Introduction

Welcome to my blog about Galaxy Express 999! Galaxy Express 999 (pronounced “three nine”) is a manga and anime franchise created by Leiji Matsumoto, the famed artist and anime creator also responsible for works such as Space Battleship Yamato and Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Galaxy Express 999 premiered as a manga in Weekly Shonen King in 1977, running for approximately 4 years. It was also adapted as a 113 episode television series that ran from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1981. A movie version, directed by the famous Rintaro premiered in Japanese theaters in 1979, with a sequel, Adieu Galaxy Express 999 coming out 2 years later. Matsumoto would eventually revive the series in the mid 1990s with a new manga series, which was adapted into another movie, Galaxy Express 999 Eternal Fantasy. Further spinoffs exist such as Maetel Legend and Space Symphony Maetel.

The titular Galaxy Express 999 is a train that on an annual basis travels from Earth into space, stopping at various planets, moons and other locations for the length of a single day. Our protagonist is Tetsuro Hoshino, a young boy who desires to travel on the 999 in order to obtain a mechanical body. At this point in the future, human beings have the ability to greatly extend their lifespan by attaining mechanical body parts. However obtaining such a body is incredibly expensive and usually hopeless for someone like Tetsuro. Rumor is that by traveling on the 999, one can head to the planet Andromeda, where mechanical bodies are provided for free! When Tetsuro’s mother is killed by the villainous Count Mecha, Tetsuro is rescued by a mysterious woman, Maetel, who provides him with a pass for the 999 under the condition that he travel with her. So begins a long journey where Tetsuro will encounter various unique worlds and the people that inhabit them. As Tetsuro makes his journey to Andromeda we delve into whether possessing a mechanical body is as good as Tetsuro believes it to be.

The movie version of Galaxy Express 999 was one of the first anime I ever saw, going back over 20 years ago when it and many other movies were aired on the Sci-Fi channel. I quickly became enthralled by the movie and its sequel, but because the television series hadn’t been released in America yet, it was a number of years until I was finally able to see the television series. The television series is easily available today and can be viewed on streaming platforms like Crunchyroll and Tubi. The original manga series has unfortunately never been officially translated into English (although the 1990s revival had been). If one searches hard enough online they can find some fan translations covering approximately the first 7 volumes or so of the manga (which encompasses around 60 or so total chapters).

 My desire to revisit the Galaxy Express 999 TV series as well as read the original manga in its entirety for the first time is the impetus for this blog. It disappoints me that an anime as important to the medium like Galaxy Express 999 still has very limited coverage and analysis on the web in English, especially for the original manga. Hopefully people will enjoy following along as I go, and my interest in this franchise can be spread to more people.

 How this blog will be structured

The main focus on this blog will be the original manga chapters, and each post will begin with a detailed description of the events of that chapter. I will also cover each corresponding TV episode covering that respective manga chapter. Since to my knowledge, the TV adaption is fairly faithful to the manga, I will not be repeating what has already been summarized from the manga but will rather be focusing on the differences between the TV episode and the manga chapter. Each post will also include an analysis section which will have my thoughts on the chapter/episode, looking at the themes included as well as how it fits in the overall picture. I will be splitting this analysis into 2 sections, a non-spoiler section and a spoiler section. The spoiler section will speak to not only things that may come up in future chapters/TV episodes but also the 2 original movie versions, Galaxy Express 999 and Adieu Galaxy Express 999. I likely will not touch upon spoilers from Matsumoto’s revival series from the 1990s or anything that came after that due to not being familiar with that material. Most of Galaxy Express 999’s chapters/episodes are stand-alone in nature and I feel that after the early chapters, most posts will likely not require a spoiler section.

Given the primarily anthology nature of the manga and TV show, once one gets beyond the first half a dozen or so manga chapters/TV episodes, you should be able to read chapters/watch episodes in practically any order you want, beyond watching 2/3 parters right after another and leaving the final chapters/TV episodes to the end. While I haven’t determined the exact order in which I will cover chapters/episodes yet, I may jump around at points. The first 7 manga chapters perfectly align with the order of the TV episodes, but after that things fluctuate wildly. For example, the 10^th and 11^th chapters of the manga, which are a 2 part storyline, aren’t adapted until episodes 60 and 61 respectively of the TV show. So whether I was to follow things in the order of the manga or the order of the TV episodes, the order was quickly going to be mixed up regardless. Thus, I will probably jump around at different points once the first 7 chapters have been covered. Availability will factor into this as well. To my knowledge, beyond some missing material from the first chapter, the manga has been unofficially translated in English through chapter 8-1 of the manga (please note that titling of manga chapters are based on the Hit Comics release, which to my knowledge was the first compilation of Galaxy Express 999 material outside of Shonen King). Any remaining chapters I will need to translate myself before covering, which will add to how much time it takes. So for a while I will likely be heavily focusing on those chapters for which I can find a translation already taken care of. In those situations where there is a 2 part chapter (or 2/3 part episode) I will be handling the storyline in one single post. There is the occasional situation where a TV episode includes 2 manga chapters of disconnected stories (this in fact happens very early on). In those situations each manga chapter will have its own post, with the TV episode coverage only focusing on that part of the episode that was adapting that respective chapter. I believe there is only 6 manga chapters/3 TV episodes where this comes up, so it should be a rarity.

It should be noted that the Galaxy Express 999 manga, TV series and initial movie were concurrent with one another. While the manga has enough of a head start at first over the TV series, eventually, starting with episode 82, it appears that the TV show had either surpassed the manga, or a decision was made to take a break from directly adapting manga chapters. The net result is that there are 16 episodes of the TV series that aren’t based on a manga chapter. Some of these storylines were based on other manga, and modified to fit the Galaxy Express 999 storyline, while others are TV originals. There are also 15 manga chapters, concentrated towards the end of the manga, that weren’t adapted by the TV series. The TV series concluded before the manga did, so these were likely chapters that came out after it was decided to end the TV show. These numbers don’t include the finale, which consists of 5 chapters of the manga and 2 TV episodes. Interestingly enough, the ending to Galaxy Express 999 was originally revealed in the movie version, which came out while both the manga and TV series were still running. Despite being started first, the manga’s ending was the final of the 3 to be made and while the major plot points are hit, there are major differences with it and the TV show version.

Anyway, all of these chapters and TV episodes will be covered on this blog. While the lack of a TV episode or manga chapter will mean certain parts of the regular entry will be missing, I am taking a completionist stance here and plan to cover everything in the original manga and TV series. The one thing I may not be able to handle is the original manga chapters of those TV episodes that were based on other manga, as I can’t guarantee that I will actually be able to both find and translate them. I am not sure yet if I will hold off on these chapters/episodes until I approach the end or if I will sprinkle them throughout my coverage. Those that are TV episode-only at the very least should take me less time to cover as I won’t have to translate a manga chapter beforehand.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my blog, and I’ll be back in the next few days for the first chapter!