Galaxy Express 999

Galaxy Express 999 will always hold a special place in my heart, on the benefit of quite possibly being the first anime I ever saw when I was a child. Back then, all I had was a handful of videotapes to choose from, which provided a nice window into this universe envisioned by Leiji Matsumoto.

Roll two decades later, I finally have an oppoturnity to watch the entire series, an oppoturnity I would surely not miss. Finally, I would be able to witness the entire journey of Tetsuro to acquiring his mechanical body, with the assistance of a mysterious woman named Maetel, an odyssey that would slowly teach him that maybe eternal life isn't all it's cracked out to be.

However, as time passed and I dove deeper into this universe, I began to discover how deeply flawed it was. While I was prepared for the series eschewing any kind of scientific accuracy and realism in favour of delivering a story, I wasn't quite expecting it to cheat. Let me elaborate; in the early episodes, an auxiliary character attempting to steal Tetsuro's ticket is a very common plot device. However, as the series progresses, we are introduced to an increasing amount of the railroad company's rules and regulations which eventually amount to such theft never having been really possible in the first place. What's worse, these rules are sometimes introduced and then promptly forgotten or altered. For example, a passenger may be let onboard in an emergency, however what exactly constitutes an "emergency" varies wildly and nonsensically; an abusive husband counts as such, while having your entire home planet about to explode doesn't. The most jarring example is an episode where Tetsuro and Maetel are kidnapped (this also happens frequently) and we are told of a regulation that entitles the railroad company to send an armored train to free them. Not only has this rule never been brought up on previous occasions, it is never brought up again in subsequent episodes! For those who do not understand the implications of this; this kind of blatant cheating in terms of storytelling spoils the drama completely as it comes across as a cheap method of introducing unpredictability into the series. What's worse, despite the series' relatively long run, there seems to be absolutely no character development in regards to Tetsuro, leading me to believe that there was very little communication or planning between the several writers; the lack of a story bible is obvious.

It's really difficult to give this show any kind of score. The numerous failings of this series don't really become obvious until about a third or a quarter into it's run, so I guess I could be generous.

"Galaxy Express 999" is a celebrated Japanese animated TV series that ran from 1978-81 for 114 episodes. It tells the continuing tale of a flesh-and-blood boy, Tetsuro, in a far future society, who boards the Galaxy Express 999, a passenger train that flies through space from one end of the galaxy to the other, with the dream of reaching a legendary planet that offers free machine bodies to humans. (On Earth only the poor have flesh-and-blood bodies; people with money have already traded their organs for machine parts.) Tetsuro's traveling companion is the mysterious Maetel, a tall, beautiful blond woman in fashionable dark winter clothing who provides Tetsuro with the pass he needs to travel. The train stops at various planets and moons along the way and Tetsuro and Maetel get involved in other people's stories—either humans also wanting machine bodies (and sometimes resorting to nefarious means to get Tetsuro's pass) or machine people who desperately miss their human bodies. Gradually Tetsuro gets the message that machine bodies don't necessarily result in power or happiness. A frequent theme of the series is separation, as in disrupted families, children removed from parents, and lonely, displaced people craving the warmth and humanity of Tetsuro.

What truly distinguishes this remarkable series is its mesmerizing fairy tale quality. I hesitate to even call it science fiction because there's such an air of fabled unreality to it all, and the artwork reflects this in its storybook style of illustration. Everything has the painted look of the best children's book artists. The stark, dramatic quality of the background planetary landscapes and the washes of color to create a mood help to establish an atmosphere befitting the particular setting and situation. The series is a work of art.

The character design for Tetsuro may seem a little too cartoonish for some, with its round face, dots for eyes and big gaping mouth, but the animators and the Japanese voice actor use all the tools of their trade to bring Tetsuro to endearing, energetic life. The women all tend to be cut from the same mold: tall, willowy, slender and long-haired, with plaintive voices and sad eyes. Leiji Matsumoto, writer-artist of the manga series on which the TV program was based, has attributed the influence on his style of drawing women to a teenaged viewing of the 1955 French film, MARIANNE DE MA JEUNESSE (Marianne of My Youth) and the actress who played the title role, Marianne Hold.

Leiji Matsumoto was one of the most distinctive manga artists to make his mark in anime. Another series he created, "Captain Harlock," debuted the same year as "Galaxy Express 999." GE999 spawned two feature-length movies (in both of which Captain Harlock appears) and several TV specials, including "Eternal Traveler Emeraldas," "Can You Love Like a Mother?" and "Can You Live Like a Warrior?", all also reviewed on this site. As of this writing, however, only the two GALAXY EXPRESS movies have been distributed in the U.S. The original series and its TV special spin-offs remain unavailable even though the series once played, in subtitled format, on educational TV stations here. Part of the manga series has been published in English and is currently in print. We can only ask what the rights-holders of the TV series are waiting for.

I'm not someone who regularly watch's the opening/closing intro/title/song but I love when Isao Sasaki serenades me. Essentially every episode is the duo pair landing down on a new planet and having "one days worth of time" (so totally different lengths on time based on the planet rotation) to explore the world and gift off the train they have boarded taking them to get robotic bodies. At the end of every episode they have a "lesson/topic" the narrator discusses and I love them. The art style is amazing and beautiful as could be. I would pull stills to have as wallpaper or am always looking for more art from this show because of how much I love it.

The story line is easy to follow but you really could pick up anywhere once you watch the first episode.