Goddess of the Snow Capital

Goddess of the Snow Capital

Manga Chapter 6-2

TV Episode 27

Manga Chapter Summary:

As the chapter begins, the narrator explains how Tetsuro hates snow more than anything in the galaxy, and will never forget the night his mother was murdered in the snow. The 999 approaches a planet with snow circling around it in many rings. Tetsuro is surprised to see snow out in space and Maetel explains the science of it to him. The Conductor announces their next stop as the Snow Capital, with a brief layover of 3 hours 10 minutes, which is the equivalent of 3 days on this planet! Maetel explains to Tetsuro how the planet rotates very rapidly. It’s part of a group of 5 planets that drag each other mutually and would collide if they rotated slower.

 

Tetsuro tells Maetel he hates the snow due to his mother’s death and of all the nights he remembers spending in the cold. The 999 heads onto the planet, with snow appearing all over the ground. The 999 is forced to dive into a snow covered tunnel, surrounding the 999 with snow. The Conductor shows him how there is a hollowed out section, permitting access to the station. As they pass some tall buildings, Maetel explains to Tetsuro how the city has been built under the snow as any city on the outside would be covered by snow on a planet with eternal winter. Tetsuro is excited to find a local restaurant, but the udon noodle they serve him is frozen, getting him even more frustrated.

 

Back out in the street, Tetsuro slips through a hole covered by the snow. When he opens his eyes he sees a group of people around him who grab everything he has with him, including his cloak, hat and belt, causing his pants to fall down. Tetsuro sees a little girl in the snow nearby who asks him for food, so he provides her a piece of a biscuit. Tetsuro wonders how he is going to get out of here and the girl says if he follows her to her place, she’ll show him how to get to the surface.

 

Tetsuro follow the girl, who explains to him that they’re passing through a ghost town trapped by snow. She says there are many towns underneath them. Tetsuro is surprised to see they’re in an area with multiple layers of homes, making him think of a layered French pastry. Eventually the girl leads him to the surface. Tetsuro is freezing, but the girl, used to the cold, isn’t bothered by it. Eventually they reach the girl’s home and she knocks on the door asking for her mother.

Tetsuro passes out, but when he wakes up he finds himself under a blanket with a drink next to him. There to greet him is Mojin, the mother of Yuki, the girl who brought Tetsuro here. Tetsuro finds that like the udon, the drink is frozen. Mojin tells Tetsuro he can take a bath, and while he is usually hesitant to take baths, Tetsuro jumps in. To his dismay he find the water really cold! Mojin tells Yuki to go to bed and that she’ll take care of things. Tetsuro bundles himself up in the blanket and talks to himself about how he has to get back to the station.

In the other room, Mojin works on a gigantic mechanical device which is revealed to be an oven. Mojin and Yuki are planning to cook Tetsuro for dinner. Tetsuro overhears them from the other room, as they also talk about how short and ugly he is and how they’ll sell his bones to a skeleton merchant. Tetsuro tries to flee, but Mojin holds a gun on him. They place Tetsuro into the oven. While Tetsuro initially enjoys some warmth, it soon gets too hot to handle. Mojin asks Yuki if she’s eaten anything and she admits Tetsuro giving him a piece of a biscuit. This gets Mojin really upset.

Suddenly Maetel shows up in their home. Tetsuro passes out as the temperature gets hotter and hotter, but when he wakes he is back on the 999! Maetel tells Tetsuro that Mojin and Yuki let Maetel take her back because of the piece of biscuit he had given to Yuki. Tetsuro speaks of how hard it is to survive on this planet in the snow and wonders if he and his mother would have done the same.

TV Episode Summary:

The first half of the episode is very faithful to the manga, with little changes. We do have a brief scene at the start of the episode where we see an express train pass the 999. Also, when Tetsuro sees the snow in space we see a flashback of him in the snow with his mother and her death. The layover time is increased to 8 hours and the line about them being on the planet for 3 of its days is cut.

There are more changes in the latter half of the episode. We get an extra scene at Yuki’s house where she lays in her bed thinking of the biscuit Tetsuro brought and what her mother is going to cook. In the manga, cooking Tetsuro doesn’t seem to bother Yuki that much, but she is surprised to find out about it in the TV episode and begs her mother to not cook him. Things are a little longer when Maetel shows up and Mojin says she’s done something terrible once Yuki mentions being given a biscuit by Tetsuro.

Once Tetsuro wakes up on the 999, Maetel shows Tetsuro his hat, cloak and gun and claims Yuki went and found them for him. We also see a flashback of Tetsuro’s parents watching as he eats. The episode ends with a brief shot of Mojin and Yuki, looking at the 999 and wondering when they’ll next eat.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Yuki – Keiko Han

Yuki’s Mother – Haruko Kitahama

Shop Attendant – Seiji Satou

Tetsuro’s Mother – Akiko Tsuboi

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Mojin is credited as Yuki’s mother in the episode. It’s a rare reversal as oftentimes there are characters unnamed in the manga chapter who have them in the episode.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

Tetsuro has quite a bad time this chapter! We begin by arriving on a snow covered planet. For most people, I think going to a place with never ending snow would be quite frustrating. It is all the worse for Tetsuro as his worst memories, living cold and destitute, and seeing his mother murdered, happened in the snow. The entire time on this planet is bad thing after bad thing happening to Tetsuro. He find any food he tries to eat cold. He falls down a hole and has practically all of his things stolen. For once Tetsuro is happy to take a bath, only for the water to be cold! This is topped off by Mojin and Yuki literally trying to cook him!

This chapter continues a trend seen in many chapters, focusing on the life of the poor and destitute. On a planet like this, being a poor person must be absolute hell. There is no hope of warm weather, and no ability to grow one’s food, hunt, or otherwise source food with no money. Although it was interesting to note that Yuki and Mojin seem rather used to the cold. The cold weather and bath water really got to Tetsuro, but Yuki didn’t mind them at all. In fact because of this part of me wondered if there would be a surprising reveal where the oven that Mojin was trying to cook Tetsuro in ended up not getting that hot, because she and Yuki were used to things being so much colder. It was a lost opportunity for Matsumoto to further explore the differing perspectives.

The concept of Tetsuro literally being eaten was quite ridiculous and he gets to listen to Mojin and Yuki insulting him quite a bit beforehand! Maetel swoops in to save Tetsuro with no explanation whatsoever. Maetel claims that Yuki and Mojin let Tetsuro go because he shared some food with her. Although we don’t see them directly say that so we don’t know for sure if it is real. When Mojin first started getting upset over hearing about the biscuit I thought it would be because Yuki didn’t share any with her, but if it did indeed make her rethink cooking Tetsuro because he was generous with her daughter, that would be a good resolution to things. In fact Maetel didn’t even need to appear, so I think it is kind of a lost opportunity and wasted use of a deus ex machine situation. The TV adaption makes things more clear that Mojin did indeed rethink cooking Tetsuro upon finding out he shared food with Yuki.

This chapter does have an annoying continuity error when we are told that the 999 will be on this planet for 3 hours, which is the length of 3 days on this planet. The stop-time of the 999 is supposed to be the length of a single day on that planet. All of a sudden that rule is changed here. And there is really no purpose for it, as the fact that the planet rotates so fast is only a minor line of dialogue that has no impact on the storyline of the chapter. This line is thankfully removed in the TV adaption. The other thing that bugged me is that you’ve got to think that Tetsuro’s pass was stolen when a crowd steals practically everything off of him, but there is no mention to it whatsoever, even though it is such an important plot point in earlier chapters. Not that I’m asking for that to be the main storyline of a chapter/episode again, but it was another continuity weakness.