Mud Maetel

 Mud Maetel

Manga Chapters 3-12 and 4-1

TV Episode 18

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999 approaches a planet that Tetsuro says looks wet and slimy. Maetel tells him it’s called the City of Rain and it’s been raining non-stop there, without a second’s break, and no one has ever seen the sun. After getting out of the station the two of them see giant plants which Maetel claims are continuously growing. Tetsuro wonders where all the water goes. Maetel says she knows is that the underground has a lot of absorbing canals, but where it goes from there, she’s not sure. 

 

They head into an exquisite hotel and Tetsuro excitingly says he’s going to take a shower. In actuality all he does is stand out on the balcony and let the rain pour down on him. Tetsuro’s underwear quickly slips off of him and floats into the room. Maetel tells Tetsuro to ensure his pass is always on him; it’s his most valuable possession. Maetel receives a phone call and tells Tetsuro she needs to pay someone a visit. She recommends he lock the door and go to sleep after finishing dinner. Tetsuro says he’d rather take a look around and Maetel says okay, but to not go near the mud ponds. 

 

Tetsuro soon decides he doesn’t want to go outside anymore, but receives a phone call. The person on the line claims they are waiting for him and provides directions to take a path towards the bottom of the street. Tetsuro is initially hesitant but decides to head outside, bringing his gun with him. He could tell it was a woman calling, but beyond that has no idea who it could be. Tetsuro finds nothing at the end of the street except a large pit of mud. Suddenly a hand comes out and grabs him by the ankle, pulling him in with it!

Tetsuro is completely covered by the mud. When he wakes up he finds himself in a giant bubble, which a woman has made her home out of. She claims most poor people like herself reside in a place like this. She tells Tetsuro she knows about him by seeing him on the television. With so much rain, there’s not much to do beyond watching television. Tetsuro tells the woman he’s only staying a week and will need to go back. She claims they are 200 meters under the mud and she can sink the house further and cause him to die from the pressure if she wants. 

 

Six days pass. Tetsuro tells the woman he is bored and getting father. He decides he can’t take it anymore and forces his way out of the bubble to try and swim back up to the surface. Tetsuro soon passes out, with no end in sight, and wakes up in the bubble again. The woman tells Tetsuro they are talking about him on the TV. Anyone who finds Tetsuro can have the compensation of their choice. The woman looks at Tetsuro’s pass, saying she could go anywhere she wanted if she had it. She tells Tetsuro her name is also Maetel! Tetsuro starts thinking about the other Maetel and how she is probably worried and mad at him.

Soon there are some sucking noises as giant devices start sucking up all the mud. This eventually brings Tetsuro and “Maetel” back to the surface, where Maetel is waiting. “Maetel” says her house was destroyed and asks a nearby technician why. He claims the government has ordered the construction of residential districts here and she will get a home on the surface. In response to Maetel telling her she can have anything she wants, “Maetel” says she wants a 999 pass and Tetsuro! 

 

We cut to the 999 at a later time, now having taken off. “Maetel” is on the train and Maetel tells Tetsuro he belongs to her now and has to go over to her. She tells Tetsuro to sit next to him and hold her hand and that she is going to sleep. Once she falls asleep, she suddenly starts disintegrating! Maetel tells Tetsuro that she had lived in mud so long that her cells were completely altered, and this was the result of her being in a dry atmosphere. 

 

Tetsuro feels bad and says he wishes he had been more considerate to her. Maetel tells him he had been, after all he didn’t tell anyone she had pulled in him the mud. Maetel tells Tetsuro his kindness will save him. Tetsuro asks if there are other people like “Maetel” in the city of rain and Maetel says there are other people like her who lived in mud and lost their home. They’ll die little by little and people on the surface will never understand their wish to live that way. Tetsuro starts doing some laps in the train car, hoping to lose the weight he has gained.

TV Episode Summary:

The overall plot for this episode is similar to that in the manga, but a number of the details are changed. Early in the episode, at the hotel, Maetel suggests Tetsuro take a shower by going outside rather than him thinking of it himself. Also, Maetel doesn’t receive a phone call summoning her elsewhere, although she leaves nonetheless.

 

A number of changes occur once Tetsuro encounters the second Maetel in the mud. First, she reveals her name to him much sooner, as soon as they meet, rather than waiting many days as occurs in the manga. Tetsuro’s stay in her mud bubble home is a lot briefer than in the manga, appearing to be mere hours rather than 6 days. Tetsuro tries to escape fairly quickly rather than waiting days to do so. “Maetel” tells Tetsuro she specifically chose him to kidnap because he lived in poverty as she has. At one point she starts crying and tells Tetsuro she’ll make their home into a paradise. This doesn’t calm down Tetsuro, who has a big meltdown over being stuck here with her.

 

“Maetel” decides to call the Galaxy Express administration herself to tell them she has Tetsuro and get the reward. This prompts all the mud to be sucked out. This is a bit different than in the manga, where it was just a coincidence that the mud was being sucked out at that time to make more homes. In the manga the man doing it claims they’ll be doing it to make it a residential district and someone like her can live there. In the TV episode this character is cut out entirely, and “Maetel” claims they are forcing out all the poor people to build homes for the rich. 

 

The minor plot point about Tetsuro gaining weight by not moving around much in the bubble, and him exercising once back on the 999 is cut.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Mud Maetel – Noriko Ohara

Announcer – Kazuhiko Inoue

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

Oftentimes we see Tetsuro’s pass being stolen, but in this chapter it is Tetsuro himself who is taken! The chapter takes place on the City of Rain, named so because it is continuously raining there. Tetsuro’s curiosity can be an Achilles heel of his at times and that is certainly the case here as it leads to him going outside and getting kidnapped by the woman in the mud. Incidentally enough, the woman is also named Maetel. Why this is the case is never explained. Maetel is a rather unique name, but maybe it’s not so in the universe that Galaxy Express 999 takes place in? We don’t really get an explanation for why this other “Maetel” desires Tetsuro so, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s probably loneliness. Why she picked Tetsuro instead of one of the other passengers I’d probably chock up to him also coming from a poor background. In the TV episode they add dialogue where she indicates exactly that.

 

Despite living in a bubble inside the mud, “Maetel” seems to have pretty much the same amenities anyone else would have including a bed, sink, toilet, television and more. I do wonder how she gets electricity to power that TV though! Eventually the mud is all sucked up and the two of them are brought up to the surface, although this seems to be simply due to a coincidence as the area was intended to be made into a residential district (wasn’t it already that?) So much of the time Tetsuro is kinder to the people he encounters are to him, and that’s no different here. “Maetel” is able to take the credit for finding Tetsuro even though she kidnapped him in the first place and gets to have whatever she wants as compensation. She is given not only a 999 pass, but Tetsuro too! Poor Tetsuro has to now become someone else’s possession. Although it doesn’t end up lasting that long as “Maetel” isn’t able to survive outside of the mud. A person being in the mud so long that they eventually become as if they were made of mud themselves is an odd and totally unrealistic concept, but as often is the case in these 999 chapters I’m fine going with it as it provides an interesting conclusion to the storyline. While she did kidnap Tetsuro, she does come off as a rather sympathetic character and it was sad to see her fate. While “Maetel” shares the same tall, slim figure and long hair that most Matsumoto woman have, he does make her at least a little more unique looking by having her eyes be completely black. Perhaps it was a side effect of her living in the mud for so long.