Captain Harlock (キャプテン・ハーロック, Kyaputen Hārokku?) (also known as "Captain Herlock" for the English release of Endless Odyssey and as "Albator" in the French-speaking countries) is a fictional character created by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto.
Harlock is the archetypical romantic hero, a space pirate with an individualist philosophy of life. He is as noble as he is taciturn, rebellious, stoically fighting against totalitarian regimes, whether they be earthborn or alien. In his own words, he "fight for no one's sake... only for something deep in heart". He does not fear death, and is sometimes seen wearing clothing with the number 42 on it. In Japanese culture, the number 42 is associated with death (the numbers, pronounced separately as "four two", sound like the words "shi ni"—meaning "to death").
The character is introduced in Adventures of a Honeybee (1953), but did not make its debut as lead character until 1978's Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Since then, the character has appeared in numerous animated TV series and films, the latest of which being Space Pirate Captain Herlock: The Endless Odyssey, and re-imagined as an Iron Cross fighter pilot and a gunslinger in the American Old West.
Read more about Captain Harlock: History, Fictional Character Biography, Supporting Characters, Cultural Impact
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“So universal and widely related is any transcendent moral greatness, and so nearly identical with greatness everywhere and in every age,—as a pyramid contracts the nearer you approach its apex,—that, when I look over my commonplace-book of poetry, I find that the best of it is oftenest applicable, in part or wholly, to the case of Captain Brown.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)