A Planet Called Curiosity

A Planet Called Curiosity

Manga Chapter 2-12 and 3-1

TV Episode 68

Manga Chapter Summary:

Aboard the 999, Tetsuro stares out into space via binoculars. Maetel tells him to look at the planet they are approaching, which is red in the center, causing it to look like a giant eyeball! Maetel points out that while the 999 is passing by the planet at full speed, the planet is rotating at the same speed, making it look as if it staring at them. Tetsuro wonders if the planet is alive and it really is a giant eye. He asks Maetel if there are any living planets. Maetel says she doesn’t know, but this planet is so odd that she doubts anyone has ever set foot on it, and it lives up to its name, “Curiosity”. 

 

Tetsuro notices that one of the planet’s two moons appears to be following the train! Maetel checks with the Conductor, who s aware of the situation and claims that due to the moon’s higher speed, they are done for if it is really chasing them. The 999 suddenly comes to a stop. The moon following them also has changed its trajectory, with its gravity appearing to be drawing them in. The 999’s engine claims strange telepathic signals are telling the train it will be destroyed if it doesn’t land on the planet. The moons appear to have their own brains, and are demanding they land on Curiosity so it can look at them.

Tetsuro is bewildered by the request, but nonetheless the 999 heads down to Curiosity, towards the equator, which is the center of the “eye” of the planet. The eye appears to be a large series of six-sided segments, similar to the eye of an insect. Maetel says they are the first human beings who shall ever set foot on this planet. A large voice, which Maetel believes to be that of the planet, speaks to them telepathically, ordering them to get off the train. The Conductor is ordered to come along with them. 

 

The Conductor is ordered to undress, with the planet claiming it will destroy him if he doesn’t comply. The Conductor begs to reconsider. Tetsuro takes off his clothes instead, telling the planet to leave him alone. This just gets the planet more mad, which says it doesn’t want to look at someone as ugly as him. Maetel is then told to undress herself, which she does. Tetsuro and the Conductor look the other way. Tetsuro senses that the ground below them is getting hot.

The planet asks what they are and Maetel tells it they are human beings. The planet says this is truly incredibly and asks if all human beings look like her. The planet says that now that it has seen the outside of them, it wants to see the inside! It claims it will dissect Maetel so it can see the inside of a human being. The planet orders Tetsuro to cut her open and he refuses to do so, telling the planet he’d rather die. The planet then orders the Conductor to do it instead. The Conductor approaches Maetel with a knife, and Tetsuro yells at him to not do so. 

 

The Conductor tosses away the knife, and it falls to the ground, with the planet saying “Ow” as it knicks small portions of it. Tetsuro wonders if the noises meant the knife injured the planet. The planet again orders the Conductor to cut up Maetel and starts sending harmful signals into his brain when he refuses. Tetsuro thinks of the noises the planet made before and wonders what will happen if he cuts into the planet. Tetsuro tears through the ground with the knife and finds it easy to cut, as if it was vinyl. The telepathic signals suddenly vanish. The three of them look inside and find a bunch of large mechanical spheres.

Suddenly the planet starts screaming out not to look at it, as it is embarrassing. Maetel realizes that with the telepathic signals going away, this is their chance to run back to the train and escape. They flee onto the 999 and it quickly takes off from the planet. The telepathic signals are still gone once the 999 has hit space. The planet explodes behind them shortly afterwards. Maetel says the planet committed suicide due to feeling ashamed at seeing what it was made from. The planet experienced the judgment of others while its privacy was unveiled. 

 

Maetel claims that men once lived on Curiosity, but made it entirely robotized so they could create beings with its own conscience. She doesn’t know why its inhabitants all vanished and ponders if Curiosity, knowing humans once lived on it, wanted to see what its creators looked like. Tetsuro notices that the two moons are still pursuing them. The Conductor thinks it’s because they killed their mother. Maetel says she is going to ask the locomotive to broadcast her telepathic signals. The two moons go on either side of the 999, crashing towards it, but the 999 flies its way through and they crash into each other, destroying themselves. The Conductor brings some fruit and milk to Tetsuro, saying it’s a token of his gratitude for saving him.

TV Episode Summary:

An early part the episode gives us an added scene where the 999 engine claims many passengers have vanished in this area and blames the Conductor for it. The Conductor, nervous about getting fired if any other passengers disappear, gets upset when Tetsuro raises the blind in the train car, claiming strange things happen when they pass this planet.  

 

The TV episode has a new character, a blue haired woman who sits in Tetsuro and Maetel’s train car, named Miiru. The Conductor warns her to also close the blind, but she claims she came on the train in order to pass by this planet. We see her with her boyfriend Mask in a flashback, a photographer who wants to visit the planet. He takes several photos of it and the planet drags him out of the train car, towards the planet. She claims she never saw him again. 

 

When the 999 lands on Curiosity, Miiru and the Conductor initially stay on board but the planet yells at them until they get off. Once on the planet, a giant pillar rises out of the ground with an eye on it. Miiru sees Mask laying beside the pillar and runs to him.

Later, Tetsuro tries to run back to the 999 when Curiosity demands Maetel be cut up, but it blasts a beam at him and uses it to toss him aside. Rather than hurt him with brain waves, Curiosity seems to hypnotize the Conductor to try and get him to cut up Maetel. Mask tells Miiru and Tetsuro that Curiosity has cut up those who come to this planet and it controls anyone here. He reveals his body, sewn together and hands Tetsuro a knife which he uses to stab the pillar with. The pillar goes down afterwards and everyone rushes back towards the 999. Mask is brought to the medical room of the train, but passes away.

 

One final change made to the episode is that the two moons don’t chase after the 999 after it escapes, rather they crash into each other after Curiosity blows up.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Miiru – Minori Matsushima

Mask – Katsuji Mori

Mechanical Car Voice – Kouji Totani

Queen of the Planet – Reiko Seno

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

“Queen of the Planet” is Curiosity, credited under a name that is never used in the manga chapter or episode.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

I have fond memories of this storyline from when I watched the TV episode years back. It’s one of the funniest and out there concepts in the entire series; an entire planet is curious about what humans look like inside and wants them cut up, but when it gets cut up itself, it gets so embarrassed it blows itself up! It’s a story so ridiculous is has to be read/watched to be believed. There is a lot I like about Galaxy Express 999, but one of the top things I enjoy about it is just how out there Matsumoto gets with his storylines at times. Planets are typically viewed as places to live, visit or inhabit. The concept of an entire planet that is actually a living being is quite a unique one. The whole set up is handled fairly interesting as well. The planet’s surface is shaped as if it has a giant eye, and as the 999 passes, the planet rotates so it looks like the eye is looking at them. The planet even sends its “children” moons after the 999 to bring it to itself.

 

Curiosity is quite advanced, with its backstory of becoming completely robotized explained by Maetel near the end of the chapter (although her claim of humans once being on the planet contradicts earlier dialogue). The planet is able to send out its own telepathic signals to communicate with our heroes and even cause harm to them as well. I briefly wondered if the planet was bluffing, as it initially demands the Conductor remove his clothes, but then moves on from him and never asks him to do it again. It also initially requests Tetsuro cut up Maetel but then simply asks the Conductor to do so instead when he refuses. The Conductor nearly does die though, so the planet did prove itself to have the power. The Conductor appears quite frightened at the notion of being seen naked, as if he’s got something to hide. Although I think it is more likely than not simply embarrassment. If he did in fact have to strip nude I hope he wouldn’t have gone to the extreme that Curiosity did! Poor Tetsuro also gets put down in this chapter, with Curiosity calling him disgusting and ugly when he takes his clothes off. 

 

Curiosity is of course the ultimate hypocrite; demanding to see the insides of Maetel and being willing to kill in order to see it, but then being so ashamed from having its own insides revealed that it commits suicide. It is an extremely over the top reaction, which in part is what makes it so funny to me. The insides of Curiosity aren’t anything that’s out of the ordinary or all that different from what we have seen before. Yet Curiosity would rather end its life than live with that.

The TV adaption adds a couple of new characters, Miiru and Mask. We see a rather ridiculous and nonsensical flashback sequence where Mask is literally sucked out into space, yet Curiosity doesn’t do anything about Miiru. Perhaps it was pissed off at Mask taking photographs of it? I feared neither would make it out of the episode alive, but Miiru at least survives the episode. Mask isn’t as lucky. Of course like many other episodic characters, despite being on the 999, we’ll never see her again. 

 

The TV adaption just makes the whole sequence with Curiosity even more hilarious. It represents Curiosity’s consciousness by having a giant pillar rise out of the ground. The pillar contains an eyeball, but also these marks around it that look like sweat. So it comes off as if Curiosity is this nervous pervert, sweating as she demands to see Maetel naked, then cut up. I wonder the line in the manga chapter about the planet warming up also was also done to portray this.

Spoiler Analysis:

Chapter 4-3/episode 22, “Pirate Ship Queen Emeraldas” has a similar sequence where a robot pretending to be Emeraldas by wearing a black cape becomes extremely embarrassed once the cape is torn off of her. A storyline involving the Conductor and his fear of being seen naked will be explored further in chapter 4-4/episode 19, “The Kingdom of Atonement”.