Claire, the Transparent Woman with a Glass Body

Claire, the Transparent Woman with a Glass Body

Manga Chapter 1-3

TV Episode 3 (first half)

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999 heads through a “tunnel” in space. While doing so, Maetel brings Tetsuro to the engine room of the 999, which he is surprised to see is super advanced in nature. Maetel tells him that the technology the 999 displays is actually from a lost alien civilization. Current human science is unable to explain how it works. The train operates without an engineer, instead relying upon a thinking computer. Maetel brings Tetsuro to the dining car, telling him about space tunnels along the way. The 999 will be using the tunnel as a pathway as it crosses the asteroid belt towards Titan.

Tetsuro finds it unusual to be in a fancy dining room, having never even used a menu before and as such Maetel helps order for him. Tetsuro is shocked to find that the waitress, named Claire is made completely of crystal glass. Claire claims her mother loved shiny things and forced her to be transferred into this body. Claire works part-time on the 999 in order to buy a fleshly body. Tetsuro calls her beautiful, but Claire is sad that light passes through her body and can’t leave a shadow. Shortly after Claire leaves the dining car the lights go out, shocking Tetsuro. Maetel tells him it’s just that they’ve gone through the tunnel and for a short time while going on a twisted pathway the train’s electrical system has shut down. Claire comes back in and her body starts glowing, providing Tetsuro the ability to see. 

Once they finish their meal, Tetsuro and Maetel head back. Maetel needs to wash her hands first, so Claire takes Tetsuro’s hand and leads him back. Claire says this is the first time she’s touched a body in which blood flows. Soon after returning to his train car Claire disappears, but the light returns just afterwards. Tetsuro finds himself right before his seat, with his mother sitting in it! Tetsuro happily hugs his mother, but her grip soon tightens and her body changes to that of a cloaked skeleton! The skeleton tosses Tetsuro’s gun away and demands he give it his heart, soul and life itself. The skeleton opens the window, hoping to jump out with Tetsuro, when Claire arrives. Claire grabs a hold of the skeleton, and telling Tetsuro to stay down, shatters.

Maetel soon wakes Tetsuro up, telling him that it was a hallucination. When the 999 passes through the asteroid belt it passes through another dimension, where strange things can happen. She claims that scholars say in the past the asteroid belt had formed a planet and that the energy of its inhabitants still linger here. Tetsuro sees small bits of glass floating outside the window. Maetel tells him it’s the dumped out remains of Claire, who had fought the hallucination seizing Tetsuro and exploded. Tetsuro notices a single remaining shard of Claire left on the windowsill, shaped like a tear. As Tetsuro sheds a tear, the 999 approaches the planet Saturn.

TV Episode Summary:

This chapter’s adaption takes up only the first half of episode 3, with the following chapter making up the second half. This is the first of several instances of this occurring during the television adaption. It is the wise choice, as this chapter doesn’t have enough content to support a full episode without adding filler. Once again we have a fairly close adaption. The TV episode adds a brief scene of Maetel and Tetsuro talking before they head to the engine room, with Tetsuro rebuffing Maetel’s request for him to sleep. We also see the Conductor announcing the 999 entering the tunnel (accomplished via narration in the manga chapter). The one cut I came across is the line from Maetel about how the asteroid belt used to be a planet and that the hallucinations may be the planet’s former inhabitants. Instead Maetel simply says no one knows why the hallucinations occur. When the hallucination of Tetsuro’s mother appears she has blonde hair; this is a continuity error as the first episode featured her as a brunette (it does however match her hair color in the manga).

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Claire – Chiyoko Kawashima

Demon – Nobuyo Tsuda

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This is a rare instance of a chapter that doesn’t involve the 999 landing at a station. We are provided with a bit more world building here over the 999, including the concept of tunnels and the fact that its engine was built using technology from an ancient alien civilization! I think a great many of us, myself included, take eating at restaurants for granted (especially pre-COVID), but for someone like Tetsuro who has been destitute his entire life, it is an awkward, almost alien experience! It’s a minor bit of characterization that I enjoyed quite a lot.

The story of Claire is a sad one in this, her only appearance. With Claire we realize that those with mechanical bodies can take more elaborate forms than the more traditional ones we saw in the first 2 chapters. Claire looks like the glass statue of a naked woman. Where does her consciousness lie? How is she able to operate it? Things like these are left to our imagination. Despite looking so beautiful, Claire reveals that she dislikes her mechanical body, which was forced upon her by her mother, and desires to return to a flesh and blood one. The lack of pupils causes Claire’s face to remind me a bit of the character Meemay from the Captain Harlock manga (the TV versions of them don’t resemble each other).

Tetsuro’s short lived reunion with his “mother” is soon revealed to be a hallucination, but one that takes physical form and can actually harm him! It’s a rather scary sight and Claire sacrifices her life to save him. Tetsuro really has a way at endearing himself to people (I suppose its par for the course as he is our protagonist) as Claire just met him but is willing to sacrifice her life for him. How exactly Claire is able to shatter her body is left unexplained, but it is enough to destroy the hallucination and save Tetsuro’s life.

Spoiler Analysis:

Claire’s mother, named Menou, eventually will show up, although not until the very final chapters of the manga. She doesn’t appear in the TV series or movie. Tetsuro saves that glass tear all the way to the end and is able to give it to her.

Aspects of this chapter are included in the Galaxy Express 999 movie, although there are some radical changes. In particular, the hallucination is not a part of the movie storyline, so Claire lasts for a while beyond just her introductory dinner scene. Claire eventually suffers the same fate, but its via killing Maetel’s mother Prometheum rather than a hallucination. as happens here, her remains are dumped out by the Conductor, with Tetsuro retaining a single glass tear of her.