My Humble GALAXY EXPRESS 999 tv ep guide eps1-113

[Tetsuro123]

GALAXY EXPRESS guide

1-BALLAD OF DEPARTURE/other title-
Tetsuro and his mother are heading for the train station. It is 2221 and poor people hang out there hoping to get on the train to go get a new body, mechanical. In the snow desert, robotic men kill Tetsuro’s mother and leave him to die. He is saved by a mysterious woman named Maeter, who gives him a pass to 999, with one condition: that she accompany him. He kills the robotic men, thus robot cops are after him with robot dogs. He and Maeter escape and take off on the space transport 999…the machines are so advanced they can look like anything, even old trains. A forcefield keeps the air in and surrounds 999.

2-THE RED WIND OF MARS--on a very western looking and very nearly empty Mars, an old man shows Tetsuro his artificial leg. Tetsuro gives him gold that is given to the passengers of 999. He tells the boy to keep all of it but two, one for him and one for the tour. He tells Tetsuro to have a love for money and not throw it away. The old man’s daughter Freemay takes Tetsuro to a graveyard. Here, her boyfriend, who will leave her to escape the red wind of Mars, shoots Tetsuro for his pass but the gold bag in his pocket saves him. The girl shoots the boyfriend because he was going to leave her. He makes Tetsuro shoot him and doesn’t defend himself after he sees that Tetsuro is bleeding and is human. Tetsuro sees that they are robotic and still not content with their lives. People came here for freedom and some of them made it but some of them died and some of them are insane.

3—THE LONG RESTING WARRIORS ON TITAN/GLASSY CLAIRE -En route to Titan, Tetsuro gets hungry. Glassy Claire, made of see through material serves them. The 999 goes threw a tunnel in space where illusions come. Claire aka Clear glows her body to provide light when all the lights go out. Tetsuro thinks he sees his mother but it turns out to be a skeleton monster out to rob his soul. Clear aka Claire saves him but her body is shattered into pieces, like tears. On Titan, Maeter is kidnapped; Tetsuro shot unconscious or knocked out. Here, anyone and everyone can do anything that they want; the law is that no one should stop anyone from doing what they want. An old Grandma, who gets Tetsuro into a hotel, tells Tetsuro where to look for Maeter, gives him a gun that belonged to her son, the gun of a Universal Warrior. He was defeated when he returned to Titan. She also gives him a hat to protect him from the sun and it has holes in it. He sets off in a small canoe to rescue Maeter in a giant swamp like area—Grape Valley. A giant insect monster attacks him as well as a being with horns on his helmet. Tetsuro defeats them both using the gun and saves a nearly nude Maeter. They return to the old woman. Not for the first time, we hear a male narrator.

4-THE INFAMOUS ROBBER ANDARES--Andares or Antares aka Antelaus (?), an old space robber-pirate has clung to the bottom of 999 to rob the passengers. He did so when the train left Titan. He shoots a man in the arm who was trying to leave. He gets the conductor/captain to take 999 toward his home, a building built into a sort of flying asteroid. When Tetsuro sees him bleeding he saves the pirate’s life from the Conductor. They visit the pirate’s home where he has many small children. The pirate tells Tetsuro to visit anytime even after he dies—the children will always greet him as a friend. Sometimes the previews omit a “THE” from the title of next episode. For example SHADOW OF THE PANIC STAR instead of THE. Also the previews tell parts of the philosophy not in the aired episode!

5-THE SHADOW OF TH E PANIC STAR--999 enters Pluto, also known as the Panic Planet. It is very cold, even on the train. Most of the place is made of ice and the people are mostly robots. Tetsuro finds Maeter acting very strange and crying over a tomb of ice, of passengers who died on this area. Tetsuro meets a female named Sado. Sado tells him others gave up their human bodies to the ice tombs so that they could get robotic bodies. She takes him to her ice palace and shows him her previous human body encased in ice. She wanted to keep it that way forever so became robotic herself. She shows him her non-face: she could not decide on a face. She attacks him to steal his soul and almost succeeds but Maeter with her whip arrives and frees him. She tells them she will get him sooner or later. At the hotel, Maeter is stunned that Tetsuro saw her crying over the ice bodies in the tombs. She tells him a male friend of her’s, her best friend, died here and is in the tomb. At night at the hotel, Maeter warns Tetsuro not to leave the hotel or go in the street. As they sleep, Sado returns and from outside pretends she is Tetsuro’s mother and despite resisting, he steals Maeter’s whip and goes with his “mother” who is really Sado. Maeter arrives and uses ear ring bombs to stop her but Tetsuro has to shoot the whip from Sado’s hands to save Maeter. Tetsuro cannot forgive her and is about to destroy Sado’s former body but Maeter stops him using her whip. She tells him a woman’s life is her body. They leave and Sado cries. Tetsuro is even more assured that he wants his robot body. As they leave the planet on 999, Maeter looks out at a female body that makes her sad and she feels this is the saddest planet in the universe…

6-The Comet Library-999 passes comets as they head for the Comet Station. Leaving the train after seeing a comet or two, they encounter strange non gravity, gravity, and airless, the laws of space, heat and atmosphere work different here. Tetsuro thinks it is fun but uncomfortable. They see circular stores and strange buildings floating like balloons. A man with a hat and a gun, almost like a rich cowboy follows them to a library. A woman and her small son envy Tetsuro and Maeter who they say are going to Andromeda to get a free robotic body. The man watches Tetsuro in the library as Tetsuro reads Youth Magazine 1978 which has Star Wars characters such as C3P0, Luke Skywalker, and R2D2 in its pages. The man rips a page out and blames Tetsuro, then wounds him with his gun. He leaves. A woman tells Maeter where to bring the wounded Tetsuro and they go to the hospital. There, the robot Doctor tries to force Tetsuro to get a robot body, despite the wound being minor. Tetsuro does not have money but the doctor tells him he will have to work it all off here. He uses metal straps to hold Tetsuro down and begins to start the machine to cut him up! Maeter sees the cowboy getting a payoff and confronts him. He knocks her down but she saves Tetsuro. The Doctor tries to kill her but she shoots him down. Outside, the cowboy follows them and tries to shoot them in the back but Tetsuro, following advice from Andares---not to show mercy and to act first no matter how the enemy begs---shoots the cowboy and kills him. An extra car comes to the 999 to give it the fuel it will need go beyond the solar system and out into the universe beyond. The woman and the boy sneak on 999 disguised as Maeter and Tetsuro. The Conductor kicks them off. Tetsuro cries for them, feeling bad for them. Maeter warns Tetsuro that they are leaving the solar system and out beyond, universal laws only apply to the train and the train stations, outside those, it will be very strange and dangerous. In one version Tetsuro calls the Doctor an asshole, not the first time that was used.

7-THE GRAVEYARD OF GRAVITY part one/aka Cemetery At the Depth of Gravity-999 is in an area where stars seem to shoot by so fast. Maeter tells Tetsuro they are traveling faster than light and the stars move fast but they might see the light. The fuel car 444 is ahead of 999, attached to it. Two days ago there was an accident and train 333, headed for Canberra, derailed and was lost. 999 is falling and has the same accident and even knocks into 333. The Conductor/Captain loses his hat and Tetsuro sees that he has no face, only glowing eyes. The Conductor (strangely also called the captain in the subtitles), Maeter, and Tetsuro venture through the holes in the trains---the unlimited power shield protects them. The Conductor gets the lights back on. They see the passengers have aged into skeletons. Even though the accident was two days ago, many years have passed and there are no survivors. An evil woman named Ms. Loach, who knows Maeter and who Maeter knows, has caused this. The next episode’s review of the events says time runs ten times faster here. Loach kicks the Conductor off the train and he manages to get back to 999, falling in a coal car. Loach takes Tetsuro to be with her. She leaves using her antiquates space plane. Maeter does not try to stop Loach from taking Tetsuro and he cries about this.

8-THE GRAVEYARD OF GRAVITY part two-Time runs ten times faster on 333 now. Loach did it and she kidnapped Tetsuro. Loach takes him to a small planet, surpressed the narrator later tells us because of gravity, just like some people hide their regrets and memories get forgotten or something. Anyway, Loach has him on a planet of fog and huge blackbirds and ravens. Others are bones here because they disobeyed her. She takes Tetsuro into her broken down shack of a wooden home but he is afraid of the bones inside. She offers Tetsuro a mechanical body, leftovers from the passengers that died. She has a mechanical body and she shows him this. She’s been here for 500 years. She was once a dancer in an area that looks like Mexico or Spain and had many windmills. She danced to the castinets. A man named Duke or a Duke took her as his girlfriend and asked her to change her style for him. She became mechanical for him and she showed her off to his friends. They seemed to marry. Other women have the same body as she did and the Duke spurns her, riding her home in a storm to his mansion, making her fall from the carriage, and locking her out. She left the planet and found this small planet and since then she could control time. She shows him her control center where she can see anyplace, anytime and he wants to see 999. She wants Tetsuro to understand her. He feels for her and touches her hands but he refuses her offer and tells her he will die without regret. He wants to make effort for the mechanical body…hardship is what Maeter told him the price would be for it and he will not accept it from Loach, nor will he lose his freedom and stay here. Loach lets him go. The Conductor finds Maeter sitting and waiting in the 333, and he worries about her. She tells him it will be alright…why? Is she immune to the time aging? The answer is yes. He also tells her he is the assistant captain. Who is the captain? Maeter? The Conductor wants to take the train away once he separates them. Maeter has gone back to 999 and Tetsuro sees this on the control center on Loach’s screens. Loach flies him back and he says goodbye to her. Loach, before she leaves, warns him about Maeter. He will give up everything for her and even his freedom. He will have to make a choice for her and she is not what he thinks. Loach leaves. Tetsuro goes in to Maeter, who tells him she knew Loach would not harm him, for Loach does not harm anyone who has strong beliefs. 999 leaves with Tetsuro almost telling Maeter something. He is determined more than ever to get his bionic body. In other subtitled versions, things are slightly different.

9-THE SPLIT ROUTES IN TOREDA part one-aka Trader Junction—En route to the Toreda planet where trains cross, Tetruro (as he is called in some of the versions) sees other trains. These include the short distance 777 to Emerarudaso, 666 which is crowded (unlike 999), 444 to Amatoria, 333 of the Orion-Kopera run, and 555 to Norohara. The Conductor says they will be o Toreda for two days, two hours and 15 minutes. It is a giant city. Maeter treats Tetsuro to a meal but poor people watch him and he cannot finish. A man asks for him to buy a gun until he sees the warrior gun. Later, in the hotel, Maeter forces Tetsuro to take two baths by locking him in the bathroom, which is where he ran to. He tries to just dip in it but she knows it was too short a time. Later he leaves for a meal alone. Poor people follow him and surround him but he runs away. He goes past a park and a bridge and eats at a restaurant. He likes lamain. A girl we find out next episode is named Hanako, comes in looking for scraps of food and leftovers. Outside, she cannot find food in the garbage. She used to work in the restaurant Tetsuro ate in. He treats her to a meal using the 999 allowance. Another man comes in and demands he get treated too. Tetsuro agrees but the man invites others in. Tetsuro treats them but uses all the gold coins. More men come in and he cannot treat them so they chase him through the city. Hanako helps him escape. The two go to a park. Tetsuro falls asleep in it. When he wakes up he is on a train to her home planet…Norohara, a giant flower surrounding the main core of the planet. Maeter sees that Tetsuro left his gun in the hotel and beings to worry. She feels she should not have left him on his own…Tetsuro uses the phrase, “What the hell” a few times. There are also new break cards at the break spot.

10-THE SPLIT ROUTES IN TOREDA part two—On the planet of flowers and gardens, Hanako takes Tetsuro to meet her parents, whom she has always obeyed. She introduces him as her fiancé. She locks him in a room but he climbs out a window down a vine. He agrees to stay to make her sickly father and worried mother feel better. They have a nuptial ceremony dinner with invited guests, a cop and a chief (village master) or something but Tetsuro cannot see them (and in one version he even thinks he is dreaming), only the others can. Hanako’s mom shows Tetsuro a picture of her daughter before she went to work…she was beautiful but now is not. Tetsuro falls asleep in her bedroom and she moves to wake him up when it is time for him to go to catch the train back to the transfer station. He wakes up on the train back and Maeter is there. She tells him that Hanako cannot find a boyfriend and has a good heart. Another version says she worked hard and had no time for love. She wanted to make her parents happy. She wanted him to make her parents happy so they would not worry about her. Maeter came to watch the ceremony and saw it and may have seen the two unseen guests. They are on the Wild Flower line. They go to the train and catch 999 out at the last moment. Hanako cries. The narrator says the flowers are joyous to the passengers and tourists but monotonous to the people who live on Norohara. They live their lives to fill boredom and use work. It is an unhappy place he says. Another version says people work so hard they forget to see the Wild Flowers themselves and enjoy them. A VERY strange and sad episode.

[Tetsuro123]

11-THE UNFORMED PLANET NURUBA-777 is to take 14 hours. No one has seen the entire universe Maeter tells Tetsuro. People go to the planet Nuruba to commit suicide. When they pass over the planet, Tetsuro asks, “What the hell is it?” A note here: this ep and others in the dvd pack, seem to have a bit of hell and asshole here and there. This never occurs on the TV versions seen on UHF stations. Dialog is somewhat different. The planet is constantly changing. A blue (Suru?) and pink (Tsuru) protoplasm pair of siblings want to become human and sneak onto 999 after battling their purple blob father. 999 is hovering in the air over the planet. Tetsuro yawns and rests. Meater goes to the bathroom area (marked Toilets) and is attacked and seemingly entered by the pink blob. Tetsuro reads a menu in the restaurant and it is in English and he does not understand it mostly. He sings. He sees the creature posing as Maeter and wonders what the hell is going on with her. The blue thing attacks him, “What the hell?” Meanwhile the Conductor is just clothes asleep. A voice summons him to the dining area compartment more than once. He passes a male and female passenger couple. Conductor finds Tetsuro naked. Yelling asshole, Tetsuro stops the blue thing and Conductor finds Meater naked in the bathroom. The commercial tag images include Tetsuro hanging onto 666 and Meater on top 777. Note: in some parts we see Tetsuro’s genitals briefly. Tetsuro gets the pink blob and ties her to the blue one. He is going to kill them but Maeter asks him to forgive them. The purple father comes and we read, “What the hell is it?” again. He tells them they never envy the human form or any form as it will die eventually but his children have. Tetsuro thinks about Sado in a flashback (now subtitled as Shado!). He recalls Meater telling him that a woman wants to maintain her best self—it is the key to life. Shado mentions she wants to go back to Earth in the flashback. The child blobs feel that they have no sense of beauty without a form. Asshole is said again by the father. The kids hate the father. Tetsuro recalls the poor on Earth and how they cannot get robot bodies. Before the father leaves, he looks at Maeter and says, “Wait…she is…” and then he leaves. Maeter might be famous. Tetsuro thinks about his father and mother in another flashback. His father seems to be European or American. The couple decided long ago to keep their love the way it is. They are seen in a flashback of their own on a beach in skimpy bathing suits. They are here to drop out of 999 and become part of the planet or is it suicide. They hold hands as they drop out. They want to avoid the elapse of time and old age. Their love will persist. Form is just transient. Tetsuro thinks about a mirror. Uhm, more strangeness but this time more coherent and nicely done. Do the couple die? Are they absorbed? Or do they become part of the planet unformed? Are they still alive within it? What the hell?

12-THE FOSSILIZED WARRIOR part one-Tetsuro heads for the restroom but he feels it is too late. 999 hits some rocks on the track of the Fossil Planet, someone put them there, and it crashes. As it does, Tetsuro falls right out a shut window. He finds hundreds of fossil faces. Maeter tells him that the auto remover did not work this time. This planet is like 3 million light years ago. There are no plants. Tetsuro uses binoculars/telescope lens to see out and he goes out, seeing something. He finds human skulls and decapitated bodies, now mostly skeletons. He finds a statue of a fossilized lady. A figure appears, the Fossil Warrior and this man, long haired and young, blames him for being a thief who wants to steal fossils and sell them on other planets. Tetsuro forgot his gun. The man stabs Tetsuro’s back and sees the 999 passport. Maetur (Maeter or Meater or in some versions Meitel) arrives with a gun. The man tells her he wants to ride 999 to get find a way to get Rija (Lija in another subtitled version) back to normal. He has to get her off this planet and find a way to restore her somehow. They battle and Maeter blinds him with an ear ring bomb. He recovers and gets away with Tetsuro’s passport. Back on 999, in some kind of sickbay, Maeter stitches Tetsuro’s back the old fashioned way. Her informants (? In one version it is just her knowledge) tell her that the man here is a protector of fossils, which were real people. Conductor kicks Tetsuro off the train even though, as Tetsuro says they have been together a long time (?). He seems to be beating up the conductor but Maeter stops him and tells him the rule is the rule. Conductor makes him go and tells him not to be angry with him. Tetsuro in one version calls him, “You stinky man” and tells him to shut up. Maeter tells the Conductor to get out of her way and she goes off with Tetsuro (only to leave him again in the next part!). 999 will leave at 12 tomorrow. The pair find a wrecked starship or a ship that travels between the stars. It has a huge propelling system. When they enter and confront the warrior, he tells them that he was exploring space or the gas cloud and was to identify the cloud. The planet was once a beautiful planet but it was covered in the gas clouds and his ship crashed. His comrades were fossilized. Now the thought is that his planet had his people and he was saved because he was in space but in one version it seems as if his crew landed on this planet and it is they that were fossilized but I go with the idea that the entire planet were his people and they were fossilized as we see children on a playground and I doubt they were part of his crew. He tells Tetsuro that in the boundless universe there are many things not identified. People steal the fossils, his people, and sell them to other worlds. Maeter guesses that Rija is his girlfriend (now this is really odd because in the TV version subtitles, she calls Rija his lover!!! Instead of girlfriend). Another ship lands and pirates come out and being to cut Rija’s statue off from the land and carry her off but the warrior/protector shoots them and kills them. A beam and mechanical arms from the spaceship gets him. Meater tells Tetsuro, both watching, that the Conductor got a message---gas clouds are coming and will soon fossilize the planet and everything on it again!

13-THE FOSSILIZED WARRIOR part two-this ep calls the gas clouds petrification or petrification clouds, although we only see one big one with some kind of energy inside it. Maeter leaves to go help with repairs on 999. She gives him an ear ring bomb. Conductor cries but Maeter asks about having the Auxiliary Carriage come. Tetsuro bombs the pirates and saves the protector, freeing him. Tetsuro shoots some pirates dead and some shoot each other. The protector gets one of their rifles and shoots some dead and swords some to death. He also fights Tetsuro and knocks him down as he fires. He gets Rija’s now detached statue. Tetsuro follows him back into the giant starship but falls down a trap and is held in a black room. The Auxiliary Carriage will arrive in two hours. On a screen the protector tells Tetsuro he will give him his ticket back once he leaves and finds Rija help. Tetsuro tells him about the coming gas cloud. The thief ship fires a hole into the warrior’s ship and using a clear tube drops many men in. Some traps, such as laser beams, kill some of them; the warrior shoots and swords some of them to death. The pirate captain hovers over and begins destroying the starship and his own men but the warrior protector blows the pirate ship up and it crashes in a blast. Tetsuro gets out and fights the warrior and shoots him. As he lay dying, Tetsuro notices the warrior did not use the sharp edge, he was not trying to kill Tetsuro. The warrior knew Tetsuro is a good person and he never wanted to kill him, he was not going to. He would have returned the passport. He hands Tetsuro his ticket. He wouldn’t allow Tetsuro to be petrified. His last request is to have Rija and he put together. Some day perhaps there will be a way to reduce or reverse the petrification and he makes Tetsuro promise that if that happens, Tetsuro will return and free them. Tetsuro promises and the man dies. He prays over the man. He puts the man and Rija hand in hand laying next to each other. Mr Carman—aka the Conductor and Maeter talk. They cannot break the rule 27. 666, the Auxiliary Car arrives. Tetsuro arrives just in time as 666 helps carry 999 away, the rocks being cleared as well. As it leaves, Tetsuro waves and thanks it, saying we can all count on you and that they will need its help later. ? He remembers his promise. Something about living apart rather than be petrified. Tetsuro recounts how he will live 1000 to 2000 years after he gets his mecha body, bionic body. He will do this for h is parents. The fossil planet of not staying alive is either sorrowful or wonderful, the narrator says. He’s insane.

[Tetsuro123]

14-Lala of the Twoness Planet-sometimes the THE is not in the title. Entering a strange area of space, 999 needs three carriages working tandem, including 444 as they pass a murky nebula. The Conductor says they will spend 3 hours and 40 minutes on the planet Totally Mechanical. Rainwater passes between two planets in space. Maeter shows Tetsuro all her weapons, a whole caseload of them including powerful energy bombs as they landed and she warns Tetsuro to be able to bear it if he leaves the 999 and furthers out into the mecha city. The entire city and even the few trees are machine with the exception of one brain. He sees a fountain of gasoline which Maeter calls loxygen, the drinking water here. They go to eat in the fully tight buildings, all machine. Here a waitress does not serve Tetsuro, thinking he is Maeter’s pet. She pays attention to Maeter and to mechanized patrons. She tells them she thought Tetsuro was a boar or a monkey. Maeter tells Tetsuro that with mechanized people, here there is no need for a mortician since people will live to 200 or 300 years old. Tetsuro is brought a drink but chokes since it is loxygen. Maeter laughs until other patrons come. They want to use his skin as a table cloth and kick him out. To save Maeter from them, Tetsuro comes back and shoots them all except the waitress, destroying the place and crying at the same time. Maeter asks why he could not bear it and seems upset that he did this. He tells her about his mother and what they did to her. He has her locket. Maeter gets is hat and cape for him and in the street, she cries or cries out and passes out. An air car passes overhead and hits her and Tetsuro! A green girl gets out and looks at them, she picks up the hat. This is Lala, who brings them to a lab. Tetsuro can be saved she claims if she switches her body with his; puts her heart in him and his heart in her. She had to change his body and mind with him or he would die. Or something. He is on a table in underwear. She locks Maeter in a room and does this. His heart lives in her body. Lala admits she was tired of her mechanical body. She feels Tetsuro has tinnitus. She wants to leave on 999. She takes Maeter at gunpoint toward it. She admits she set a fire to go off in her hospital to kill her old body with Tetsuro in it. Gas starts it. Maeter uses her finger to zap Lala who is in Tetsuro’s body. A fire car is already putting out the fire but Maeter races in to save Tetsuro in Lala’s body. The machine are destroyed but outside they encounter Lala in Tetsuro’s body and she sticks her tongue out at them. Tetsuro says even though he has short legs and an ugly face (he does?) he wants his old body back, it is the one his parents gave him. He chases Lala and hounds her and beats her. She claims she can do it if they go to the Mesutousu Institute. Once there, Mesutousu is an old man who wants to switch bodies with Maeter! Tetsuro asks, “What the hell do you want?” He wants to leave in 999, what else? Maeter tells them she will destroy the planet, it should not exist, a place that robs people of the bodies when they don’t want it to happen. She demonstrates the energy gun she has. Mesutousu says something like Lala,, you asshole why did you bring these two freaks? Maeter forces them to reverse the process and Tetsuro jumps for joy. Lala attacks him but he spins her around and tells her to go to hell. Tetsuro leaves and gets to 999 but Conductor notes Maeter is not with him. He cannot wait for her: Rule 22 says they must leave. He cannot delay this. Maeter comes running and the 999 takes off. She calls the people of this planet the monster of science. 999 is leaving the planet on the right. Maeter tells Tetsuro she will stay with him until he has accomplished is goal of getting a mechanical body, if he still wants to get that. He hugs her and sleeps on her lap, first telling her she is like his mother. He looks outside as the planets seem to collide and explode, Maeter telling him not to watch. She seems to be upset but is reading a book. Tetsuro wonders why they blew up and wonders if Maeter had something to do with it. The translation I recently saw of this did not go into this but another one did. It is odd that the translations vary so much. In this one, Tetsuro thinks something like “What the hell is it?” I think he meant what the heck is she? The narrator says something about a shining star and a planet that is gone without giving up anything to the universe. And something about vanity may be with the passengers of 999. In the preview, there is something about hope and a sun drowning out sorrow. WTF? Okay the TV version says that only the passengers on 999 know the emptiness of space.

15-Beethoven of Water Planet-a nice start out with theme song played in a new manner. 999 passes a dark cloud or dark gas. A gas cloud gets inside thanks to a seam in the doorway and he chases it with a butterfly net. Maeter tells Tetsuro about the Black Cavalier aka the Black Knight in the TV version, who owns the planet. He thinks this guy must be cool. We see the number on 999 is C6250. The Cavalier uses his laser eyes to stop 999. Maeter goes to check and warns Tetsuro not to open the windows. He sees more dark matter clouds and goes to find out what is going on. He finds a door open elsewhere and he moves to close it (I think but he opens it to throw out the dark gas cloud) and it falls off and he falls out. He clings to a tree branch and gets up off a cliff, the tree branch falling. Cavalier is lonely. He bought the planet from the Black Market and asks for friends but no one is willing to be his friend. He asks Tetsuro who cannot. He throws his lance at Tetsuro and it is about to kill him but Maeter appears and throws herself infront of him. It goes through her and she dies. Before she dies, a voice, a male voice tells her she has an important job to do. Tetsuro tells Cavalier to go to hell and shoots him. As the Cavalier falls apart, Tetsuro sees that his body is made of bad mechanical parts. Cavalier tells him something about people not having money to buy the planet so he sold his body which was once a better model or something or perhaps he had no money to buy the planet where he wanted friends to come to. At 999, Tetsuro tells Conductor he wants to hold a funeral for Maeter but the Conductor just laughs and makes him mad. He points him to Maeter who is fine and in her seat. As 999 flies off, she tells him it was just an illusion using reflected vision to make Tetsuro despair. Sure. Next stop is the 4D3 and they will stay 48 earth hours. The planet is a ball surrounded by water, and 999 dives through the sea and out the other side to land on the planet, which is like Early Earth. Someone is watching them. New Break cells. The planet has a rule: stay natural, not even build a train station. Tetsuro thinks it is like Narohara. He sees Mokataka, a frog? He chases a butterfly and loves the fresh air and lays on the grass. Maeter gives him his hat which he says his grandmother gave him but he means the grandmother from episode 3. They go to a hotel and someone plays the piano. The old woman there tells them the young are not satisfied with what they have and who they are, they are always looking for something else, like mecha bodies, bionic bodies. She warns of robbers and when the pair go to an outside spa, which is beautiful, the old lady locks the doors, much to Maeter’s questioning. In the bath, both are nude. Tetsuro tells Maeter she is beautiful and gentle, like his mother. The piano plays and it is something like Moonlight. Tetsuro almost falls asleep in the sauna pool. We see his penis. They are attacked by someone with a sword. The boy tries to drown Maeter in the pool but she gets Tetsuro out and soon overcomes the boy. She warns Tetsuro to guard the tickets but he’s readying a weapon to beat the boy with. The old lady comes and tells him not to, the boy, with reddish brown hair, is her son. I seem to get the name Kurosaki from the ending. He can’t afford to go to 999 and the old lady will never be able to. He wants to go to big cities to show his talent. He longs the light. As he plays, 999 leaves with the pair on board. Maeter tells Tetsuro, on board, that the young man reminds her or another who longed for light and as he did, while he was awake or maybe asleep, the Earth became mechanized. Tetsuro asks her what happiness is and she does not know but realizes that hope makes light in the heart of one such as Kurosaki, light that even though it can get deviated, does not go out. 999 flies out through giant piano keys. The narrator talks about the brightness of birth in the previews. Huh? Okay I’ve checked the TV versions of the subtitling and I have to say, and I know someone worked hard on these but, THE DVD SUBTITLES SUCK! Okay it says something like hope even if misguided is good and light but that both the Black Knight and Kurosaki have hope (Maeter says this last part). I’m caught between wanting to watch the DVDs for the best quality and the old tv versions which have much better subtitles. Sigh.

[Tetsuro123]

16-The Street of Fireflies aka Firefly City-sometimes we see the theme song and then the main title of the episode, sometimes we see the theme song, then the action starts and then we get the title. 222 passes 999. Tetsuro looks out the window and sees a planet of golden powders shimmering lights. They will stay 24 hours on what Conductor calls Mariko’s Firefly. After they settle in, Maeter tells Tetsuro there is a big poverty gap on the planet, larger than on Earth. In the hotel, Tetsuro sees a maid with torn shoes or maybe she’s not a maid but she is trying to make money by asking if they need laundry done. After she leaves, Tetsuro asks for and gets a bag of gold coins, the allowance from 999, runs out and offers to just give it to the girl, Faraya. She cires and gives the three coins back to him. She leaves. Tetsuro feels like a loser since he hurt her feelings (the subtitles say HIS feelings). Faraya returns to the hotel room and asks Tetsuro to come to her apartment and draws him a map. She wants him to buy something and she asks for a coin or something like that but I didn’t see Tetsuro give it to her here. He will go at 9pm. Maeter goes out to buy something—she says but Tetsuro later finds her reading someplace and assumes she did this as to not embarrass him. She told him she would be back at 12. We see a giant moon hanging in the night sky. It is very dark. Tetsuro goes to Faraya’s apartment and finds books and comics. She wants to be a comic film maker or executive producer. She tells him it is impossible and she knows but she will manage. She wants Tetsuro to buy artwork film of her pet cat, her only friend. The cat burns in her heart. When the lights go out, Tetsuro sees the girl shining lights and she tries to make him leave right away. She tells him that your life here depends on how much you shine, whether you are beautiful or not. Tetsuro thinks back to the lights he saw in an alley on the way to her apt. It depends on the brightness of one’s birth how you do in life. She claims she is ugly and cannot find a job. Some here enjoy life better than others. Tetsuro, humble, tells her he is no one to talk since he considers himself not good looking. She tells him to take the artwork and buy it or not. He leaves with it and a young man, shining very brightly bumps into him, knocks him down, insults him and calls him dirty. He wonders what this crap is. He leaves and Tetsuro calls after him, “Bustard.” Tetsuro sees the poor living in tents and the shining living and dancing in great buildings of wealth and fun. He thinks this planet should get messed around and reformed. In the hotel, he reads the comic and cries hard tears. When Maeter returns, he goes to the bathroom to wash his face and tells her that Faraya wants to be an exec producer. Maeter knows the girl will see Tetsuro’s sincerity. She tells him the people of this planet are of vanity and people are judged by appearances here. They discuss the night view and that here only appearances are important. Faraya comes early the next morning and wakes Tetsuro who gives her 2 coins to buy the artwork. He also tells her to take the comic book back and give it back to him when she is done using it to make her movie: she cannot remember it all so he wants her to do this. He tells her he will see her film when he is in some corner of the universe. She hugs and kisses him, making his eyes turn to hearts and light up. He falls down when she leaves, in love. Later, when Faraya comes to 999 to say goodbye to her friends, the shining young man that bumped Tetsuro, shows up and knocks Faraya down. He hits her. Angry, Tetsuro, for his honor as well as Faraya’s, challengers him to a duel. I’m not sure if this man knew Faraya or not in this version. Was he her boyfriend at some point? Not sure but I doubt it. The man apologizes to Tetsuro and backs down. Tetsuro is not going to let it go but Maeter stops him and tells the man to stay here. He has a pretty face and a lucky life and shines brightly but courage and honesty are more important in the boundless universe and more powerful. He goes on 999 anyway. Maeter tells Tetsuro that this man never had to fight for life and may die in the universe. Faraya thanks Tetsuro and gives him a gift. 999 leaves, with him looking out the window saying goodbye. It goes up the rail to the sky and into space. The gift is a Tetsuro doll, one we saw her start with wood earlier in the episode. Hoshino Tetsuro is his full name. Maeter wonders if he will be the hero in one of the girl’s films. The narrator tells us that no one knows if Tetsuro will ever see the movie..preview tells of the jungle law and the planet of sadness, the Armor Planet.

17-Amor Planet-999 sees an artificial satellite launched from the new planet. This planet has been doing this for 3000 years and their science was advanced. But it is going to die Maeter tells Tetsuro. It is big, green and lush, not too cold or too hot. Tetsuro picks a flower but a panzer beetle which can wrap you in steel attacks him. Maeter tells him to get down but he does not listen and she jumps in front of him to stop it from killing him. The metal insect goes through her and this time we see blood. Conductor comes out and tells him the protective cover around 999 is working. Tetsuro gets her back to 999 but the wound is deep. There is no Doctor on board 999. Tetsuro asks the Conductor, “What the hell kind of conductor are you?” when the Conductor will not go out to find a doctor. Conductor asks the locomotive compartment computer. If Tetsuro goes west he will find a doctor. Conductor tries to stop him but Tetsuro uses his gun to get the Conductor to move out of his way. He must find a doctor for Maeter. A male voice tells Conductor to go away from Maeter or to go out. It threatens him. Maeter tells him to do as the voice says. He listens at the door as the voice tells her she is immortal and must protect Tetsuro as it is her holy mission. He tells her to strip and then a light bathes and engulfs her. Tetsuro is in a jungle fog with not even any insects. He finds giant dead bugs and one looks like metal on the outside and organs dried up and dead on the inside. Veins and nerves. The robot body’s head falls off and he finds a human shaped metal man and the same thing happens to it. There is a break and Tetsuro is hanging from the smoke of one other train and the sound effect could almost be a fart sound. Anyway, the thing that arrives is Nuutaru, son of Dr Subari. He wants Tetsuro to be his sacrifice as when one is saved there must be one given up. It is the natural law. Tetsuro asks if he is going to eat him. His gun will not work on Nuutaru. Tetsuro is chased and falls down a cliff. He wakes up to lights, a panzer firefly. It is dark. He goes to a mushroom shaped house and falls into one of its side shapes. Inside is Dr Subari, an old man in a robot body, who is going to die soon. He cannot move and cannot work on fragile humans, he does not know how. His insides are drying up. On this planet, only the plants will live on. He cannot explain more and wants the boy to leave before his son comes back, which Nuutaru does. Subari defends Tetsuro and pleads for his life. Nuutaru wants Tetsuro to die so that his father may have some days more to live and he too will live. Tetsuro says he is not afraid of him but he runs and Subari clings to his son to slow him down, which he does and the old man also gets out of bed to stop his son. Nuutaru knocks him down and chases Tetsuro back to the cliff top. Maeter arrives and uses the Dimensional Reactionary Cannon gun to shoot Nuutaru’s legs off (I only saw one leg but it could have been two) and the robot man falls off the cliff but is apparently not dead yet. She doesn’t want to kill him. I keep seeing Enn when they refer to Tetsuro but perhaps this means, “Huh” or “mmmm” or something. Maeter tells Tetsuro some lie about Conductor finding another doctor on this planet but Tetsuro later thinks about this: there were only two people on the whole planet left alive. People long ago replaced their skin with armor and Tetsuro thinks they were kind. But the food was gone and animals need to live off or and prey on each other to survive. Living sacrifices must allow others to survive. No food means no life and then death and that is their fate. The weak, she says, have to be sacrificed. It is sad. Tetsuro asks if one can go against that law and Maeter answers, “I don’t know.” The weak are prey for the strong and their blood makes it possible for others to live. Tetsuro is sorry it is that way but he would not like to be sacrificed. Preview: Clay Maeter: the destined and destiny against fate and free will. Those that go against that can kill the girl, are humans the lonely servants of fate and slaves to life?

[Tetsuro123]

18-Clay Maeter-aka City of Rain—999 will spend one day at the City of Rain planet where the people never see the sun and it’s been raining since the beginning of recorded history and it is raining in space as 999 passes toward the planet. On the planet, Maeter tells Tetsuro the giant plants grow huge and live a life in a day. Water goes to the underground holes but from there Maeter is unsure where it goes. Tetsuro thinks the center of the planet must be water. In the hotel, they strip and Tetsuro gets embarrassed when he somehow loses his underwear. Later they eat diner and Tetsuro has a headband on (like the Karate Kid). Maeter claims she wants to go for a walk, Tetsuro calling her romantic for this. She warns him to avoid the muddy pool. After she leaves, a phone call from a female voice lures Tetsuro outside with directions. He is lured to the muddy pool area and a hand reaches up and pulls him in …fully. He awakes in a bubble where a dark haired woman calling herself Maeter lives. She is poor but knows about everyone from the TV newsreports. She shows him an example: from Tamushisetsu is Nobotta a student of two people or something and he will stay at the Maimai hotel. She wants Tetsuro to stay and live and read and watch tv with her…forever. They are 200 meters underwater in the mud. He tries to swim out but she has to bring him back as he almost drowns. He worries Maeter will be mad at him for not listening to her warning. The woman tells him not to think of this as hell but as a heaven. We learn he is ten years old. 999 will give her a reward if she returns him as they tell on the news. The woman calls the Construction Management Agency to get them out. Huge machines come and suck the entire bubble home and the pair of them out. The government expels the poor from slums and other areas that they want to build for the rich. The girl wants a pass to 999 and gets it and wants: Tetsuro, which Maeter gives to her! 999 leaves the planet and the girl feels sick and asks Tetsuro to hold her hand. He does but she melts. Meater tells Tetsuro that unconsciously her body reverted, assimulated back to mud, its original form. Once she began a new life and in dry air, she became mud again. She is not dead but is lonesome in the mud with no company. Tetsuro wishes he had only been more tender to her. Meater tells him he was tender and the girl knows it and doesn’t blame HER (?). Tetsuro wants to help HIM (?). He cries over the girl’s fate. Against fate one will survive, what will happen in life and death we don’t know. NOTE: I’m beginning to think as I reach ep 23, that the show as I originally saw it on the Spanish channel in NY had a much better translation. The ones on the DVDs appear to be literal but the one I saw on the Spanish channel made much more sense and didn’t have so many mistakes. The faulty logic of the DVD translations makes the shows’ faults much more noticeable. The philosophy that I so much loved on the Spanish channel made so much more sense on the those translations than in these…and in fact, the show is not as good with the poor quality of the translations on the DVDs…they just don’t get the message across as logically and in a way sometimes that is understandable. At times, the DVD translations make NO sense and just confuse the entire story. This happens many times. When the translations run out, I shall do what I am beginning to think I should have done from the beginning: watch the syndicated Spanish channel video tapes instead. I feel as though the greatness of the show is diluted with the DVD translations. PREVIEW: The bell resounds beautifully and clearly accurately in the mind, the voice from the mind, covered in lives reflects vanity and makes one..something or other. Sigh.

19-The Kingdom of the Confessions-aka Land of Confessions-666 is seen on the Mzaelan line. Maeter tells Tetsuro that they are one third of the journey there. They hear a bell in space that is sent out to the universe by gravity wave. Conductor tells them they will stay at the next planet 6 hours, 21 min and 32 seconds. On the planet is a huge clock embedded in the bushes which reminds of something I saw in a park, maybe DisneyWorld? The city is clean, no cars, no dust. Conductor tells them he is on leave but not in as good a hotel as the pair. Tetsuro says the Galaxy Express guys are careful but perhaps he means cheap. Conductor gets mugged. Maeter seems to know without seeing this and runs to help him. There are no cops on this planet, everyone is just and rightful. They can only tell the government only. Tetsuro says hell. Maeter tells Conductor to live with them and they will have great fun. At the Cleaning Management Agency a chief eating lollipops gets reports from his second in command. They wear shiny white uniforms. Conductor, Maeter, and Tetsuro eat dinner in the hotel room. Tetsuro tells them he can’t feel free on such a clean planet. A woman maid comes and asks Conductor to take a shower so she can do his clothes. He fears the shower. Tetsuro tells him to take one when he and Maeter go out for coffee. When the pair leave and go down the steps, the steps open up and they fall in. A woman, agent Number G (?) of the 13th room, goes to the Conductor’s shower and finds that he is invisible, the door closes and she screams wildly. Tetsuro and Maeter are put in underwear I think. A jet like train takes them toward the elimination room, called a high speed yacht. In a tunnel, they wake up. Maeter kisses Tetsuro’s forehead. They are gased with antiseptic. They will be a bad influence on the rest of the universe or the reputation of the perfect planet. Conductor takes off all his clothes. The Agency wants to rob Tetsuro and Maeter of their memory of the robbing. Conductor looks at Rule 3—to help all passengers come back safe and sound. Put outside, Maeter and Tetsuro remember everything—the machines did not work on them. Tetsuro wonders why he remembers and somehow Maeter’s kiss made him immune to the machines. She calls it a reflecting apparatus. A taxi comes for them—driven by Agent B of the Agency. The chief tells his aide that Agent B must be sacrificed and aircraft will attack the taxi. He chews gum. The stain of the planet must be destroyed. The aircraft shoots the Agent in the shoulder, makes him crash, and catch fire. Tetsuro is rushed out by Maeter but Agent B is shot in the stomach or chest again and is on fire. He dies. As the aircraft is about to kill the pair, Conductor shows up and shoots it down. He tells them the MAN that came to kill him fainted. Agent G, a WOMAN, tells other agents that what she saw was horrible. I assume at this point she saw Conductor’s insides without his skin on. Somewhere I read that Conductor could not choose his outside so he settled on nothing. Back on 999, Maeter tells Tetsuro about the planet and he tells her. Just the surface of this place is good and just…there is good and bad here. This is normal and makes life interesting. This planet wants to make only a good impression using money on advertising. It is overdone. Maeter says she does not want to live in a world of saints. Chief and aide come to 999 and stand outside, seemingly to threaten them from the other side of the window but you’d never know it from these subtitles!!!! The chief has a great deal of lollipops and one might think he is trying to lure them outside using these! Maeter tells him his planet is a bunch of hypocritical saints living in a world of lies. As the leave, the two men chase 999 from outside. Tetsuro pulls a face at them and sticks his tongue out. It seems as though the aide is given the lollipops and licks them. In space, they hear a bell again. A monk was meditating but after 80 years of this he gave up being a saint and said that a world with only saints is a hell. Preview: Spirit of the Experts. Focus on the road ahead. Shadows of experts seem grieved and lonesome.

20-The Spirit of the Experts-we see a blue train, the Voltes express and a red planet. Then we see the title card. Conductor has a book and says they will stay 24 hours at the Star of Memory. Maeter does not want to stay at this place where people recall their disappointments and grieve the past but she feels Tetsuro can learn from this place. She tells him to take his rifle and to never look directly into anyone’s eyes on this planet. Memories can be sad and horrible. The Western type town looks deserted like a ghost city which Maeter tells Tetsuro is common on a colony world. She takes Tetsuro away from a gunslinger who stalks the dirt street. In a hotel is a cartoonist who has been so for 200 years, doing his duty. Another expert is putting together guns—7698232 and more. The expert spirit can be great and horrible at the same time. The hotel was made by an expert and Tetsuro likes it. Outside his window is an expert digger of ditches. A man on a horse with a top hat, an expert hanging man we find out later, is outside also and looks at Tetsuro who looks at him directly, signaling the horror memories. He ropes Tetsuro around the neck, pulls him out and drags him off. Before the hanging expert can hang Tetsuro from a horse (that looks mechanical), someone shoots the rope and kills the Hangman. Tetsuro looks at this new man, a cowboy like man, directly into his eyes. Sigh. The man shoots Tetsuro’s hand a few times. The break card features Maeter in a bikini. Maeter watches from a corner of a building as the man seems to give Tetsuro lessons in how to shoot once they both calm down. The gunslinger tells Tetsuro to learn to live hard and then he will be able to smile later in life. Tetsuro refuses to fight with the man or to learn from him any longer and will not take his place. Maeter has to come and duels with the gunslinger and wins, shooting him. She cries—she didn’t wanna fight with him. The gunslinger has had 30 years experience and is a robot but he feels blessed someone like Maeter killed him, he relates this as he lays dying. Maeter tells Tetsuro he wouldn’t have killed Tetsuro-he was training him to become a marksmen forever as his successor. The cowboy gunslinger dies and they build a grave for him and bury him with the gun stuck in the mound. He was tired of war just like the people on this planet—tired of war and work, they drag their half dead bodies to this place, sometimes called the terminal stop of life. Tetsuro is melancholy. 999 leaves and Tetsuro eats and hopes to not see this planet again. Maeter tells him he should not have gotten off but he says that at least he knows what the people there are like, not joyful about it but he did learn. 999 has a blast occur on it and shakes. Conductor sees a metal robot man on the floor of the car on 999 and the robot body is on fire. Conductor calls him a demolition expert…at first I thought he was attempting to put out the bomb that someone else set but it seems this expert is like a suicide bomber. Conductor gets a detector to find a bomb (another bomb or the first one?). Tetsuro hits on the best idea: to get rid of the carriage they suspect the bomb is in. They do this. Everyone has to choose his own way and stick to their faith. Tetsuro feels oddly enough like one of the experts but then he thinks that he thinks too much. He will get his bionic robot body with his own two hands. The spirit of the experts will linger forever and one can see it whenever a star twinkles. WTF? Preview: The Tomb of Withered Leaves. Physical objects will disappear –this is the law of the universe, all are temporal, all are phantoms. People cannot realize the truth. WTF?

21-The Tomb of the Withered Leaves-well the leaves don’t seem withered at all and don’t seem like they are part of a tomb…but whatever. Holes Star Barera is the next stop and it contains an aerial pasture with holes in the planet and the inner side is like a big ball but along the arc are streets, mountains, villages, and forests. Tetsuro keeps calling it queer. Conductor and Tetsuro are thanking each other or one to the other. They see an excursion train. Trains leave the holes and enter the holes. 999 seems to fly in upside-down past streets and grass and a fake sky. The stars can be seen through the holes in the sky roof. Tetsuro comments it is hot. Maeter takes off most of her clothes and leaves on her underwear or a bikini. She calls jumping to the sky swimming on this planet. Tetsuro takes off his clothes and leaves his boxers on. She tells him to put the passport in his underwear. They see fat circular cattle and pigs. It is a sky pasture. Tetsuro sees fat little chicks. Cattle surround Maeter and a cowboy comes to Tetsuro demanding his Milky Way passport. The cowboy sends Tetsuro toward one of the holes but Maeter saves him from flying out into space. In the end they find out the cowboys doing this are poor and this is their game. Tetsuro says, “Damn.” Maeter tells him that is why the cowboys shot at them inaccurately. It is a carefree planet and the lead the good life with no vexation. Tetsuro and Maeter wonder about each other and themselves becoming circular if they ever stayed here to enjoy this planet. Maeter calls Tetsuro lustful, he was thinking the same thing as she. 999 leaves and goes past the shiny belt of stars, Tetsuro sleeps. They will spend 10 minutes and 15 seconds on the planet of leaves. The planet vanished leaving the plants but even the plants are gone now, leaving only the withered leaves. Leaves are on the track. It is like a floating tomb, Tetsuro thinks. A wood man gets on board 999 with a pass. He says wood is cheaper than metal and easier to get instead of a full machine body. Tetsuro keeps calling him Uncle. He is made of brier wood, the kind of wood used in pipes. If rubbed it becomes shiny. His name is Moriki Yutuka. Tetsuro introduces himself as Tetsuro Shinye and also intros Maeter. With the window open, Tetsuro sees a queer thing (he uses the word queer over 3 times) when a mushroom comes in, an electric mushroom. They use Maeter’s pen to get it. It causes an electricity leakage but another one is in the control room. Moriki calls Tetsuro by the name Tsetse. The boy told the woodman his dream of traveling so the woodman sacrifices himself by grabbing the mushroom off the console of the control room wall, hoping to save Tetsuro’s dream. If not 999 would be stuck here forever. Someone calls Conductor Mr. Driver. The woodman tells Tetsuro his life is just starting and the woodman wants Tetsuro to go on to fulfill his dream. He burns and his whole body vanishes. Tetsuro blames the Conductor for not putting out the fire in time. All that is left of the woodman is a small machine which will soon stop. It is his machine brain. It has his memories. He tells Tetsuro not to have pity and tells him that in his package he has things for him to keep. He was a painter and they find a pipe in his package. His name seemed to be Mr. Senmu and they find a picture of when the woodman was human. Tetsuro mentions the mecha planet again. There’s something about a Yutaka tree with no leaves, no planet left. The cosmos is old and feeble, everything dies. When that happens to the cosmos what will those with machine bodies do? Some in the universe think of pleasure only. Another sad episode after some fun on the hole planet. Preview: Pirate Boat Emerarudasu—being well matched is preferable; enemies should be respected friends. WTF? Ah well, I think the logic and lyrical quality is messed with by the translation here on the DVDs. After a certain ep, I will switch to the Spanish channel translations.

22-Pirate Boat Emerarudasu-999 connects with a battle tank. Maeter mentions human pirates and brings up Andres. And the fact that there is no safe place in the universe. The tank sucks. It is a battle machine with a robot will. 999 puts the lights out to avoid pirates, whom have their moods change. Conductor and Maeter pull down the window metal covers. They call conductor Mr Captain. The tank has a Black Hole Cannon which destroys atoms. Pirates shoot the locomotive carrier and the tank is destroyed and does almost no damage to the pirates. Maeter knows the sound of the voice of Emeraldas. They want 999 to be obedient. Maeter tells Tetsuro to eat before the pirates board, food before a fight can give you energy you will need. Emeraldas target is Maeter and she knows it. 999 is brought to the pirate planet, a huge skull on the planet. It is brought down hard and seems to crash. Maeter tells Tetsuro to bring his gun. For the first time we see MANY passengers, who are told to leave the 999. But a huge metal claw comes down and scoops up Tetsuro and Maeter and brings them up to the pirate ship. Maeter is forced to sword fight a black hooded captain, which is supposed to be Emeraldas. Her hand hits a button and she falls out to the desert below, apparently a fall that should have killed a human. Conductor prays to God. Tetsuro shoots the black hood but it has no effect. A small claw grabs him up. The Hood wants her flesh and body back and wants to use not Tetsuro’s dirty body, he says, but Maeter’s. Maeter’s body is nude and ready for surgery. Esmeraldas will put her soul into Maeter’s body. Tetsuro, later, escapes a dark room, and snoops around and finds the real Esmeraldas sleeping (?) in a room and pictures of Maeter with her. Esmeraldas tells him that the Hood was not her. It is a total machine creature, a substitute robot for her. Maeter fights Esmeraldas in a flashback of Esmeraldas’s memories. They are at a brick castle. The robot wants Maeter’s body and will replace Esmeraldas. Esmeraldas lets Tetsuro go. Meater, somehow now dressed, has taken out the guards somehow, and now fights the robot hood. Tetsuro joins the fray. The real Esmeraldas would not try to kill. Maeter gets the clothes off the metal fake and it cries in shame. Tetsuro shoots the brain of the thing and it dies, blowing up. The boat will land, Esmeraldas tells them. She hoped Maeter and she might see each other. Maeter cries. Esmeraldas prays. The sad look of opponents. Esmeraldas will have to recover. Was she sick? Was she poisoned? She has a better life, Maeter tells Tetsuro, even though she is sickly or has an illness. She has no limits and can go everywhere, sail in the free ocean of space. Maeter cannot. She laments she must remain on 999, taking the track of her destiny. “I Can’t die.” No matter how beautiful or talented a person is, they age and die. This is the fate of the universe. Where is Esmeraldas now? Maeter will remember her limited life and hard working Esmeraldas. Preview-Queen of the Primitive Planet—it is split and sorrowful end of people who can’t accept each other. Those who forget the key to life is helping each other.

23-The Queen of the Primitive Planet-In space we see a planet and moons. Three spaceships shoot a line in the planet and split it. On one side are the savages, men in loin cloths, the other side buildings. The planet is split in two and one side blows up. We then see the episode title. Tetsuro polishes his gun, which seems to change from ep to ep. The next planet is called One Part and Two parts or something. It is split between nature and science. They will have 3 hours at 39 degrees centigrade. The humidity is 100 percent. They take their clothes off on arriving. Which side is this? That must be the mystery which the translation loses. The planet had seasons before the split but does not now. They hear drumbeats and a stone comes at them. When Tetsuro recovers, Maeter is gone and he sees blood. He goes down a ladder, I think. He is in the dark and finds an upsidedown alien savage. The alien has one eye on his chest, no head, an eye where his neck should be and I think an eye on his back. He is dead or dying, a sacrifice. Maeter appears, talks about his blood and flesh, and the other aliens are behind her. She seems to want Tetsuro to die, to be the sacrifice. They tie him and hang him over a cliff, tied upsidedown, a hot pit below with alligators or crocodiles. Maeter cuts the rope and he falls. A net seems to catch him or so Maeter later tells him as he wakes up yet again! Sigh! Maeter mentions 444, not sure why. Tetsuro says, “I thought I was dead this time.” Maeter tells him the aliens made her their queen, a queen would arrive from the stars and sacrifice a bow legged one—Tetsuro!? She chooses people to kill (WTF? Did she kill the upsidedown alien?). Maeter hears the aliens coming or the drums before Tetsuro does. She hid him in this cave under the cliff. Where the net was and caught him. The aliens degenerated into these monsters. But which were they? The building side? Or the savage men side? The aliens have changed their minds and want to kill her. They run and we see various flashes to indicate later chasing. Maeter tells Tetsuro to go on by himself since they think he is dead. They have 30 min before 999 will leave. She wants him to promise not to come rescue her. Knowing he will never agree, she punches him in the stomach and knocks him out! Again! Aliens grab Maeter and put her on a sacrificial wood bit shaped into an X. They put it on fire. Tetsuro moves to rescue her but an alien picks him up and starts to choke him to death. He sees an image of Maeter’s face. A volcano erupts and scares the alien away. In the quake, Tetsuro frees Maeter and they run. Cracks in the ground swallow the alien savages. Maeter almost falls down one as she clung to the side. Tetsuro helped her. The inside pressure of the planet is increasing. The planet blows up as 999 escapes. Track is destroyed and aliens chase. It is a pity. It is hard t live in the universe together especially when others always insist their own theory is correct. To accept each other would have made a beautiful planet. The power of universe truth or by other power. WTF? 999 carrying Tetsuro away. Preview: the Planet of Dimensional Sailing—Egoterina runs the planet of the shifting sands.

[Tetsuro123]

24-Planet of the Dimension Sailing-aka The Dimension Voyaging Planet-A train, green, passes 999 with a long loud whistle, heading for Megaro police on Earth (Megropolis?). Maeter teases Tetsuro and laughs at him when he reacts to her question of whether or not he wants to go back to Earth already. As pieces of a broken up planet hit the 999, Maeter tells him to close the window. A planet called Starfish is supposed to be their next stop but it is gone, having been broken apart. As the 999 is hit, the pair hit the ceiling. Tetsuro cannot hold on and is knocked out. When he awakes, he lies on a wooden floor of 999. He looks out and finds they have crashlanded on some strange, unknown planet which does not appear on the Conductor’s universe map. Tetsuro calls him a terrible conductor and that he should be fired. He can get the head carriage up to 20 kilometers. As the rise, they are attacked. It is Egoterina, Queen of the Dimension Sailing planet. It came from another dimension, a different one. It destroyed many planets and people and stayed in our universe. It is a planet without class. She calls to them for all passengers to come out. If not, they will be destroyed. She relates to them how another train was destroyed and all killed in flames for not obeying her. Men on flying disks arrive and threaten them. Maeter tells Conductor to go out first and he resists that but does so. He tells Ego that the other passengers are out…but we see none. What happened to them? Are there any? Maeter tells Tetsuro that Ego is unstable and moody. He shoots through a window at her men and kills some it seems. He and Maeter put up a good fight as does the Conductor, however a carriage of 999 is hit and all three end up unconscious. Ego is interested in them. They wake up on a bed in a luxurious room with art and statues. A maid takes them to a banquet. Tetsuro wonders if it is poison but Maeter tells him it is okay. Tetsuro wants to eat and says at least he will die with Maeter. Conductor refuses to eat but Tetsuro tells him he will have his portion later. Ego gets upset with how Tetsuro eats and pulls the table cloth from the table and orders them taken to a cell in a dungeon and tomorrow they will be taken to the guillotine. She cannot stand humans that eat like Tetsuro! In their cell, the trio talk about her temperament and how her mood caused many to be killed. Conductor avoids talk about whether or not losing his head and neck or either will affect him…it appears he will not die from the guillotine. Maeter thinks since the Queen never loses and always gets what she wants, there must be some flaw in the cell, something slack about it. Tetsuro figures only Maeter would notice this. Conductor finds a cold wind blowing in from the floor and a loose stone there reveals an escape to a sewer. Maeter tells them they must stop the sailing machine in an engine room. They find an exit drain and there, Tetsuro gets a guard’s sword and threatens him until he shows them the way to the engine room. Conductor gets the man’s gun. They take a clear elevator down to the room, Conductor knocks the guard out and Maeter lets Tetsuro destroy all the machines in the room, which he does with joy. More guards come but Maeter uses her bombs on them and tells the other two to run. They run out of the castle. Maeter lags behind to fight Egoterina while Conductor begins work on separating the destroyed carriage. Maeter uses her whip which could kill Ego; Ego takes her on a ride on the car but Maeter uses her ring to blast the whip free. Maeter jumps/flies off and knocks Ego and the cart down. Ego is humiliated and asks Maeter to kill her, which Maeter will not. It is much more worse for her to remain alive. Maeter tells her to stop acting this way and to remember this moment. 999 gets away. Maeter tells Tetsuro there are bad people like Ego in the universe, no one can remain daring and energetic forever, bad or not. Nothing is changeless forever and nothing thrives forever. Tetsuro knows this in his heart. Preview: Clow Maria in the Steel Planet, a planet that prospers but ignores the pollution.

[Tetsuro123]

25-The Steel Planet-Conductor announces next stop is Marspulong for 48 hours and 3 seconds. Anti aircraft fire splits a window into 26 pieces of shattered glass. This also breaks through the space particle protector. As they approach the gray planet, Maeter explains the intense pollution there. Tetsuro smells a foul smell, like exhaust fuel. Maeter cannot stand two days on this planet. Since the beginning, this planet built factories and produced many things, especially cars and machinery. They never stop producing and did this for centuries. The people work spiritedly, Tetsuro likes that. They land and pass the station of spinning machines. A man rushes past, brushes against Tetsuro and gets iron dust and powder and oil on him. They see a boy, that Tetsuro claims is as old as he is. The boy is tied to a pole, ready for execution. It was he who shot at 999. He has blue hair. On this planet, a man explain, children in elementary school create things such as a space transfer machine, drilling devices, etc. These things are toys to them. A younger boy begs on the street for them to give him ten dollars for him to make them a hydrogen bomb or for cheaper, a machine gun! They go to the Drum Cutter Hotel, watched by a redheaded, green eyed woman named Clowmaria (?). She overhears Tetsuro say he likes people that produce things. She bombs their hotel and knocks it over, they are only slightly hurt. She tells her story. She is a terrorist who bombs factories. She just wants the planet to protect its environment (her ID number as a criminal is 13-15509). Advanced technology cannot save the planet now. She is taken by authorities to be executed. The security men tell them that they live by exporting industrial products. Their whole universe is the customer and the customer is god to these people. They will now shoot Clowmaria, who refuses a blindfold. She tells them that to bow to aliens from other planets, aliens who dump junk and garbage on their little planet is wrong. People can buy products but the environment has to be safeguarded. Tetsuro attempts to stall the execution by telling the men to do an investigation. Maeter explains more. Together they get the execution stopped. Tetsuro tells Clowmaria he does not hate her. She will go to jail for three to four years. Tetsuro mentions to Maeter that Clowmaria smells of machine oil. She probably worked in a factory her whole life. Components that are used in 999 and other trains come from Marspulong. Two men shoot the car carrying Clowmaria and free her, crashing the car. On 999, Tetsuro claims that one hour on this planet is too much for him. He thinks people should respect human life even though he likes oil and prefers workers over those who complain and do nothing. Maeter agrees about working but she does not like oil. Conductor is attacked by Clowmaria. She and about ten others want to hijack 999 and want to separate the cars. Clowmaria will not forget Tetsuro’s kindness and how he saved her life. He blushes. She wants to go to a new planet without pollution and wants to make things while safeguarding the planet, a place where there are no iron powders. Conductor runs away to go tell the Administration. Tetsuro tackles him. Maeter gives Tetsuro a box to give to Clowmaria. The Computer and Administration tells Conductor he must get the non paying hijackers off the ship any way he can. He goes back with a gun to shoot them and to strand them in a car but they show him passes. Given to them by Tetsuro, ala Maeter, they have special passes, not just 999 passes. Conductor hides the gun he had and laughs, leaving. Tetsuro shakes Clowmaria’s hand and gets oil on it. Maeter tells him she does not mind oil from Clowmaria. She seems almost on the verge of crying when Tetsuro reiterates that he wants to get a machine body, him almost ignoring her not too subtle distastes for machine bodies. Things may spread and encourage production, this is both happy and sad and makes people both happy and sad. Even so it dies someday. Clowmaria makes a scarf, not unlike a scarf worn by the Fourth DOCTOR WHO in that series. We see Tetsuro wearing it and then we see him running in space, wearing it. Preview: Song of Skeleton: the wind weeping, love forsaken, crying, hate, betrayal, broken hearts!

[Tetsuro123]

26-Song of the Skeleton-The conductor announces the next planet is Song of Yesterday and they will spend 76 hours and 22 seconds on it. 999 passes a desert with high rock formations and lands. Maeter and Tetsuro get Room 288 in the hotel where Tetsuro enjoys the bed after being warned by the hotel clerk not to be fooled by anyone selling anything. Maeter takes a shower. Tetsuro looks out the window at the many desert craters. A man in a big hat and cloak comes to the window and wants to sell him eggs, he raises cows and chickens. Tetsuro tells him to come back in 20 minutes or so, he wants to hide this from Maeter, who had to leave to go do something. Tetsuro somersaults as he goes to meet the man again and they agree on ten eggs. Tetsuro invites him up to the room. He will give him a gold piece for the eggs and does. They have tea and introduce each other to each other. The man is Haruharu aka HoloHolo. He also raises pigs, has cats, and fish. Tetsuro laughs at a strange name but the man doesn’t care if he laughed at it. He works hard to win back his girl. They lived together for a time but she know works on the next planet near this one. Tetsuro finds it hot and takes off his shirt and goes on the bed! Tetsuro claims not to have had a shower for days and dreams of a primitive society where he would not have to take a shower. He thinks Holo hasn’t either. He tells Holo to do the same and Holo does…he is a skeleton! He had no rib bones and no chest! Maeter returns and as Tetsuro is scared, she demands the skeleton man leave. He does. At dinner in the hotel, Maeter explains to a complaining Tetsuro that the poor of this planet cannot even eat what they are eating. He smiles and claims he will not complain any longer. A woman with orange hair throws something at the window and cracks it as they hear the strange humming and whistling of the planet or of Holo. She smokes. A man with blue eyes is with her. The two talk and laugh at Holo—she is his ex girlfriend and he is her new boyfriend! Tetsuro gets mad and confronts them, telling them he is a friend of Holo. The girl says she is just a tourist here and comes and goes as she pleases, Tetsuro tells her not to insult her homeland. She works on another planet. The man threatens Tetsuro, hits him, pulls him,and pulls a gun on him. Tetsuro pulls his gun, too but Maeter stops the duel. She tells Tetsuro they cannot understand the hearts of others. Night: wind rages as if weeping, people weeping, the planet weeping. Tetsuro cannot sleep even if Maeter tells him to try. He goes out, Maeter calling his name, knowing. As the sun comes up, Tetsuro finally finds the farm Holo lives on. He falls into a kind of trap but Holo rescues him. They talk and eat. Every time the girl betrayed him, Holo lost another rib and now has a hole in his chest. He lost ribs one by one. His bones have gone with his sorrow and sadness coming. He believed the dream that if he worked hard he would get her back but the dream won’t come. He is wasting his time. He is obsessed with the girl and gets mad and throws his glass. Tetsuro tries to get him to calm down. Hollow wants to kill the girl and man. Tetsuro tells him to forget that bitch. Holo knocks Tetsuro out. In the hotel, a vinyl record plays as the carefree couple dance. They open the door to someone dressed in Tetsuro’s hat and cloak. It is Holo who shoots them both, even as the girl begs for him to forgive her, just so she can live. Her words are empty. At first, she claimed to have not known his voice but she did in the diner. She claims she will not betray him again. He shoots and kills her. Police comes to Maeter: Tetsuro is wanted for the murder of the two. Hyper cars fly around, looking for him. Tetsuro wakes up in the reception room with his hat, cloak and gun..and a basket of eggs. Maeter finds him. She tells him he can turn in Holo and that way he will no longer be wanted for murder on this planet. Once they get on 999 however, he will be free either way. He doesn’t care if he is wanted for murder on this planet forever, he will not turn in Holo if it means Holo can get back his ribs. Who told him that? And it’s in both versions. Maeter thinks this is great, “Tetsuro, you are really…” They have to run as the police come and give chase. Running at 999, some eggs fall and make the police fall. Tetsuro falls and his face falls into the basket. To delay the police, Maeter throws her ear ring bomb and lights them up. Conductor calls for them to hurry. 999 with all on board, escapes. Holo looks up at it, thanking Tetsuro. He is happy to have met Tetsuro even if he cannot show it with a smile. If he met him earlier he might not have a hole in his chest where his heart should be. It is too late for him he cries. He wishes he can shed tears. Maeter tells Tetsuro that if Holo could shed tears, he might feel better. But he can’t. The holes on the ground remind her of the hole in his chest. Tetsuro calls to Holo to cheer up. The sound from his heart is the weeping of the planet which is in every traveler—I think it means every traveler will hear it and it will reveal to travelers who even far away. The sound of betrayal, the sound of men hearing the sound of the skeleton. Next: Monster Mother of the Snow City, poverty, shivering snow, the heart of a mother frozen, a mother monster becoming a monster to care for her child!

NOTE: I know now why it is so hard to watch these. GALAXY EXPRESS is the best series possibly ever made. It is very very depressing though. Once a week it is not so much a toll but this way, and I’ve noticed many who feel this way, they love the show but find it difficult to watch.

Another thing is that this ep and the one before it show our heroes helping terrorists and a killer get away with their lives. In these times, especially since I lost someone to the 9/11 murderers, it makes me uncomfortable. As always in 999 there are some other circumstances but still…Clowmaria was a terrorist, no getting around it. And Holo was an obsessed fool who became a killer because of his own blindness, nay love. Ah well.

[Tetsuro123]

27-Planet of Snow aka Mother Monster of the Snow City—Tetsuro sees a super galaxy express headed for Earth and realizes he misses Earth. Maeter calls his attention to the next planet which looks like a Valentine heart thanks to a magnetic field and gravity and vapor. Yeah there’s snow in space and moisture freezes into snow and ice around the planet. Tetsuro remembers how in snow his mother was killed…by mechanical bodies men. All five planets are in balance with each other, if one stops revolving, they will smash into each other. They will be here for 8 hours and ten minutes at the Snow Capital. The days are short here. All five planets of the system are linked. 999 flies down toward the planet through snow…in space. The planet has an Earth type atmosphere. Tetsuro hates the snow and wants to stay on the train. Conductor announces that they landed through a tunnel they dug through snow. Outside Tetsuro claims it is like a palace of ice, even in the train station which calls out about track 35. The city is built under the snow and above other cities. Tetsuro wants to eat udon but when he does it tastes like ice cream noodles. Later in the street, he falls down a hole in the snow to one of the lower towns. Barefoot people, people with feet wrapped, mostly poor people attack him and take his clothes and his belt. His pants fall down and he sees a girl with blue hair, blaming her for seeing his bottom. He has a half broken biscuit to give her when she asks for food. He tells her his name is Hoshino. Her name is Bojin Yuki (Koyuki in the other version). As she takes him toward her home, Tetsuro notices this is like a ghost town. She tells him towns are built over towns, stacked up on top of each other. Tetsuro thinks they are on the surface but she tells him it is one’s perception. Tetsuro worries he is becoming a snow man and claims he is dying. He falls in snow! His nose is frozen. He wakes up in a house where he sees a broken window and the doors/walls have holes. A tall woman with blue hair, Yuki’s mom, comes and gives him ice water to drink. He didn’t know it was that and spits it out. Yuki is taking a bath. Tetsuro strips and runs for the bath after Yuki comes out (NOTE: we see a scar on his back from a previous wound in a previous episode). He jumps into…ice water bath. Yuki goes to bed in a really cute sleeping bag. With flowers on it. Mom tells her she will get her something good to eat. Yuki thinks of the biscuit Tetsuro gave her and how nice he was. Yuki hears a strange machine, the oven mom is using…to roast Tetsuro. She calls Tetsuro ugly so she will have to cook him well. Tetsuro overhears this and tries to climb out a window. Mom shoots him with a sleep gun. Yuki protests treating Tetsuro this way. Tetsuro wakes up and enjoys the warmth…not realizing he is in an oven. Mom slaps Yuki when Yuki will not help her with the machine and talks back to her, trying to save Tetsuro, while he takes his shirt off! Yuki then mentions the biscuit Tetsuro gave Yuki and Mom tells her she should have told her about that. It makes a difference. Maeter shows up at the home. Tetsuro realizes he is being roasted and cannot get out. He passes out. When he wakes up, he is on 999 with Maeter, whom he asks what she did to them. She did nothing. When the mother realized Tetsuro’s kindness about the biscuit, she gave Tetsuro over without a fight. Maeter tells him, “You’re not ALL roasted.” Yuki found his clothes for him, including his hat and cloak. Returning him was the Mom’s appreciation. In a flashback Tetsuro eats and asks if the two people watching ( his parents I guess) will eat. One is a man with a scar on his face and possibly a moustache (?). Tetsuro wonders. His mother would probably do what Yuki’s mom did to feed him. Maeter wonders that she would do the same. It is tough to live in the snow. 999 leaves while Yuki and Mom watch it fly away. Narrator (Maeter’s dad (?) says many call their birthplace home even if it is a sad and cruel place. The Snow makes Tetsuro think of home. Maeter, under your lonely smiles, what’s hidden? Watch us! The Spring of Silk Writer. Next.

28-The Man of Letters aka The Spring of Silk Writer-Maeter points out the Mirage Planet where no one is supposed to live but animals. Animals who live in a green world of peace. Someone throws a rock threw the window of 999 and almost hits Tetsuro. It happened when Conductor lowered the barrier. They will be here 5 hours and ten minutes. Maeter puts on a skimpy outfit and tries to find the human who threw the stone. She saw a fingerprint on the rock. The skies are pastel colored here and there are rocks and hills. Tetsuro talks of stripping down to his underwear. Maeter uses her suitcase with machinery in it. With it she can track human energy and finds a direction. They go to what looks like an old gas tank but is a home for pioneers in space, a long time ago building. The pair fall into a hole, a trap. An eye camera comes and bids them welcome for tea and a ladder comes down. They climb up to a complex of Yoi Shosetsu, a writer of a great space novel. In his main room there are hundreds of papers. In addition, he has grown his hair long and his beard long…to record lengths. Tetsuro mentions the Guinness Book of Records on Earth and pulls the man’s hair and laughs. He tells them he has loneliness which fosters great literature and that he has enlightenment. All because he’s been here 30 years alone. Then he turns to them and realizes Maeter is a woman. He was the one who stoned the train. Anyone that disturbs his loneliness is his enemy. He tells them of the hardship when he came here and that he needed peace and quiet. We see something…from his past? A baby crying, a gang of kids play fighting with sticks. A chubby woman on the phone yelling. Planes crashing. Tractors and machine. A house on a tree. I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean but whatever. Was this his life before? Was this this planet? Did the plane crash kill his family? Not explained in the TV version I saw. I will have to check the friggin DVD subtitled one. He has not had human contact in 30 years. Suddenly a shock gun goes off and Tetsuro and Maeter lose consciousness. When he awakens outside, Tetsuro realizes he does not have his train pass. He sees a spider machine carrying Maeter and Yoi. He chases it but collapses. 999 leaves without him! Tetsuro climbs a spider machine to the complex. Inside he thinks about finishing the writer’s novel but to do that he’d have to read the stuff from before, all the pages all over the room. Tetsuro imagines what his hair will look like long and his face with a beard and white. He calls the novel junk. He finds lots of food and cooks and eats. It is synthetic ramen but he doesn’t care, he eats it. On 999, Maeter wakes up and talks to Yoi. She will return to the planet and fetch Tetsuro. Conductor sleeps and the computer voice (from Control?) wakes him and tells him that the roster does not match. Someone is the wrong age. He thinks Yoi is Tetsuro behind a fake beard and pulls it. When shown the pass Conductor tells Yoi it is Tetsuro’s and he cannot use it, it is against regulations. On the planet, Tetsuro frets, cries. He hears 999 when he lays down on the papers. He thinks it was a dream. Maeter and Yoi come in. Tetsuro hugs her. Yoi throws him back his pass. Tetsuro wants to leave so he can get his machine body. Yoi wants to be with Maeter and if not, he will kill her and himself. He pulls a gun. A wind blows the papers. He wants to go back to the world where there are women. Tetsuro pulls his gun but Maeter tells Yoi to stop and Tetsuro to wait outside. When Tetsuro is outside, listening, Maeter opens her cloak to show Yoi her real self, what she is really like. The real her. Maeter and Tetsuro leave. The writer Yoi thinks this was just all a bad dream. He will just write the space novel. 999 leaves. Tetsuro feels a bit bad, he was going crazy alone for just a few hours. He cannot understand 30 years of loneliness. He resents Yoi a little. Maeter asks him if he wants to see the real her. Tetsuro says, “No. I just want you to be with me.” Maeter says, “I see.” In a man’s heart there is a void greater than in all space. None can see it. Tetsuro believes in Maeter …where is 999 really headed? Nobody knows. Next: the lost continent. Wine Mt Continent. The sun and sky are heated, the jungle sleeping, no sign of civilization, natural living fun, natural life joy. Watch us.Next: the Kagero Planet.

[Tetsuro123]

29-Wine Mountain Continent-The title card page says the title and shows a huge red planet over the main planet that 999 heads onto. It lands fast in this episode and on the planet Maeter tells Tetsuro about a Tarzan like figure who lives here in the jungle and trees, Sakezan or Wine Mountain. Conductor calls from the train that they will leave in ten minutes! When Tetsuro goes to drink from a lake, Maeter stops him, there is harmful bacteria in it. They have to get drink from monkeys who have wine! Tetsuro hides from a monkey behind Maeter. They go up a tree to drink with the monkeys, one of whom talks. Sakezan taught them to talk. In the tree, Tetsuro drinks wine and thinks he has fallen in love with this planet. Maeter looks at monkeys (or is it Tetsuro?) and says , “So cute.” Since no one can drink without the permission of Wine Mt aka Sakezan, he uses a thrown club with dull spikes on it to knock Maeter and Tetsuro out of the tree. Sakezan discards Tetsuro as nothing and carries unconscious Maeter away, calling her a guy! “This guy is great.” Tetsuro awakes and looks for Maeter. He calls Sakezan what Maeter said, a man’s man. A monkey throws a coconut on Tetsuro’s head. Sakezan and Tetsuro fight when Sakezan finds Tetsuro. Sakezan wins easily and steps on Tetsuro. Hollering like Tarzan and embarrassingly, he jumps threw trees on vines but Tetsuro struggling makes them both fall. Tetsuro wakes up and ties up Sakezan. Sakezan breaks his bonds, knocks Tetsuro’s gun down and punches him. He throws Tetsuro in a cell in his giant tree house which has windows! He laughs at Tetsuro, who steams. Maeter has a chain on to a collar around her neck and serves Sakezan wine. Tetsuro’s face makes an angry twisted one. As night falls we see the red planet hanging in the beautiful sky. In the tree house, Tetsuro frets and worries some more. Laisa aka Liza frees Tetsuro and asks him to take her with him when he leaves on 999. Strandees or castaways are allowed to leave on 999 and go to the next station. Long long ago, her airship crashed and everyone died but she. She has orange-blond hair. She is in love with Sakezan. Even as he is now drunk, Sakezan is powerful, more so. Maeter tells Tetsuro to leave without out. Tetsuro finds his gun. As Sakezan sleeps, Tetsuro and Laisa climb down a vine from the tree house. The monkeys are also all asleep. Tetsuro recalls Maeter not leaving him when the Fossil Warrior stole his passport, she even told Conductor to get out of her way. He can’t leave Maeter. Laisa tells Tetsuro that Sakezan has a tender side, he’s just lonely. She tells him that she is not important to Sakezan any longer and cannot stay. Tetsuro tells her to go, he must stay. He trips over monkeys who attack him. Sakezan comes and beats him again, ties him up by ankles and wrists and drags him back to the tree house cell, throws him against the wall again. Sakezan tells Maeter that Laisa is useless. He also tells Maeter he won’t forgive her if she tries to get away or run. It is spring now. Tetsuro begins biting his ropes and soon gets them off. He finds the tree is dying or rotted and that there are parts that are hollow. He digs through the mud on his level and finds a stake in the ground which he uses to poke Sakezan with. Tetsuro rises up from the floor, frees Maeter and fights Sakezan again! This ends with him passing out. In a sensitive way, loving way, Sakezan looks at Tetsuro, realizing something about him. Tetsuro wakes up on 999, ministered to by Conductor, who tells him that they have only five minutes before they leave. WHAT? Five only? The whole adventure above only took five minutes before that!? Tetsuro runs and sees Laisa on the train. He bids goodbye to the Conductor. It is meaningless to go on to the mechanical planet to get a mechanical body without Maeter. He must go get her. Or stay here with her. He runs outside and finds Maeter, they hug. Sakezan released her. He realized that Maeter is the girl of the man’s man Tetsuro, a real man who would be brave and fight for her. He realized Tetsuro is not afraid, not even of Sakezan and this impressed Sakezan. But he’s afraid of a monkey! ????? Conductor urges them inside and they sit. Maeter waves to Sakezan, who asked her to ask Tetsuro to stay with him in the peaceful life under a peaceful free sky. And a purple, blue one at that seems to be lightening up and a nice animation it is too. He wanted Tetsuro to enjoy nature with him here. Tetsuro thinks about it. Laisa runs out and hugs Sakezan, to stay with him. A song plays. Sakezan is a real man’s friend? He and Laisa love each other. When he found a strong man like Tetsuro he could not take Maeter from him. Tetsuro finds it all hard to understand, especially about Laisa and Sakezan’s love. The song says something “I will this hand to pick that strange man…” Freedom is lucky if a person in the universe can find it and there are many who are like Sakezan and are great. Preview: people disappear—spirits unfulfilled dreams, while glittering sadly and solitarily. Light Planet aka the Planet of Light.

[Tetsuro123]

30-The Phantom World Filament aka Phantom of the Tungsten Star--Filament book opens to a blue planet within. Long ago, long long ago, no not that long ago, humans that were rich became robots and had parties for a prince like boy with violins and dancers. The return of the governor’s son now in a robot body was cause to celebrate. Poor people, a mother and son, look on. They want to raise money to ride on 999 so that one or both of them can get a robot body. But it is not rare that such things such as the sun devouring the planet happen. They don’t know if it was natural or if someone killed them but Tungsten Star vanished. Time elapsed quickly. 999 arrives in the area where the planet was. Tetsuro sees a train pass by and sees ghosts on it. Maeter did not see the ghosts but the train. She’s not seen that train before. Tetsuro gets cold and shivers. Conductor comes and tells them they are in the Cloud Sea and that there is no other train. He announces that the next stop is Silver Valley. Maeter tells him she saw the train too. Outside the clouds gets blurry and we see the smoke like a broken Tungsten. The sun killed them all and they didn’t know who did it. Tetsuro wants some exercise so goes for a walk. Command Center 27886 report says something is wrong and that there are life responses on the tracks. 999 is ordered to slow down. Ghosts hands pulls Tetsuro into another car. Tetsuro yells he just wants to go to the bathroom. Perhaps he wet himself?! The ghosts want to play with him. A solid one in a green cloak arrives and sounds female. She has no name she tells him. She is not mechanical. Tetsuro tells her he to tell Maeter something. She does also: not to chase her when she takes him away. Maeter arrives. The ghost lady’s son needs Tetsuro. 999 stops totally. Railway Police Army Silver Valley or something will send reinforcements. The ghosts warn the police away but the police do not listen. Rays from 999 make them crash and crash into each other, power absorbed from their vehicles. The others retreat. Clouds of smoke seem to come from 999’s smoke stack. One compartment separates and heads to where Tungsten Star used to be. Inside it is Tetsuro, brightness on his face. The ghost lady tells him that they believed to work hard and they believed in the future. The son comes in to enter Tetsuro’s body and attacks him but backs off. He cannot do it. On 999 Conductor and Maeter see the light of the Tungsten Star ghost area dim. Conductor wants to use the tank to attack but Maeter tells him that is futile, plus Tetsuro, the main thing is that he is still there. The compartment returns, Tetsuro comes in and hugs Maeter, running to her. The son understands how Tetsuro feels and many dreams and wishes. When they were alive, the mom and son looked at 999 and wishes to go on it. The son tells him to get a mechanical body for him, to promise him he will. He tells him to take care of himself. To fulfill the promise he made to his mother. The phantoms go; Tetsuro tells the boy he will cheer for him. The boy tells him it will be a different Tetsuro afterward. Tetsuro watches through the window as the ghosts fly off. He says “May you be happy forever.” The light vanishes when they get to it and they vanish inside it. Tetsuro wonders, “Is it really good to have a mechanical body?” The Tungsten Star people thought so. A planet without a home town, a place where souls that have no where to go come to. 999 goes. Conductor announces that they will in Silver Valley for 3 hours and 22 minutes. Tetsuro thinks, “What does Maeter thinks of my pursuit of a mechanical body?” The light of souls are among bright stars. Travelers left in there, describing sorrows, stars with sorrowful glitters. WTF? Preview: People meet and fight each other, sometimes rude but with full of love; people meet and fight each other without bindings, they are just right there even though rude and energetic but they trust and help.

31-Star of Upright Hair aka Planet of Wild Hair --Spiral Galaxies in a boundless ocean, like two continents there. 999 flies between the clouds. Tetsuro sleeps. They are near Andurumada, still a long way off, a long way to go. Tetsuro thinks so and wakes up and see a red star. TITLE comes on now. Conductor says they have 24 hours on Angry Hair. Conductor tells Tetsuro he will be punished by the vehement planet, confusing him. Tetsuro says something like as long as he can kill with anger? On the planet they quarrel all year. A man with a scar has three accomplices who have pictures of Tetsuro and Maeter. They are to finish the pair of them, kill them for the Mechanical Duke’s Friend. 999 passes red clouds in the sky and in space. It is the air flow. It floats above the city/cities as in anger and looks like upturned hair. Tetsuro says it is hot and takes off his shirt at Maeter’s suggestion. Maeter will go put on a swimsuit, making Tetsuro wonder what she will look like naked. He then thinks this is wrong and prays to God to forgive these thoughts and help him not to think that way in future. Conductor on the other side of the seat, heard all this and cannot blame Tetsuro, then gets embarrassed when Tetsuro stares at him for thinking the same thing. Conductor leaves to change for the heat and returns but looks the same to Tetsuro. He tells the boy his summer uniform looks the same even though it looks heavier it is not. It is for summer days. Tetsuro is in his underwear and tells Conductor to do the same. Conductor will not and tells him he has his reasons. For safety, 999 stays in the air and Maeter and Tetsuro fly down in a little air platform. Tetsuro on the planet thinks it looks just like Earth and is like Earth. Maeter tells him to be careful. A man comes, overhears them and yells at Tetsuro about what they were discussing, slaps him and knocks him down. The man tells him to go to hell and calls him a bastard. Tetsuro gets mad and thirsty but wants revenge so he goes with Maeter to a tea shop to drink …where two old people come out of the doors, knocking him down without realizing it. They are fighting physically. The bald old man calls her a bitch and they fight. Maeter has to shoot a cowboy who fired on she and Tetsuro. She had to push Tetsuro to save him. She knows that the people on this planet might argue but they do not use weapons. They look at the cowboy and see green liquid fuel…he’s a robot. Maeter takes his memory mind and finds images of she and Tetsuro inside it. She thinks this was an assassination attempt. Suddenly, the short killer lassoes Tetsuro’s neck and drags him through the streets! Tetsuro shoots the back of the hyper car and crashes it, killing the robot assassin but making him wounded…and he flies out of the sky into a window and into a bath tub or ice box of the old man (making tofu in the bathtub maybe or an ice box?). When he surfaces he scare the old couple who think he’s a baby. They are the same couple that argued at the tea shop. Maeter goes to the killer driver’s body…also a robot. She looks for Tetsuro. Tetsuro wakes up shirtless, bandaged and sleeping in a sleeping bag. He meets the two boys of the couple, young kids, one with blue hair. They call him a potato, the other one calls his brother a potato and they fight. The couple tells him they have to help each other. As they argue and tease, Tetsuro sees the old man claim she is a good wife and when she gets embarrassed, she slaps him. The kids fight but Tetsuro sees them all laugh too. “What the hell?” He wonders but thinks they feel human. Looking for Tetsuro, Maeter comes across two men fighting, one seemingly a cook. She mentions Tetsuro, telling them he wears a Mexico hat and cloak. The cook mentions that someone else was asking about him…someone in sunglasses and a hat, a tall man. Maeter tracks this one and uses her whip to get his gun and down him. She gets answers from him and finds out about the Mechanical Earl’s friend…we see a flashback of Tetsuro killing the robotic Duke and friends. He tells her there is one man left…the man with the scar and a single eye. The scarman is hiding and shoots this robot dead. A little kid tells the scarman where Tetsuro is…in the tofu shop. While the old man is out looking for Maeter, the kids are play wrestling with Tetsuro. The old lady warns them not to open his wound, calling them all potatoes. Tetsuro was a lone child but now he has two brothers. They prepare to eat. The scarman comes in and fires at Tetsuro, then takes the old woman hostage. Tetsuro gets his gun but is forced to drop it. The scarman kicks the blue haired boy into the other one. As the scarman is about to shoot and kill Tetsuro, the old man returns, calls him son of a bitch and an asshole and beans him with some tofu and scares him away. The family huddles. Tetsuro sadly sees the family and decides to leave. He gets his clothes and leaves three coins for them. As twilight comes the sky looks purple. Tetsuro sadly walks through a park. The scarman is behind a tree and will shoot him in the back but Maeter is there and she seems to fire a blast at him with her finger! The scarman robot dies. They will go rest at the hotel. Later they return to the 999. Tetsuro overslept and they almost missed it, making Conductor nervous as he calls to them to hurry on. Conductor is angry they think. Tetsuro tells Maeter the old man and woman were angry at him for leaving the coins. They scolded him and called him names. The woman told him it is rational to be kind and to be considerate. She tells Tetsuro he is not sophisticated. The old man says he likes him though and he can come visit any time. The old woman tells him they will have a feast if he returns to visit. Tetsuro will come back. These people are friendly, direct, they argue but they also cry, laugh and are happy, the happiest planet in the universe, Maeter says. Tetsuro says if Earth were like this…his parents wouldn’t have died. Maeter is sad, “Tetsuro…” To hold back when you are angry is a weakness of human beings.” At Tangaryika Lake, Livingstone put this in his diary. African Animals run freely. Tetsuro thinks this Star reminds him of Africa in the past of Earth. Preview: Bitten Star n the Time Ceased Space. The tired think of their hometown where there is hope and courage…

[Tetsuro123]

32-THE VANISHING PLANET-999 passes an express to Lute, Tetsuro falls en route to the dining car and Maeter tells him to behave. Edmond is there and he says boys will be boys; he admires the stars and thinks they are beautiful as always. He was a space fighter who was away from his planet for 50 years. His planet was the Sweet Planet. He sits with the pair and asks Tetsuro of his homeland. Tetsuro thinks of the poor there and his mother’s death and tells Edmond he does not want to go back there, there are too many sad memories. Edmond tells him about the Green Hills where he played and fished watched by dogs and rabbits in green fields. Tetsuro tells him it reminds him of Earth long ago. Ed drinks to their homelands. The Conductor tells them they will stay 4 hours and 17 min on the next stop—the Bitten Planet. The name was changed from the Sweet Planet. The planet looks like a bitten apple in space which makes Ed sad. On the planet, the robot taxi car takes him toward the Green Hills or rather the place once called the Green Hills, that and other parts of the forest and planet have been taken away, great gaping holes of craters there now. Tetsuro finds the planet boring until he sees a food stand (with food that is not synthetic) and orders some noodles. The ground shakes thanks to huge shovels on machines that scoop up the land and the people who do it, sell it. They see a spaceship take some of the land from sellers and lift off. The man at the food stand tells them that the soil here is sold to other planets because it tastes so sweet. Tetsuro samples it. He and Maeter watch another ship land as another machine digs into the soil, its claws almost getting them by mistake. Tetsuro hopes Edmond doesn’t see the soil getting scooped. Men will get paid 5000 hectometer in gold coins. A shovel loads the coins onto their vehicle. Edmond comes and shoots the machine but the gun is shot from his hand, the workers jump him and one steps on his face. Tetsuro and Maeter arrive with she firing blasts from her ring to stop the men. The men shoot at her but she flips. Tetsuro shoots but falls!? Maeter’s ring blasts one of the gold bags and she will do the rest if they do not stop and let Tetsuro and Edmond go free without shooting at them. The man in charge tells her they will be executed if they do not bring the gold. This is the government’s doing. He stops an underling from shooting at Maeter as he lets the trio go, “We are no match for that woman.” He will tell the government that they were robbed. Edmond’s heart used to fly back to his homeland when it was the Sweet Planet and when he was at war. Tetsuro is lucky his homeland exists the way it was when he left. Edmond comes onto 999 and cries, sitting alone, feeling he was almost about to lose his dignity as a fighter so he then laughs. He will find a second homeland. Tetsuro will understand about this when he grows up. This makes Tetsuro irritable a bit. The narrator tells us the Bitten Planet vanished soon afterward. Tetsuro knew nothing of Edmond after this. Next the planet of screws in the Screw Mountains of Uratores.