Ichiro Mizuki -- Captain Harlock（キャプテンハーロック）

 

Just imagine this! Some part-time worker barely into his adulthood (in Japan at least) is working at an advertising firm representing Toei Animation comes up with the crazy idea of making an anime special based on the very popular TBS music ranking series at the time "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）...and it sells. Yup, 21-year-old Kaoru Sugita（杉田薫）was likely walking on air for many months and perhaps years after Toei had caught the ball and ran with it. Sugita even got the credit of production manager for his idea.

And the result was "Animation The Best Ten 1980"（'80アニメーション ザ・ベストテン）, a little under one hour of special programming shown at theatres featuring what was thought to be the best ten examples of anime around at the time. It not only got done up like an episode of "The Best 10" but Sugita was also able to pick the hosts for the show, comedian Tamori（タモリ）, who is now one of the most well-known TV personalities in Japanese history, and actress/singer Miyuki Kojima（児島美ゆき）who dressed and tried to speak like (didn't quite get the nasality) the dandy rapid-firing co-host of "The Best 10", Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）.

My good friend and fellow KKP writer, JTM, was kind enough to give me a copy of "Animation The Best Ten 1980", and crazily enough, there is the YouTube video of the December 1980 short film as you can see above. For me, the big thing was seeing Tamori in his early years only about five years into his long career and a couple of years away from hosting Fuji-TV's "Waratte Ii Tomo"（笑っていいとも!）which would become one of the longest-running noon hour variety shows, finally drawing the curtains in 2014.

At about 17:00 of the video, No. 6 clattered in. It was the theme song from the original TV Asahi anime "Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock"（宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック...Space Pirate Captain Harlock） which ran from March 1978 to February 1979. To be honest, I never saw this series although the face of Harlock is an iconic one that is most likely recognizable anywhere in the anime community. I did witness his cameo appearance in the first movie for "Galaxy Express 999" in 1979.

Even the theme song "Captain Harlock" recorded by the late Ichiro Mizuki（水木一郎）, the Big Brother of Anison, rang a few bells. Written by Kougo Hotomi（保富康午）and composed by prolific songwriter Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）, it's a most heroic and sweeping kayo anthem for the title character and his motley crew. The timing to post this is very good because in less than a month, we'll be reaching the one-year anniversary since Mizuki's passing on December 6th.