The Fossilized Warrior

The Fossilized Warrior

Manga Chapter 2-10 and 2-11

TV Episodes 12 and 13

Manga Chapter Summary:

On the 999, Maetel tells Tetsuro to be careful as he walks towards the toilet. The 999 quickly shakes, causing Tetsuro to be slammed around and thrown out the window. The Conductor tells Maetel that someone has intentionally put large rocks on the train tracks. As a result, the 999 is temporarily inoperable. Outside, Tetsuro stares around, seeing a large group of stone faces in front of him. Maetel comes outside and tells Tetsuro this is a planet of fossils. 

 

Tetsuro wonders if the one who stopped the train is the same person who made these sculptures, but she tells him these aren’t sculptures, but a natural formation. She tells Tetsuro they should go back in the train while the rails and train are repaired and keep their weapons ready. Inside, Tetsuro wonders how those formations were created. Maetel tells him this planet is at the center of the galaxy and is very similar to Earth outside of the fact that these formations are found all around the surface and under the sea.

Tetsuro spots something outside and asks for Maetel’s binoculars. He looks close and sees the form of a woman in the rocks. Tetsuro heads outside and walks up to the formation, wondering how nature could give birth to such a beautiful form. Tetsuro looks around and finds a lot of human skulls nearby as well as the remains of their bodies causing him to realize they have been beheaded. Suddenly a man appears on the cliff above him, calling Tetsuro a fossil thief and that he will end up like them. The man charges with a sword and Tetsuro realizes he forgot his Cosmo gun. 

 

Later, on board the 999, Maetel helps stitch up the large cut on Tetsuro’s back left by the attack. The Conductor tells Tetsuro that he has to leave the train as he no longer has a pass, which was stolen by his attacker. Maetel says that anyone with a pass can board the train as long as they write down their name on it. Tetsuro heads outside with his gun. Maetel steps off the train as well, upsetting the Conductor. She tells Tetsuro that she promised to follow him anywhere and if he has to disembark, so shall she. 

 

The two of them return to the rock formation of the woman that Tetsuro saw earlier. Maetel says the man who stole Tetsuro’s pass will probably try to board the 999 so they should look for his home as it should be empty now. They climb the cliff where he attacked from and see a crashed spacecraft off in the distance. They approach it and confirm this must be his home as there is a hot fire still outside. The two of them head inside the ship and eventually come across the man in the halls, once again brandishing his sword. The man charges, but Tetsuro shoots him in the chest with his gun.

Maetel asks the man why he didn’t board the 999 while he had the chance. He claims that it is because he realized they weren’t fossil thieves. Had they been, he would have used the ticket and given up his position as fossil guardian. When he realized they weren’t, and he had no more reasons to leave, he chose to die, purposely attacking Tetsuro. Tetsuro asks the man why he is so fond of these fossils. He says once he left this planet behind on a spaceship, leaving his family and friends behind, seeking to investigate a strange gas cloud that was approaching the planet. He realized it was a petrifying cloud, and it was too late for his planet. When he got back all he saw was an endless sea of petrified faces. He decided to become their guardian and protect them from thieves who sell them on other planets. He hoped someday to be able to turn them back to normal and asks them to come back if they ever find a cure. 

 

The man returns Tetsuro’s pass and dies. Tetsuro and Maetel bury the man and Tetsuro promises that he will return here someday if he is ever able to find out how to revert the fossils back. As they depart, Tetsuro asks Maetel if they’ll ever be able to bring them back to life and she says she couldn’t say.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV adaption of this episode is fairly faithful to the original chapter for most of the first of the two episodes adapting it, and gets through so much of the story that they really could have gotten the entire chapter in one episode if they desired to. We get a few sequences of some increased dialogue, such as the Conductor asking Tetsuro if he can also use the binoculars and Tetsuro having a teary goodbye for Maetel when he’s kicked off the 999 (although like in the manga she joins him shortly afterwards anyway). The scene where the warrior takes out Tetsuro is extended; we see him take Tetsuro’s pass and Maetel arrive to fight him off. The warrior also admits in this sequence that he laid the rocks on the train tracks; who actually placed them there is not clear in the manga chapter.

 

As we start approaching the end of the first episode, things start heading in a new direction. Rather than see Tetsuro immediately fight and kill the warrior, the warrior explains his backstory to Tetsuro and Maetel. Maetel notices a photo of a woman, who is Leija, the fossilized woman Tetsuro saw earlier and revealed to be the warrior’s lover. Tetsuro and the warrior are about to fight when a space ship arrives carrying fossil thieves. The warrior heads outside to fight them off and is initially successful, but eventually tricked and trapped, being held bound to the ground while the thieves continue with their attempt to steal the fossils, including that of Leija. Tetsuro and Maetel watch from nearby and Maetel has bad news, the petrifying cloud is approaching and will be here by noon the next day. The cloud is just about here as the first episode ends. 

 

In the second episode, the fossil thieves continue to work on excavating Leija. Watching from the distance, Tetsuro tells Maetel to go back to the 999, which she does, giving him an earring as she goes. Back at the 999, the Conductor is struggling with the level of power to enable the 999 to move so Maetel says he should request another train come and get them. When the fossil thief boss tells them to kill the warrior, Tetsuro throws down the earring, temporarily blinding the men and enabling Tetsuro to free the warrior and take out the thieves. 

 

Tetsuro demands the pass be returned. The warrior instead blasts the thieves so he can take back the fossilized Leija and runs into his ship. Tetsuro pursues, but falls in a trap door. The Conductor is successfully able to call another train car to come get them which will arrive in 2 hours. Tetsuro awakens in the ship and tells the warrior of the approaching petrifying gas cloud. The fossil thieves return, blasting a hole into the ship and entering. Traps in the ship kill many of them. Tetsuro throws himself into the door holding him until it breaks open. 

 

The warrior’s gun runs out of ammo so he resorts to using his sword, getting shot himself in the process. Meanwhile the fossil thief boss starts blasting the ship again but the warrior is able to fire back and blow it up. Tetsuro pursues the warrior into the desert, where he is carrying Leija. They decide to fight each other one last time and Tetsuro blasts him through the chest as he charges. Tetsuro realized the warrior was holding his sword backwards and had no desire to kill him. He appreciates having an honorable death and didn’t want to board the 999 if it would force Tetsuro to become a fossil. He asks Tetsuro to bring Leija over to him and asks Tetsuro the same thing he asks in the manga, to return someday if they find a way to revert the fossils. 

The petrifying gas cloud quickly approaches. The other railway car arrives to transport out the 999. Maetel wants them to stay a few minutes longer for Tetsuro but the Conductor is insistent that they go. Just then Tetsuro returns and they get on the train in time and it narrowly escapes from the petrifying gas cloud. The warrior’s body is fossilized alongside Leija.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Fossil Warrior – Osamu Ichikawa

Boss – Osamu Katou

Gardman – Seiji Sato

Operator – Kouji Totani

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

Our third two chapter storyline is a bit of a more action oriented one, although it involves once again the plot point of Tetsuro’s pass being stolen. That said I wasn’t as frustrated about it this time as it seemed a minor part of the storyline. In fact the story could have played out the same way without it if needed. Some confusion I have had has finally been resolved over the pass, it seems that the thief can simply write in their name on the pass and be able to get on board the 999, even if it is stolen. Way back in the first chapter we were told those using a pass with someone else’s name would be executed. Simply crossing out the name and using their own makes sense. 

 

These particular chapters aren’t as deep or philosophical as many other chapters are, but we are treated to some really strong artwork from Matsumoto. The landscape of petrified faces is really interesting to look at and we have a wide variety of panels showing them. Since everyone became like this due to a petrification cloud passing over the planet, I do wonder why everyone were gathered up in such tight groups though. You’d think people would be more spread out, unless they knew it was coming and decided to just gather together. With the unnamed attacker coming out to face Tetsuro after he spots the petrified woman you’d wonder if he was related to him or a lover, but we never get an explanation for it in the manga chapter. We never do get an explanation for who put the rocks on the tracks either. You would assume it was Tetsuro’s attacker, but then why would he have done it? He is trying to guard against people taking the fossils, so he has reason to stick around instead of trying to stow a ride on the 999.

 

The episode answers these questions and expands the storyline greatly, putting across two episodes a storyline that only really needed one. The petrified woman is indeed his lover, and he is trying to board the 999 in order to find a way to remove the petrification. While it contains plenty of action, and some tension as a new petrifying gas cloud arrives, the second episode largely comes off as unnecessary for me.