Arcadia of My Youth (わが青春のアルカディア, Waga Seishun no Arukadia) is an anime feature film depicting the origin of seminal character Captain Harlock, created by Leiji Matsumoto.

At one time, it was considered to be the central hub of the so-called "Leijiverse" with the events depicted in other works such as Galaxy Express 999 and Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

[1] The movie opens with a quote often attributed to German philisopher Goethe, from his book Italian Journey: "At the end of their lives, all men look back and think that their youth was Arcadia."

Some time after World War I, aerial explorer Captain Phantom F. Harlock is embarking on what is to be the magnum opus of his long career: the traversing of the Owen Stanley Mountains in New Guinea.

At some time in the late 30th century (circa 2960s), a Solar Federation officer named Captain Harlock returns home in his battle cruiser Deathshadow.

Hearing the sound of French Resistance members approaching to catch him, Harlock leaves Toshiro and walks back to fulfill his destiny and be punished for his actions.

They start thinking about using her ship to fight the occupation, but Emeraldas likes to remain neutral so she won't lose her merchant license.

The group discusses their options and Toshiro reveals he too has a ship: he spent the last few years pretending to be a useless bum to hide the fact he was building a new spaceship to fight the invaders.

The name of the spaceship is ARCADIA, in honor of the eternal friendship forged between Phantom F. Harlock and Toshiro Oyama 1,000 years before.

Amidst an Earth that prefers servitude to their new masters over the hard but noble fight for freedom, Harlock, Emeraldas, Tochiro, and their new pirate crew of idealists and romantics set for the stars, heading out for parts unknown.

They also revealed Japanese intelligence about U.S. and Allied military activity by welcoming U.S. Navy submarines and ships by name and ID number to the theatre of operations.

The liner notes for the Animeigo DVD state that Harlock's response, "Just paying rent", hid a deeper meaning.

These elements did not make it into the anime version but they were the source of American fan rumors that the Leijiverse Harlock was actually Mamoru Kodai in disguise or possibly a descendant.

The origin story in the 1978 television series (episodes 30 and 31) depicts Harlock and Tochiro as childhood friends and Emeraldas meeting them both later.

Reportedly, character and concept creator Leiji Matsumoto owned an actual Revi C-12D gunsight that was used by the animators as visual reference when creating the one shown in the film.

This release suffered from having about forty minutes cut out of it, most notably the lengthy pre-title prologue concerning one of Harlock's ancestor's attempt to fly over the tallest peak (known as the Stanley Witch) of the Owen Stanley Mountain Range in New Guinea (as "read" for inspiration by Harlock from said ancestor's autobiography, Arcadia of My Youth, moments before the Illumidas-attack on the Deathshadow).

(released here by Best Films & Video; their first issue was billed, "The original Clash of the Bionoids", referring to the edited Celebrity Just For Kids version).

One of the trailers for Arcadia of My Youth (one of two included as extras in Animeigo's DVD release) has one of the most confusing and misleading scenes, a clip of the Tokargan Zoll shooting out Harlock's eye.

This trailer scene was recreated for the boxes on the American VHS releases of Vengeance of the Space Pirate and My Youth in Arcadia.

This series suffered low viewer ratings, as it aired during the waning years of the Matsumoto-boom that started in the 1970s with Space Battleship Yamato.

By this time, Japanese audiences' interest had moved on to the trend in mecha shows that began after Macross and Mobile Suit Gundam.

It theoretically picked up where Arcadia of My Youth left off, and was also written in an attempt to bridge the storylines of Galaxy Express 999 and 1978's Space Pirate Captain Harlock TV series.

The comic also featured several significant story-arcs titled "Deathshadow Rising", "Fall of the Empire", and "The Machine Men", which would theoretically lead into the Galaxy Express 999 stories.