After a drawn-out, viciously-fought war, the earth has been conquered by the alien Illumidus Empire. Harlock, a captain in earth's fleet, crashes his ship to prevent the Illumidus from using it, and flat-out refuses to join them. With the help of his allies, Tochiro and the space pirate Emereldas, and his lover Miya, he wages a private and bitter war against the Illumidus.
Space Pirate 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 tankōbon volumes. The series follows the titular Captain, an outcast who has turned into a space pirate to rebel against Earth's government and humanity's general apathy.