I was never a particular fan of the original Captain Harlock series, personally finding it a bit slow and the ongoing plot not being hugely engaging. However, I decided to give the movie a fair shot and it was incredible. Gone are the animation errors and slow pacing, replaced with beautifully smooth and elegant art and animation. The plot is fairly simple, but well-executed and has a few good tear-jerker moments. The movie provides a sort of backstory for Harlock and the Arcadia, also featuring his fellow pirate Emereldas. The villains aren't the series' antagonists but instead the Illumidus, a force occupying Earth - which setsup a good plotline about the lengths to which humans will go for an easy life under occupation. The central conflict, however, is the rivalry between Harlock and an Illumidus leader which leads to a spectacular confrontation in space.

The film manages to be incredibly hot-blooded and exciting without the need for loud and fast-paced music, or shouting attack names - the composure of all involved makes the final battle incredibly dramatic.

The art is definitely some of the best you'll see, with Leiji's trademark slender and pale characters given fantastic rendering on the big screen and the ships and backgrounds being detailed not in the way, for example, Do You Remember Love relies on incredible amounts of small lights, buttons, rivets and panels, but instead an almost Go Nagai-like use of thick lines and shading.

The character design doesn't aim for realism, but instead the traditionally Leiji caricature style where a character's build and expression tells you everything you need to know - heroes are stoic, scarred and wear capes, sidekicks are either square-jawed space heroes or dumpy glasses-wearing friends, and women either wear retro-future catsuits or floaty dresses as they breathily sigh their lines.

It's a wonderful piece of retro-future styled sci-fi whose only real flaw is the slightness and predictability of the plot.

And the ending song, which evokes the original series' dramatic opening, is stirring in its own way.