Earth.
Before his death in a dark matter engine explosion, Tochiro transfers his consciousness into the Arcadia‘s computer, strengthening the starship’s defenses and maintaining his friendship with the captain from beyond the grave.
Miime
“I am the woman who gave her life to Harlock. If he goes to the depths of hell, so will I.
Miime is Captain Harlock’s loyal companion and drinking buddy, the last of a species who was wiped out by the Mazone, a race of plant hermaphrodites seeking world domination. She has a soft voice, large pupilless eyes and an almost invisible mouth, and she is often depicted in long, flowy dresses. In addition to her telepathic and prophetic abilities, she is able to ease pain from injuries and spends most of her time playing melancholic music on her harp.
Commander Zero
After losing his family in the war between humans and the Machine Men, Warius Zero is now part of the joint Earth-Machine fleet. He is assigned to capture the elusive space pirate Captain Harlock, but his task is made even more difficult with a crew that consists of both humans and machines. Meeting with Harlock, he realizes that the government is corrupt and sees civilians only as weaponized tools or collateral damage.
Since Matsumoto was not fond of rigid continuity, all of these ambiguous characters freely moved in and out of their related stories and had ever-changing looks and attitudes. So it doesn’t really matter in which order you watch the titles or movies read the manga. You are immersed in a nostalgic and multifaceted universe, where compassion, cruelty, honor and tragedy are intertwined and the line between protagonists and adversaries is all too often blurred.