Pirate Ship Queen Emeraldas

Pirate Ship Queen Emeraldas

Manga Chapter 4-3

TV Episode 22

Manga Chapter Summary:

Tetsuro notices that the 999 is slowing down and Maetel claims they are adding an armored wagon. The device, with 12 mounted cannons on it, is attached between two of the train cars. Maetel claims it is to defend against the many pirates around here. Tetsuro mentions Captain Harlock and another poor facsimile of his, and Maetel claims only those most daring will try to attack them. Tetsuro thinks of how the Galaxy Express is supposed to be perfectly safe, but Maetel reminds him of when Antares snuck onboard. Nothing is perfect in space. Maetel explains how the armored wagon is robot operated and makes its own decisions. Those who assault the train will be shown no mercy. Suddenly the lights go out in the train. Maetel claims it is so they can’t be seen. The pirates in space are human, and it is hopeless to predict their shifting intent. Tetsuro is frightened by a pair of eyes that show up in the dark, but it is just the Conductor, stopping by to lower the blinds. 

 

Later, the Conductor tells Tetsuro that pirates are flying in the same direction as the 999, from below. Tetsuro wants to see them and the Conductor says he can do so by looking between the connection between train cars. Tetsuro stares out of the train, although the pirates are only a fast moving glowing light from this distance. Suddenly a gravitational wave from the pirates strikes the 999, knocking it off its path. The armored wagon fires back, but its range isn’t far enough. Suddenly a voice rings out, claiming resistance is pointless and she’ll obliterate the whole train if they continue. Maetel recognizes the voice as Emeraldas, the Pirate Queen. This frightens both Tetsuro and the Conductor.

Maetel asks Tetsuro if he’s hungry, telling him he won’t be in good shape if he doesn’t eat beforehand; he may even die. They both decide to dine on steaks. Tetsuro notices the man who had boarded at Mariko’s Firefly, shaking like a leaf. Tetsuro and Maetel eat, although in such a moment Tetsuro is unable to even make out the flavor. Maetel however claims that she is the one who will be in the most danger when fighting Emeraldas. Those of the same gender within a species are merciless towards each other. They head towards Jewel, a pirate planet with a skull and crossbones shape visible on it from space.

As the 999 enters Jewel’s atmosphere, the Conductor senses a flying object approaching them. Emeraldas again demands that they cooperate and the 999 lands on the sands below. Within the golden cloud above them, they can barely make out the blimp shaped pirate ship Queen Emeraldas, however it soon nears and can be seen in full view. All passengers and employees are ordered to leave the 999. Maetel reminds Tetsuro not to forget his weapon. Emeraldas demands again that everyone depart and Tetsuro realizes the man from Mariko’s Firefly is still onboard. A blast from the Queen Emeraldas soon fires, blowing up the train car he is on. A claw like device lowers soon afterwards and grabs both Tetsuro and Maetel, pulling them up into the Queen Emeraldas. 

 

Inside, Tetsuro and Maetel find more than a half dozen fully cloaked space pirates in front of them. The head pirate orders one of the others to clean toilets for 2 years after she calls her boss instead of captain. Tetsuro asks why she brought them here; he’s seeking a mechanical body and has caused her no trouble. The lead pirate says to grab a mechanical whip she throws on the ground then strikes Tetsuro when he picks it up. The pirate, who says she is Emeraldas herself, says it was intended for Maetel, and she is challenging her. If Maetel wins, they can return to the 999. If Emeraldas wins, Maetel must reveal all of her secrets to her, such as her true purpose and why she is boarding the 999. Maetel accepts, but demands that Tetsuro be freed regardless of the outcome. Emeraldas refuses, saying Tetsuro is deeply involved. The two are about to begin the fight, but Emeraldas opens up a door by Maetel, causing her to fall out of the Queen Emeraldas to the sand far below.

 

Emeraldas demands that Maetel’s body be retrieved, and the claw device goes down to grab her. Emeraldas tells Tetsuro to follow her to her room. Maetel is dead and she says it’s useless to think about the deceased. Tetsuro fires at her from behind with his gun, but the shots go right through her. Emeraldas brings him to a room filled with books and wine. She asks Tetsuro why he is seeking to give up his biological body and become mechanical. He claims it is to become immortal and to avenge his mother. Emeraldas claims it is the opposite for her; she wants to leave her mechanical body and obtain a human one. Tetsuro has no need to worry though as she seeks to posses Maetel’s perfect body.

 

Emeraldas shows Tetsuro that Maetel is strapped down in another room, being removed of her clothes. Emeraldas departs to start the transfer process and Tetsuro finds himself locked in. He rummages around, eventually finding another door with skull and crossbones on it. He heads inside and finds a woman laying in bed. The woman tells Tetsuro to remove his hat and that she is the real Emeraldas. The one Tetsuro has been speaking to is her android substitute. Upon hearing that Maetel is onboard, Emeraldas gets up, saying her android substitute has betrayed its programming. She opens up another door that permits Tetsuro to make it to the operating room.

In the operating room Tetsuro finds Maetel is alive, and battling the android substitute, with the bodies of the other pirates on the ground, already defeated. Tetsuro again fires at the android substitute, only for the shots to go completely through her. The android substitute asks Maetel why she lost so easily the first time and Maetel says it’s because the real Emeraldas would never kill her. Maetel cuts away the cloak with her sword, revealing the extremely skinny android body underneath it. The android substitute shouts at them not to look at her and Tetsuro shoots her in the head, destroying her.

 

A voice rings out; it is the real Emeraldas, telling Tetsuro and Maetel that they are able to disembark. The Queen Emeraldas brings them down to the ground. Emeraldas transmits out a message of farewell to Maetel, telling her they’ll see each other again somewhere in space and to take care until then. Tetsuro asks Maetel why Emeraldas didn’t show herself to Maetel since they are friends. Maetel claims it is because you never show yourself to a rival when weakened by illness. She also wonders if Emeraldas was ashamed by the actions of her android substitute. She wishes her a quick recovery. Even ill, she believes Emeraldas will always be happier than her, as she’s able to travel free and follow her desires. Maetel is only able to follow the way imposed by the rails of the Galaxy Express and she’s not ready to die until a long time from now.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV episode is fairly faithful to the manga chapter, although with a lot of content to get through, it goes through things fairly quickly. The cowardly passenger from Mariko’s Firefly is cut entirely; most likely for time as well as the fact that this episode doesn’t immediately follow “City of Fireflies” like it does in the manga. Also removed is the cameo reference by Tetsuro of Captain Harlock.

 

On board the Queen Emeraldas, the android substitute doesn’t berate her underlings and only says she wants “something” from Maetel rather than talking about her revealing her secrets if she loses their duel. She tosses Maetel a sword rather than a whip in their first encounter. The first duel actually occurs in the TV episode and Maetel ends up causing herself to fall out of the ship by placing her hand on the button that opens the door of the ship.

 

When we meet the real Emeraldas, she has several photos of Maetel in her room including one of the two of them together. After hearing Tetsuro mention Maetel, Emeraldas has a flashback to having a sword fight with her in a castle. 

 

Footage from this episode was also utilized to create a longer special edition called “Emeraldas the Eternal Wanderer”, one of 3 such specials made for the series. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get my hands on this yet, but if I do, I shall cover it in a future blog entry.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Queen Emeraldas – Ikuko Tani

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Queen Emeraldas is the name of the ship, not the space pirate herself, although she is credited in that manner.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This chapter is quite the special one, being the first to bring in a major character from one of Leiji Matsumoto’s other manga for a cameo. Emeraldas first appeared in a one-shot manga appearance that was included in the magazine Princess in 1975. A few years later the series “Queen Emeraldas” would appear, it ran in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 1978 to 1979 and was eventually aggregated into 4 volumes. The titular Emeraldas is a fearsome space pirate, essentially the female equivalent to Matsumoto’s even more popular space pirate character, Captain Harlock. The Queen Emeraldas manga would eventually be adapted in anime form, but it wouldn’t be until the year 1998, as part of a 4 episode OVA (original video animation) series. 

 

Matsumoto’s various manga/anime series share a same universe, and as a result we often see characters making cameo appearances. Beyond simply this appearance in Galaxy Express 999, Emeraldas also appears in the Captain Harlock television series, the Harlock movie “Arcadia of My Youth”, the manga “Harlock Saga” and the video game “Cosmo Warrior Zero”. Probably most importantly, Emeraldas appears in the 2000 OVA “Maetel Legend” where she is presented as Maetel’s sister. Maetel and Emeraldas being sisters appears to be something that was later retconned into the storyline; there is no mention of it here, or in any of the other storylines featuring Emeraldas that appeared in the late 70’s and early 80’s when the original manga, television series and movies featuring Emeraldas and Maetel came out.

Focusing on this chapter in particular it is an exciting one. At 52 pages it is the longest chapter we’ve had since the first, giving us a lot of space to breathe and flesh out the storyline. We get to see the 999 pursued from in space by the Queen Emeraldas and eventually encounter it on the desert planet Jewel. An android substitute of Emeraldas is behind much of the events of the chapter. It is she who pursues the 999, forces it to land and then seizes Tetsuro and Maetel. She seems like quite a harsh individual; telling off one of her underlings and then immediately forcing Maetel into a fight with her. Throughout this entire sequence both she and all the other pirates are fully covered in black cloaks, making for a rather frightening experience!

 

The initial fight between the android substitute and Maetel ends so quickly that it comes off as if we missed a page. Maetel is suddenly seen falling out of the Queen Emeraldas to her apparent death. Of course Maetel has come close to death several times already and always came back fine, and that is the case here. The android substitute is an inversion of Tetsuro; already an android, she seeks to become human and desires Maetel’s “perfect body”.  She also desires Maetel to reveal her secrets, although with how she proceeds with fighting her I don’t know how serious we are to take this.

In yet another inversion of expectations, when the real Emeraldas appears it is only for a small role in the chapter, and she appears sick in bed with an illness. While she doesn’t participate in any action in the story, she reveals the truth to Tetsuro and permits him passage to the operating room where Maetel is. She ends up leaving without even seeing Maetel face to face. Maetel reveals that she and Emeraldas are friends. Maetel is envious of Emeraldas; who has the freedom to travel throughout space as she wishes. Maetel is bound to her path in traveling aboard the 999, providing us at least some more information about her (although readers likely could already figure this out).

 

The end reveal of the android substitute is quite hilarious and reminds me of chapters 2-12/3-1 “A Planet Called Curiosity” as she is quite embarrassed to be seen without her cloak. Tetsuro, whose shots at her were meaningless earlier due to her extremely thin body, is able to immediately kill her with a shot to the head. I also enjoyed the continuity we got with showing the man who had boarded the train in the previous chapter. Unfortunately for him he is quite the coward and that results in his death.

Spoiler Analysis

This will be Emeraldas’ sole appearance in the Galaxy Express 999 manga and television series. She does however show up again in both the Galaxy Express 999 movie and the Adieu Galaxy Express 999 movie. In those movies she has red hair rather than the blonde hair she has in this episode. In the first movie, everything from this storyline is excluded. Emeraldas is still a fabled space pirate, and is said to be the only person who knows where Count Mecha’s Time Castle is located. By sheer luck, the 999 happens to pass by the Queen Emeraldas and Tetsuro fires at it with his gun. This causes Emeraldas to stop the 999 and she comes on board herself. Unlike her appearance here, Emeraldas is in perfect health in the movie and demands to know who fired on her ship. Tetsuro reveals it was him, but upon seeing Maetel, Emeraldas decides to not punish him. Seeing the hat and cloak he wears and the gun he carries, Emeraldas asks where they came from and Tetsuro reveals they came from a mother on the planet Titan. Emeraldas tells Tetsuro he can find the Time Castle on the planet Heavy Melder, which coincidentally is the 999’s next stop.

 

On Heavy Melder, Tetsuro encounters Tochiro Oyama, the true owner of the hat and cloak and Emeraldas’ lover. Deathly sick, he asks Tetsuro to use a device that transmits his soul to that of the engine of the ship Arcadia, belonging to Captain Harlock. Emeraldas comes down to Heavy Melder herself, but it is too late and Harlock tells her of Tochiro’s death. She sadly heads to his resting place before departing the planet. Towards the end of the movie, Emeraldas joins Harlock in launching a grand attack on the planet Maetel in order to save Tetsuro from Maetel’s mother, Prometheum.

 

Emeraldas’ role is a bit reduced in Adieu Galaxy Express 999, with her biggest contribution being recovering Maetel and bringing her back to the 999 after she and Tetsuro encounter the dark knight Faust. She also has some additional dialogue with Maetel.

Captain Harlock’s eventual appearance in Galaxy Express 999 the manga will be similar in tone to Emeraldas’ appearance in that it’s rather toned down (with him appearing under a cloak the whole time). It also parallels Emeraldas’ storyline in that there is a robot substitute pretending to be Harlock.