Space Pirate Captain Harlock

"I've got forty crewman with me, along with the invincible Arcadia!"The Arcadia is at the north pole after spotting an aurora that closely resembles a runway. While landing, Harlock and Miime spots a person. Then, they encounter a Mazone soldier named Aurora, who has been waiting for over ten years to kill Harlock. As the Arcadia is ensnared in a trap and wedged into a crevasse, Aurora confesses her love for Harlock. This is due to the delusions she experienced after thinking of nothing but Harlock for over ten years. But, after Miime rescues Harlock from harm's way, Aurora cannot bear to show her injured face to Harlock and leaves.

"This is Kei's problem. She has to take care of it."The operator, Kei Yuki, goes to visit her parents' grave. There, her father's ex-pupil, Kazuya, shows up. They had attempted to make a space colony not out of machines, but with nature exactly akin to Earth's. However, the experiment failed and Kazuya, the lone survivor, returned to blame her father who had lost his life there. But now he regrets this and wants to continue the research. However, Kei, who left the Arcadia to help him, is betrayed by Kazuya. It turns out he is a spy for the Mazone. Upon learning the truth, Kei confronts Kazuya by herself and buries him with her own hands.

"We swore that we'd die together on this ship. One man's pain is all of our pain."Upon finding a message in a bottle floating in space that contains an SOS message from Captain Yamanaka of the Braves ship, the Arcadia sets off for the Horsehead Nebula. Chief engineer Maji, who once served Captain Yamanaka, and Harlock, both acknowledge that Yamanaka is a fine warrior. Though Maji respected him, because Yamanaka saw that Maji's wife was a Mazone and shot her, they got into a fight and Maji left him. Even so, he still respects his former captain, and he heads for the Horsehead Nebula at once. However, Yamanaka is nothing but a skeleton, still gripping the helm.

"That sort of your weak sympathy is no help to the Chief engineer."A group of Mazone suddenly appear in the ship. They carelessly assume they'll just be holographs, but soon real Mazone appear and they begin fighting. During the battle, the Chief engineer realizes that one of the enemies is the daughter him and his wife had, Midori, who was taken away by the Mazone. The Chief engineer coolly tells the Mazone commander Patras that the only reason he boarded the Arcadia was to get his daughter back. He retorts, "The Mazone have no need for fathers." This sends Maji into a flurry as he recalls his past and he delivers the finishing blow himself to Patras's fleeting battleship.

"Falling into the trap will be fun, as well. Will we become skeletons together?"There are supposed to be forty-two crewman aboard the Arcadia. Searching their true colors, they try to read the minds of all at the Horsehead Nebula. After reading them all, they decide to take the next measures. Harlock and his crew finally realize that the light Yamanaka thought to be the Mazone base is actually a group of young stars. But, before they have time to sulk, they're attacked by a Mazone comet. The Arcadia escaped to Deathshadow Island to escape from this attack. Queen Lafresia appears in front of Harlock and leaves saying the mysterious words, "Challenged by a seed that was sown..."

"So, being an alcoholic is useful for once!"Miime's old planet is named Jura, and it was once devastated by a nuclear attack. Making one of her occasional visits to her hometown, Miime and Harlock are once against ensnared in a Mazone trap. Receiving a mysterious, shape-changing flower, the entire crew passes out. Before they have time to recover, a Mazone battle unit comes attacking and they're suddenly in a bind. Furious over this cowardly way of attacking, Miime and Harlock head to where they believe their base to be. There, she meets her old friend Fuure, who confesses to be a Mazone who organized the nuclear attack. Furious, they have a showdown.

"It's out of respect for a veteran. This is how I do things. I make no distinction between friend nor foe."An asteroid belt hits the Arcadia. Mazone soldiers who were hiding in there come invade the ship. However, they don't wish to destroy the Arcadia. Rather, they are men from another planet that was taken over by the Mazone. These men underwent military training by the Mazone. Discarding the fact that he took him hostage, Harlock shows the warrior Zol the utmost respect. Exchanging the word "Gohrum" to one another, words that they reserve for true heroes on his home planet, they develop a strong bond of trust. Leaving behind a memory device containing secrets of the Mazone, Zol leaves on a suicide mission to attack the giant Mazone fleet.

"The beauty of the ocean of space is without limit. But, on occasion, it can be merciless."Upon returning to Deathshadow Island with the memory device left behind by Zol, Harlock and his crew learn something huge about Queen Lafresia's flagship. They infer that they sent another pennant onto Mars and they head there at once. However, not knowing this place is the space graveyard Deathshadow, they fall into another Mazone trap. Due to the force of the planet, they cannot move. There is nothing they can do but wait for all their energy to be sapped. As the Mazone move to strike on this opportunity, something negates Deathshadow's force and the Arcadia is able to break free.

"A little leak will sink a great ship."Upon victory, Harlock orders First mate Yattaran to secure the hostages. But, Yattaran ends up being the one who is captured! Dr. Zero, who has known Yattaran since elementary school, proceeds to tell the crew about his rarely seen genius and ability to analyze the structure of the Arcadia. The Mazone, Elza, sent on an intelligence gather mission, decides to use Yattaran's love of models to get information on the structure of the Arcadia by challenging him to a model building contest. He is to build a scale-model of the Arcadia. But, right when he completes it, Harlock and the crew show up and Yattaran is recaptured.

"Zol issued the attack order! Your father!"A surprising couple, Zorba, the son of the warrior Zol, and a Mazone medic named Lucia, escaped from the Mazone fleet. There are members in the crew who doubt Lucia and think she may be a spy, but when they see that the Mazone are truly trying to recovery the two, they begin to trust her. Then the Mazone launch their general attack. Zorba is upset over his mother's execution, but Harlock yells at him and he become brave again. He decides to use himself as a decoy to protect the Arcadia. The two of them are hit by the Mazone and they sparkle off almost like a shooting star.

"This is a gamble. But it's a gamble we will win."Doctor Zero becomes extremely resentful over Zorba and Lucia's murder. So, he sets off to do battle in the midst of a magnetic storm and leaves his pet cat to the ship's cook, Masu-san. He leaves alone in a fighter. Then, with the cat who snuck into the cockpit when he wasn't looking, he prepares for death in a violent dogfight. Shortly after, Tadashi informs Harlock that the Mazone mothership he shot down was actually a passenger ship. The Mazone are not just plotting an invasion but are on a mass exodus in search of a new home!

"You have awakened the lion that sleeps within me."Due to Harlock's unrelenting resistance, there is a growing resentment between the Mazone military and its civilians. There is a faction in the military saying the civilians are just a nuisance and should be cut off. But the queen has resigned herself to complete the exodus of all her peoples to Earth. When Tesius breaks away from the caravan with a group of Mazone, the queen sends her subordinate Cleo to deliver her punishment. She lets Tesius commit suicide rather than kill her...

"Queen Lafresia is a Mazone with a heart."Having a hunch as to the reason why Harlock so staunchly opposes them, Queen Lafresia sends someone on a mission to Earth to find out why. They threaten Commander Kiruta and find out about Mayu. Finally believing the warnings about the Mazone that Harlock spoke of, Kiruta pleads to the Prime Minister to defend the Earth. But the Prime Minister does not deem the Mazone a threat. Kiruta finally understands Harlock's impatience with him. Then, after appearing in front of Harlock via hologram, Queen Lafresia is called a coward by Harlock. Then she makes up her mind to kidnap Mayu. She is taken away from Kiruta, who was protecting her, by a Mazone.

"The human race started with two."In order to rescue Mayu, Harlock allows the will of the ship to choose its own course. It then sets course for the Human Planet within the seven planets of the Ulysses Nebula. Dr. Ain and thirty humans escaped to there. It's almost like a tropical paradise. Harlock and the crew are there to take respite but when they hear that many UFO's have been spotted overhead recently, they go off to investigate. But, the Mazone have reached there as well and Harlock and the crew are attacked. Miyu, who pretended to be one of them but is really a Mazone, threatens Dr. Ain and make him use his weather control device to create a massive storm. Because of this, the only people who are left in the village are the two young children Vena and Ikaru.