Beethoven of the Water Kingdom

Beethoven of the Water Kingdom

Manga Chapter 1-9

TV Episode 15 (Second Half)

Manga Chapter Summary:

As the 999 nears the next station, Planet 4D-3, Maetel puts on a pair of sunglasses and asks Tetsuro to do the same, claiming the planet is giving off a strange radiation. They pass through a black cloud in space and near the planet, which looks as if its center is empty. Maetel says 4D-3 is also called the drop of water, as its surface is 100% water. The planet’s inhabitants live underwater, and the 999 is forced to dive into the water upon their arrival. There are several underwater lands spread out around the equator which are surrounded by a bubble of oxygen and is where the people live. Tetsuro thinks it sounds like a fairy tale, but Maetel tells him there are other places in the universe like this and some are far from being the perfect fairy tale world. 

 

 

The 999 enters the oxygen bubble, enabling them to open the window. Maetel claims the fresh air is the best oxygen in the universe. The 999 lands in an area that looks like ancient Earth. While the 999 stops, there is no station, as the law on 4D-3 is to leave nature as undisturbed as possible. With it being spring here, they are able to see various aspects of nature that have vanished from the Earth, such as tadpoles and butterflies. Tetsuro and Maetel approach the inn and upon being told he looks odd, Tetsuro finally takes his sunglasses off. As they drink some tea, Tetsuro tells the innkeeper of his plan to head to the planet where he can get a free machine body, to which she replies that every youngster dreams of that lately.

The innkeeper suggests Tetsuro take a relaxing bath and he heads outside to some hot springs. Maetel gets in the hot springs with him and Tetsuro dons his sunglasses again to restrain himself from looking at her too much. Tetsuro speaks of his recollection of taking a bath with his mother as a child. They soon hear the sound of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Tetsuro says if Earth were only as nice as this planet, he wouldn’t need a machine body. Tetsuro passes out and suddenly a sword wielder jumps into the pool, attacking them. Maetel tells Tetsuro to hide their 999 passes as the mysterious person attacks her. Tetsuro grabs his rifle to defend Maetel with, but the innkeeper says to stop, the attacker is her son. 

 

 

The innkeeper’s son says he spends his days writing melodies and writing them on the piano. He desires to leave this place, with no electricity or lights, and be somewhere more civilized where there are big cities. He begs Tetsuro and Maetel to give him their pass or at least let him on the train. Maetel says they can’t help him and he’ll have to save up and buy a pass himself. He says he will become a famous composer then, earn a lot of money and move to the biggest city in the universe where he can perform in concert halls with his own compositions, with thousands in attendance. Back on the 999, Maetel tells Tetsuro that there were many young people with their heads full of dreams who admired the lights of the city like that boy, but they understood quite fast that the Earth was a mechanical planet. The nature is beautiful on this planet, but the average age is only around 60. With a machine body they could live forever. Who is wrong? Who is right? Maetel says we won’t know until the day that space history ends. As the 999 departs 4D-3 lights up and Maetel wonders if this shining light is the hope and ambition of that young Beethoven.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV adaption makes up the second half of episode 15, with the first half being dedicated to the previous chapter.

 

 

The TV adaption is fairly faithful to the manga chapter, without changes of major consequence. The overall theme of any changes I did identify deal with us seeing a bit more of the “Beethoven” character, including him seeing Tetsuro and Maetel as they leave the 999 and another scene with him playing the piano angrily before his attack. After his attack we see a brief scene of him conducting and playing a piano, presumably for a crowd in his imagination. A visual change I noticed was that Tetsuro wears his sunglasses for a far shorter amount of time than he had in the manga chapter.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Beethoven – Yu Mizushima

Beethoven’s Mother – Reiko Suzuki

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

I presume that Beethoven is not the character’s actual name, but that is what he is titled in the credits.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

Probably more so than any chapter to this point, this chapter is lacking much of a plot and is a rather dull one for me. The first half or so of the chapter is dedicated to the 999’s travel to 4D-3 and its unique appearance of a water-filled planet with landmasses inside of it. As they land in one of such masses, we find that nature is beautiful here, and there is wildlife which we find for the first time is no longer on Earth. Is all of Earth mechanized these days? As one who loves the outside, it would be a sad day for me if that ever becomes the case. The second half of the chapter features a brief storyline with the young Beethoven (unnamed in the manga) who has dreams of making it big as a musician and heading to a planet where things are much flashier and livelier. It is an interesting contrast with Tetsuro, who briefly speaks about how much he would like it here and that he wouldn’t need a machine body if Earth was like this. This is the third time now in the manga that we have a character seeking to board the 999 (previously occurring in chapters 1-2 and 1-7). The 999 is in very big demand which makes this appear to be a common plot point.

 

 

Tetsuro briefly passes out in the hot spring with no explanation, which puzzled me. Also, Tetsuro makes a comment about the fact that he keeps wearing his sunglasses in the hot tub to restrain him from looking at a naked Maetel which I also found odd. If anything wouldn’t wearing the sunglasses make him more apt to do that? Given the fact that Tetsuro views Maetel as a mother figure though, I don’t really think he would look at her in a sexual manner (and he hasn’t gone through puberty either).

 

 

I don’t have much in terms of comments on the TV adaption as it is mostly faithful to the manga chapter. I can say that historically this storyline has been one I have viewed as one of the weakest of the early episodes; it is helped considerably by it being in the same episode as the Dark Knight storyline which I liked a lot more.

Spoiler Analysis:

With Tetsuro donning his hat and sunglasses, his appearance reminds me a bit of Tochiro Oyama, the Captain Harlock character who will appear in the Galaxy Express 999 movie.