By Alexandre Dumas

The Subject

Among all the heroes from my childhood Captain Harlock was the greatest. Aboard his blue Arcadia he defended the earth against the invaders threat, the Mazone. For French speaking fans like me, he has been known as Albator and his ship as the Atlantis.

The blue Arcadia is from the first series that took the air in 1978 (later in French). The first episode of Harlock 78 is taking place in 2980. Although it is from the first series, the blue Arcadia was built after the green Arcadia, which was first seen around 1984 (Harlock 84) in "My Youth in Arcadia" and "Galaxy Express 999" series. To my knowledge, the green Arcadia was launched in 2970 and the blue one in 2976.

This massive warship is 420 meters long with a crew of 42 including the main computer which owns the soul of Arcadia's creator and Harlock's best friend, Toshiro.

The Arcadia as remained undefeated so far and benefits from many proven armaments. The most amazing and efficient is undoubtedly the "Bow Spur" (giant slicer) that comes out of the nose hull and is used to tear the enemy vessels as the Arcadia passes trough them at full speed. Oh, and of course there is also the two main deck guns, the forward torpedo launcher, the side missiles, the underneath grenades (or mines) thrower, the Arcadia's fighters (Cosmo Wings, Space Wolf and Dagger ships), etc.

The Model

This kit was made by Takara in 1985 and is now being consider as one of the most valuable item of Harlock's universe. After many months of research I found one at "John F. Green Inc" two years ago. I used their "locator" services (These guys are the best at finding rare OOP model kits!)

It took me over nine months to complete this beauty (I'm quit a slow modeler :) but the result looks great to me. The main rework I did was to drill real openings to all air intakes. I also corrected the four round windows near the bottom of the ship; There was only three and one was misplaced. As for the rest, I made minor adjustments such as slightly misplacing some parts (not by much). I added pieces of evergreen here and there and I scribed a couple more lines such as the wooden deck. All this to make the final result more accurate to my references.

For those interested, here is the color scheme I used for the hull (all acrylics):

• Darker hull: Tamiya XF-18 (Medium Blue);
• Lighter hull: 1 part of Tamiya XF-18 for 2 parts of Tamiya XF-19 (Sky Grey);
• Wooden hull: Model Master FS30117 (Earth Red);

Image: Close up, portside/aft

Image: Poop deck

Image: Foward