Today I scored big on Ebay. I've been looking for this one particular scale model of Captain Harlock's Arcadia Spaceship, as seen in Arcadia of My Youth, which BTW is one of the all-time great anime feature-length films. Anyway, so the film came out way back in like 1982 or so, and Bandai of course swiftly produced a model kit of the ship, at both 1/1000 and 1/1600 scale.

This model has been next to impossible to find, as it went out of production quickly. Anytime you see the thing available in online overseas hobby shops it's going for several hundred dollars.

A couple of months back we spotted a 1/1600 version on Ebay, but by the time we got near the finish, it was up near a hundred dollars, and I gave up the ghost. Shel, BTW, was actually supportive of my bidding to win the thing.

So I just happen to do a quick check on Ebay today on a couple of things, and what the hey?! There's a kit some dude in Japan is selling, for like 19 bucks! And what's more the thing is at 1/1000 scale: it's the big one, people! And somehow this thing slipped under the radar -- nobody had bid on it. I checked it and there were 23 minutes left in the auction.

I bid the minimum, and lo and behold I win the dang thing! Here's hoping that the auction was for real after all; I have an email into the seller requesting a total price and other sundry items. Here's hoping!


Quote from Arcadia of My Youth: "At the faraway point where the rings of time come together...we shall meet again."