Queen Emeraldas
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is a manga written and illustrated by
Leiji Matsumoto was a Japanese manga artist, and creator of several anime and manga series. His widow Miyako Maki is also a manga artist. Matsumoto was famous for his works such as ''Space Battleship Yamato'' and ''Galaxy Express 999''. His style was chara ...
, later adapted into a four-episode
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
OVA of the same name. ''Queen Emeraldas'' is the story of the pirate spaceship, ''Queen Emeraldas'', which is captained by the mysterious and beautiful Emeraldas, a strong and powerful privateer. Sometimes, the character Emeraldas is referred to as Pirate Queen Emeraldas.


Plot

The storyline follows a young boy named who sneaks aboard a freighter in order to leave
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
. As the freighter is flying through space they are attacked by an Afressian ship bearing the Skull and Crossbones insignia. However, the train is saved by a mysterious and incredibly powerful spaceship (which also bears the insignia) and is able to make it to their destination, a desert planet with a
Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...
atmosphere, complete with saloons and bar fights. The boy meets up with another stowaway, an old man, and becomes friends with him. He tells the old man that he came to the planet in order to become a stronger individual. He gets himself a job in a bar with the roughest reputation on the planet to prove himself. When the attacking ship, led by , lands on the planet to search for whoever attacked him, Emeraldas appears to confront him, demanding that he remove the insignia from his ship; "Only two ships have the right to bear it!" In the second episode, after a final confrontation with Eldomain and later with , of , Emeraldas presents Hiroshi with the Cosmo Dragoon once owned by Tochiro. Another divergence from the manga takes place here when Emeraldas states that there are five Cosmo Dragoons in existence (hers and the ones owned by Tochiro, Captain Harlock, Tetsuro and Maetel), whereas in the manga there are only four. Later, Hiroshi Umino and his elderly friend visit a planet whose inhabitants have been forced out by a murderous cyborg. This cyborg killed one of the planet's inhabitants and drove his son mad. Umino meets the son and his sister and with their help and Emeraldas', he kills the oppressive cyborg. While the story can stand on its own, independent of Matsumoto's other works, it mostly assumes that the viewer has seen the other ''Harlock'' titles, especially ''
Galaxy Express 999 is a Japanese manga series. It is written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, later adapted into a number of anime films and television series. It is set in a spacefaring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer ...
'' (the TV series and the films), which featured Maetel, Emeraldas' sister, but had the occasional appearance of Emeraldas (note: Maetel, for some reason in the English dub is referred to as Mataire). The story of ''Queen Emeraldas'' is set five years after the events of the final ''Galaxy Express 999'' film and was designed to give Matsumoto's fans a further glimpse into what became of Emeraldas. However, of the other characters, most are only mentioned in passing, except for
Captain Harlock Captain Harlock may refer to: * ''Captain Harlock'' (manga) ** Captain Harlock (character) {{disambiguation ...
who has a brief cameo appearance. ''Queen Emeraldas'' first two episodes were produced by
Oriental Light and Magic , (formerly Oriental Light and Magic), is a Japanese animation and film studio headquartered in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, founded on October 3, 1990, by former Studio Gallop and OB Planning employees. They are best known for producing the ''Pokémon ...
(OLM) and licensed for American distribution by
ADV Films A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gr ...
, being one of their earlier releases on the
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
format. Those two episodes also have regular runs on the Action Channel. In Japan, the remaining two episodes were co-produced by MAC (Multi Access Company) and were released the following year after the initial two, indicating that a separate contract (that is not yet forthcoming) would be required for anyone to license the concluding episodes of the story outside Japan.


Manga

Leiji Matsumoto first published a one-shot in 1975 in the publisher
Akita Shoten is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was founded by Teio Akita in 1948. As of May 2023, the company's president is Shigeru Higuchi. The company is known for publishing the manga magazine '' Weekly Shōnen Champ ...
's magazine ''
Princess Princess is a title used by a female member of a regnant monarch's family or by a female ruler of a principality. The male equivalent is a prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for ...
''. It began its distribution in
Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...
's ''
Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga magazine published on Wednesdays in Japan by Kodansha, first published on March 17, 1959. The magazine is mainly read by an older audience, with a significant portion of its readership falling under the male high ...
'' in 1978. It ended in 1979, and four collected volumes were released by Kodansha.
Kodansha Comics Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, US, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 1st 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and man ...
licensed the series to be published in English in two large-format hardcover volumes; the first was released on July 26, 2016, while the second was published on July 25, 2017.


Anime

An original video anime adaptation was produced by
OLM The olm () or proteus (''Proteus anguinus'') is an aquatic salamander which is the only species in the genus ''Proteus'' of the family Proteidae and the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe; the family's other extant g ...
and Multi-Access Company and released in four episodes between 1998 and 1999. Half the series was dubbed into English and released by
ADV Films A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gr ...
on DVD in 1999.


Cast

* Megumi Hayashibara as Hiroshi Umino * Reiko Tajima as Emeraldas * Kenichi Ogata as Lou Row *
Koichi Yamadera is a Japanese actor, narrator and singer from Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture. He graduated from Tohoku Gakuin University's economics school and is currently affiliated with Across Entertainment. Before that, he was affiliated with the Tokyo Actor' ...
as Tochiro Oyama *
Makio Inoue was a Japanese actor and voice actor. He is most noted for his two longstanding roles, as the title character in Captain Harlock from 1978 through the 1980s and 1990s, and Goemon Ishikawa XIII of ''Lupin III'' from 1977 to 2011. Career Inou ...
as
Captain Harlock Captain Harlock may refer to: * ''Captain Harlock'' (manga) ** Captain Harlock (character) {{disambiguation ...


Episodes

#"Departure" (May 6, 1998) #"Eternal Emblem" (October 7, 1998) #"Friendship" (August 6, 1999) #"Siren" (December 18, 1999) #Extra: "Fantasy" (September 10, 1999)


Other appearances

Emeraldas appeared in the 1978 ''
Space Pirate Captain Harlock , also titled Captain Harlock, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto. It was serialized in Akita Shoten's ''Play Comic'' from January 1977 to June 1979, with the chapters collected into five volumes. The ser ...
'' television series during flashbacks. She also had a guest appearance in the 1978 ''
Galaxy Express 999 is a Japanese manga series. It is written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, later adapted into a number of anime films and television series. It is set in a spacefaring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer ...
'' series. This episode, "Eternal Traveller Emeraldas", was later turned into an hour-long television special expanding on that story. She subsequently appeared as a supporting character in the film '' Arcadia of My Youth'', where it is shown how she obtained her facial scar. She also makes brief appearances in '' Harlock Saga'' and '' Cosmo Warrior Zero''. Her origin and youth is depicted in '' Maetel Legend''. As with Harlock and most other characters of the Leijiverse, Emeraldas' appearances in various stories cannot be applied to one consistent timeline. In the 1978 ''Galaxy Express 999'' story, for example, one notable difference from her other depictions is that Emeraldas is suffering from an unknown illness. Her place as captain was taken over by a robot imposter while she was mostly confined to bed. The story suggests that she does not have much longer to live. This illness is alluded to in the recent manga where Emeraldas does not engage in much physical action due to her weakened condition. However, the OVA version is a fearsome combatant—as seen in her gravity saber duel with Queen Baraluda—and shows no sign of any such illness. In the original ''Captain Harlock'' series in episode 30 ("My Friend, My Youth"), Emeraldas is shown to have a younger brother, but no sister is ever mentioned. Opposed to that, no brother exists in ''Queen Emeraldas'' or any other movies or series of the franchise.


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


松本零士 スーパーメカニクス クイーン・エメラルダス号
* * {{OLM OVAs 1998 anime OVAs ADV Films Kodansha manga Leiji Matsumoto OLM, Inc. Shōnen manga Space opera anime and manga Fictional female pirates Space pirates Space Western anime and manga