The Red Wind of Mars

The Red Wind of Mars

Manga Chapter 1-2

TV Episode 2

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999’s first stopover is the desolate red planet Mars. Insider a tavern, a young man tosses a coin to a older barkeep, claiming he is soon going to board the 999, despite their expensive tickets. The man loads his gun as he leaves, stating he won’t need a grave if he dies. As the 999 lands, Maetel tells Tetsuro how it took a century to make Mars’ atmosphere similar to that of Earth. However most living on Mars have mechanized bodies and as such they didn’t fully attune it to the comfort of Earth. As the 999 lands at the station, Syrtis Major, Maetel says that humans haven’t ever really been attracted to this planet due to its close proximity to Earth. As Tetsuro heads off to explore the area Maetel tells him she will remain behind, preferring to prepare a roadmap. She provides Tetsuro some coins, telling him it’s an allowance the Galactic Railways provides to its passengers. She warns Tetsuro to bring his gun with him and that this planet is poor so he should keep a close eye on his pass.

 

Tetsuro finds the area to be barren, like an abandoned ghost town, but eventually comes upon the tavern, meeting the old barkeep. Tetsuro tells the man of his desire to obtain a free mechanical body and the old man shows him his only mechanical part, his right leg. In exchange for a gold coin the old man offers Tetsuro a tour that his daughter can bring him on. Tetsuro hands over his entire supply of gold coins; since he didn’t earn it the coins have no value to him. The old man refuses the bag, saying Tetsuro should hold on to it as he will surely need it later. The old man’s daughter pulls up with a horse drawn cart and departs with him. Tetsuro asks her what her name is but she doesn’t answer.

The daughter brings Tetsuro to a graveyard, telling Tetsuro that here lay the settlers who came to Mars but lost their battle against its hostile nature. She tells him her name is Fleme and asks if he has a ticket. Just then, the young man from earlier walks up behind Tetsuro, demanding he hand it over. The man is a quicker draw and shoots Tetsuro. The man, whom Fleme calls Geronimo, takes Tetsuro’s pass from him. Geronimo tells Fleme he will work hard on whatever planet he heads to and will come back someday for her, but she doesn’t believe him. Fleme pulls out a gun and Geronimo shoots her in self defense.

Just then, Tetsuro gets up. The bag of gold coins the old man recommended he kept took the brunt of the blast. Tetsuro pulls out his gun and Geronimo realizes Tetsuro is bleeding. Tetsuro shoots but Geronimo doesn’t, and takes the blast right in his chest. As he lies dying, Geronimo hands back Tetsuro’s pass, telling him he hesitated because he realized Tetsuro was a flesh and blood human. He says he used to be that way before he ran to here, when he was full of hope and dreams. He tells Tetsuro to leave his and Fleme’s bodies, as the sandstorm on Mars will bury them. Tetsuro returns to the tavern, where the old man says there’s nothing he could have done about the bad blood between Geronimo and his daughter. He says eventually he too will be enveloped by the red wind and laid to rest. He feels living and dying naturally is the best choice. Tetsuro returns to the station where he meets back up with Maetel, telling her that he feels like everything is telling him he shouldn’t get a mechanized body. The 999 takes off, heading towards its next destination, Titan.

TV Episode Summary:

This episode is fairly faithful to the manga, the only things I cannot recall coming up in the episode was Maetel’s line of dialogue about staying behind to prepare a roadmap and Tetsuro’s line at the end about feeling like everyone is telling him not to get a mechanized body. The episode contains a few additions not in the original manga chapter. First is the shifting to this episode of a scene from near the end of the first chapter where Maetel explains to Tetsuro that the 999 stops at each station for one day in that planet’s time. A few added scenes or lines of dialogue are entirely TV creation. The first is some dialogue between Fleme and her father about how she believes Geronimo will come back for her. Given her actions later in the episode this dialogue doesn’t make much sense and was a poor addition to include. We also have some more dialogue from Fleme to Tetsuro as they head through the town about how all the rich people have left. When Fleme pulls her gun on Geronimo there is more dialogue before he kills her, with her wanting him to stay behind on Mars until they can steal a second pass. Instead of instantly dying once he shoots her, Fleme tells Geronimo it is okay for him to go on without her now. A brief montage shot of the spirits of Geronimo and Fleme also appear after his death. Finally, this episode has the first TV appearance of the Conductor, with just him explaining the location of the 999’s first stop. A much tamer introduction for him than the manga, which featured him throwing a woman off the train in the first chapter.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Geronimo – Kazuhiko Inoue

Fleme – Kazuko Sugiyama

Old Father – Ryuji Saikachi

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

Mars seems like a natural spot for the 999 to make its first stop at. As can be expected, the planet is rather desolate, although it is even more so than I expected. You would expect the town around the station to have more than 3 people living in it, and by the chapter’s end only one of said people is left alive. The town is practically abandoned, with even the station in rather horrid shape.

For the second time we see a storyline where Tetsuro’s pass is stolen, although this one has more action to it than Maetel simply confronting a computer as we saw in the opening chapter. The greed Geronimo and Fleme have for Tetsuro’s pass results in both their deaths. Although with Geronimo, he seems to welcome it once he realizes Tetsuro is human. It seems like his life on Mars is pretty hopeless, and maybe he really did care for Fleme and didn’t want to live without her (despite her claims that he’d forget about her once leaving). Geronimo’s desire to use Tetsuro’s pass wouldn’t have worked out in the end; as explained by Maetel in the previous chapter with Tetsuro’s name already written on it, the pass wouldn’t have been usable by him.

The fact that Geronimo and Fleme are actually mechanized humans is portrayed somewhat as a twist, although it is hinted at earlier by Maetel when she tells Tetsuro that Mars is more suited for those with mechanical bodies. Tetsuro desires a mechanical body more than anything, but in Geronimo we appear to have a person who longs for the time when he was human. Likewise the old man is content with the fact that most of his body is still human and that he will eventually pass away.

Many of Leiji Matsumoto’s character designs seem interchangeable; Fleme in particular looks quite similar to Maetel beyond having a darker skintone. Geronimo reminds me a bit of an older version of the character Daiba Tadashi from Space Pirate Captain Harlock, the 1977 manga which similar to Galaxy Express 999 had many anime adaptions. The TV episode makes some design changes; in particular Fleme’s hair is brown and she no longer has the dark skin tone.

Spoiler Analysis:

This chapter is just the first of many that we will see where those who have been mechanized display some sort of regret for doing so, or at the very least a longing for the time when they were human. Geronimo doesn’t go as far as wanting to be a regular human being again but thinks back to how hopeful he was when he was human. While many of the early chapters will have some part in Galaxy Express 999’s initial movie adaption, this is the rare one that is skipped entirely.