Galaxy Express 999
Galaxy Express 999 is a Japanese manga series. It is written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, later adapted into a number of anime films and television series. It is set in a spacefaring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer their minds and emotions with perfect fidelity into mechanical bodies, thus achieving practical immortality.
The manga won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 1978. The anime series won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1981.
Matsumoto was inspired to create Galaxy Express 999 by the idea of a steam train running through the stars in the novel Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa.
Plot
Anime and manga
An impoverished boy named Tetsuro Hoshino desperately wants an indestructible machine body, giving him the ability to live forever and have the freedom that the unmechanized do not have. While machine bodies are impossibly expensive, they are supposedly given away for free on the planet Andromeda, the end of the line for the Galaxy Express 999, a space train that only comes to Earth once a year.The series begins with Tetsuro and his mother making their way to Megalopolis where they hope to get jobs to pay for passes for the 999. Along the way, however, Count Mecha and a gang of "human hunters" kill Tetsuro's mother. Before she dies, she tells him to continue the journey they started and to get a machine body to live the eternal life she could not. Tetsuro tries to forge on toward the city alone but is quickly overcome by the brutal cold and wind. As he succumbs, he cries out an apology to his mother for failing to fulfill her wish and hopes that in his next life, he will be born as a robot to begin with.
Tetsuro is surprised to awaken by the fireplace in the home of a beautiful woman, Maetel, who is the spitting image of his dead mother. Maetel tells him she had heard the entire incident with a long-range directional microphone she had been idly scanning around the area with. Maetel offers him an unlimited use pass for the 999 if he will be her traveling companion, to which Tetsuro agrees. She provides him with a gun and directs him to the Count's residence, telling him that the Count and his henchmen will be too distracted with their revelries to defend themselves against a surprise attack. Tetsuro bursts in on them in their meeting hall and cuts them down with a spray of gunfire. With the Earth police in hot pursuit, Tetsuro and Maetel flee the planet aboard the 999.
Along the way, Tetsuro has many adventures on many different and exotic planets and meets many kinds of people, both human and alien, living and machine. Increasingly, Tetsuro realizes that a machine body will not fix all of his problems. Most of the machine people he meets regret the decision to give up their humanity.
Eventually, Tetsuro and Maetel reach the Planet Promethium, the final stop for the 999. He is shocked by the cruelty and indolence of the machine people there and witnesses a mechanized human committing suicide, an event to which the others react with scoffs and derision. He asks the dying man why he wished to end his life, and is told that eternal life on Promethium is utterly empty of joy or purpose. When Tetsuro mentions the name of his traveling companion, the man is horrified and tells him that Maetel is the daughter of Queen Promethium, the supreme ruler of the Machine Empire and that she is thoroughly untrustworthy. Tetsuro is outraged at having been kept in the dark and rushes off to confront Maetel. Maetel is at a loss for words, but a government spokeswoman inserts herself into their conversation and begins giving answers on Maetel's behalf. Tetsuro is not impressed and he storms off in a blind fury.
Tetsuro does not understand why he has been betrayed by Maetel, but Maetel has plans of her own and seeks to destroy the mechanized civilization. With the help of her father, Dr. Ban, whose consciousness resides in a pendant she wears around her neck, Maetel destroys her mother and the planet. Afterward, Maetel and Tetsuro return to the penultimate station on the Planet of Bats where Tetsuro tells Maetel his intention to return to Earth and lead it toward a new future.
Maetel, proud of Tetsuro for his decision to reject mechanization, tells him she has something to take care of and that he should board first, but Tetsuro finds a letter from Maetel telling him that it is time for them to part ways. Maetel had secretly boarded the 777, a nearby train, with the intention of "leading another boy to his future", but it is unclear as to whether or not this means that the Mechanization Empire still exists elsewhere, or if Maetel will lead the boy to some other "future". The series ends as the trains both depart the Planet of Bats.
Film versions
''Galaxy Express 999''
The film version of Galaxy Express 999 was released in 1979. Maetel and Tetsuro again set out for the home planet of the Mechanization Empire, visiting four planets. Planet Maetel is a mechanized world where machine bodies are made.Godiego performed the film's theme song "The Galaxy Express 999".
''Adieu Galaxy Express 999''
Adieu Galaxy Express 999 is a 1981 sequel to the film adaptation. Adieu presents an entirely new storyline that takes place three years after the destruction of Planet Maetel. The Machine Empire now has even more of a stranglehold over the Galaxy. Rumors are afoot of Maetel becoming its new Queen. Tetsuro, now a fifteen-year-old freedom fighter, is shocked when a messenger brings him news that the 999 is returning and that Maetel wants him to board it. Tetsuro narrowly makes his way to the 999 and departs Earth, now a battlefield.Although Tetsuro finds that Maetel is not present on the 999, he does meet Metalmena, a machine woman who has replaced the waitress Claire. Also, a mysterious Ghost Train has been traveling the universe and nearly crashes into 999. The 999 heads to the planet La Metal, portrayed here as the birthplace of Promethium and Maetel. Here Tetsuro helps in the resistance, befriending a cat-like teenage boy named Meowdar. While exploring the ruins of an old castle, Tetsuro discovers a portrait of a beautiful, blonde queen who looks very much like Maetel. He learns that it is, in fact, La Metal's Queen Promethium, even though she looks nothing like she did at their last confrontation. As the 999 departs, Maetel finally makes her appearance.
Shortly after leaving La Metal, the 999 is forced to dock at a station where Tetsuro meets a mysterious machine man named Faust. When Tetsuro attacks him, Faust causes Tetsuro to drop into a flashback where he must relive his mother's death. The 999 continues to the planet Mosaic, the last stop before Great Andromeda, the capital of the Mechanization Empire. Here Tetsuro finds the Ghost Train and is nearly killed.
The 999 finally makes its way to Great Andromeda where Faust greets Tetsuro once more. Meanwhile, Maetel travels down to the center of the planet where Promethium's consciousness still exists. Maetel is put in charge of the Mechanization Empire, just as the rumors said, but again, she intends to put an end to the operations, and attempts to shut Promethium's machinery down. She reveals the horrible truth to Tetsuro that the energy the machine people use is drained from living human beings, and that they were transported there by the Ghost Train. Tetsuro is shocked to find his old friend Meowdar among a pile of dead, drained bodies. Metalmena shows indifference to Meowdar's death until Tetsuro reveals the source of the energy she has been existing on. As a patrol of guards comes to arrest the group, Metalmena, disgusted and enraged by what she has learned, attacks and destroys them, apparently at the cost of her own life.
Promethium proves that she cannot be killed with just the flip of a switch, and all seems hopeless. At about the same time, a space anomaly called Siren the Witch approaches Great Andromeda, attracted to its abundant energy and absorbing all machine energy. With Great Andromeda collapsing, the 999 is set to depart, but Tetsuro must face Faust one last time. After dealing Faust with a fatal blow, it is revealed to Tetsuro that Faust is Tetsuro's father. The 999 heads back to La Metal where Maetel and Tetsuro separate for the last time, and "the boy becomes a man".
Two songs were written and performed by Mary MacGregor: "Love Light" and the ending theme "Sayonara" were used for the film. Kumiko Kaori recorded a Japanese version of the ending song.
Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies called it a "dense, fascinating story".
New manga series and ''Eternal Fantasy''
In 1996, Matsumoto began a new GE999 series, set a year after the original, in which the Earth is destroyed and Tetsuro sets out to discover the source of the "darkness" that threatens all life in the universe.The film Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy was released in 1998. This film takes place a few years after the events of Adieu Galaxy Express 999 and is the third film in the anime series, where Maetel and Tetsuro reunite to save the universe again from another evil. It also serves as a link between this film and The Galaxy Railways.
The Alfee performed the theme song "Brave Love: Galaxy Express 999 / Beyond the Win".
Also, space battleship Yamato, from the Japanese show of the same name, and the English version of Star Blazers, which are both Matsumoto creations, make a cameo appearance.
The manga has been partially published in English by Viz. The film was released by Discotek Media on DVD on October 16, 2012, and Blu-ray in 2020. The latter includes a newly produced English dub by Sound Cadence Studios in Dallas, Texas with a new cast.