Leiji Matsumoto is one of Japan's most influential myth creators. Yet the huge scope of his work, spanning past, present and future in a constantly connecting multiverse, is largely unknown outside Japan. Matsumoto was the major creative force on Star Blazers, America's gateway drug for TV anime, and created Captain Harlock, a TV phenomenon in Europe. As well as space operas, he made manga on musicians from Bowie to Tchaikovsky, wrote the manga version of American cowboy show Laramie, and created dozens of girls' comics. He is a respected manga scholar, an expert on Japanese swords, a frustrated engineer and pilot who still wants to be a spaceman in his eighties. This collection of new essays--the first book on Matsumoto in English--covers his seven decades of comic creation, drawing on contemporary scholarship, artistic practice and fan studies to map Matsumoto's vast universe. The contributors--artists, creators, translators and scholars--mirror the range of his work and experience. From the bildungsroman to the importance of textual analysis for costume and performance, from early days in poverty to honors around the world, this volume offers previously unexplored biographical and bibliographic detail from a life story as thrilling as anything he created.

THE FATE OF THE MYSTERIOUS PIRATE QUEEN Emeraldas navigates the sea of stars—and swears to do so until the flame of her life is extinguished. Aboard her ship, the Queen Emeraldas, she sails in search of a certain object, and along the way encounters the passions and tragedies of those who dare brave the infinite reaches of space. Among them, Hiroshi Umino, the Earth boy who escaped his home planet to follow his dreams, has remained in Emeraldas’ mind—and it seems fate will have them meet again…

The Earth government isn’t up to the task of protecting the planet from an impending invasion, so Harlock and his crew have to take it on themselves. The space pirates rush to investigate a looming threat already implanted on Earth that will make a Mazon takeover that much more likely. Will they be able to meet this threat head on and eliminate it from the board before humankind is under siege from all sides?

Harlock and the Arcadia race against the clock and around the Earth to find anyone who can help them face the newly unleashed Mazon threat head-on and prevent the planet’s destruction before the enemy fleet even arrives!

"This volume contains the Galaxy Express 999 manga stories originally published in Animerica issues vol. 7, no. 3 through vol. 8, no. 2 in their entirety."--T.p. verso.

'" It is the year 2199. The Gamilans, a hostile alien race, have bombarded the Earth, rendering it virtually uninhabitable and edging humanity to the verge of extinction. Mankind''s last, best hope for survival is the Space Battleship Yamato, a legendary spaceship newly equipped with a faster-than-light drive and advanced weaponry. Its mission: to travel to the distant planet of Iscandar and obtain a mysterious device that could heal our planet. Can Yamato‘s ragtag crew traverse the galaxy, defeat an overwhelming alien force, and return home in time to save the Earth from certain destruction? FINAL VOLUME "'

The fate of Earth hangs perilously in the balance of the ultimate clash between the Arcadia and the Mazon sisters Talika has resurrected! A confrontation so critical, Harlock finds himself making deals with enemies and asking for help from old friends and new. If Harlock and his crew are unable to stop these elemental beings, the planet will be uninhabitable to humans and Mazon alike!

TROUBLE ON THE HOME FRONT It is election time on Earth and tensions are running high. As various factions fight it out, Daiba tries to use the chaos as a cover for breaking into the Mazon’s Earth headquarters. Meanwhile, in the far reaches of space, Harlock faces down an old foe.