Song of the Skeleton

Song of the Skeleton

Manga Chapter 5-4

TV Episode 26

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999’s next destination is the Planet That Sings a Ballad of Days Gone By, with a stop time of a little over 7 and a half hours. Tetsuro comments on it being a weird name and sounds like singing come out of the planet as they approach it.  Maetel says it is a whistle produced by space wind going through the holes on the planet’s surface. As the 999 heads to the station, a hat wearing man talks to himself about how he should try to sell his eggs.

 

Tetsuro and Maetel arrive at a hotel, with the desert just nearby. The man at the lobby warns them not to buy anything from peddlers. Tetsuro is happy to be in a hotel with beds and Maetel heads to the shower. Tetsuro looks outside, seeing the depressing desert filled with holes. The egg-selling man is outside, offering to sell some. Maetel tells Tetsuro she will be heading out for some errands, so Tetsuro tells the man to come back later.

Tetsuro tells the man to come in, and only then remembers the warning not to buy from peddlars. The man comes in and Tetsuro purchases 10 eggs from him. Tetsuro starts cooking the eggs in the tub and prepares some tea, offering the man some. The man says his name is Horo-Horo and that he lives alone with some farm animals. He says that when he gets enough money he’d like to get his girlfriend back. She left him because life was too difficult here and now works on some other planet. Horo-Horo says she is beautiful, but he is silent when Tetsuro asks if she is compassionate.

 

Tetsuro offers for Horo-Horo to take off his cloak and talks about how he doesn’t want to take a bath. Tetsuro turns around and is shocked to find that Horo-Horo is really a skeleton, with no ribs! Maetel arrives and tells Horo-Horo to get out, pointing a gun at him. He doesn’t think she can actually harm him, but leaves nonetheless, heading back to the desert. Maetel tells Tetsuro he shouldn’t have let him in and he’s causing them trouble. Later, Horo-Horo continues to offer to sell eggs outside the hotel, this time not covering up the fact that he’s a skeleton. Tetsuro eats some synthetic ramen at the hotel restaurant and they notice the cook throwing out a lot of leftovers.

 

A noisy couple is nearby and Maetel says it is Horo-Horo’s former girlfriend. Tetsuro wonders why she didn’t tell him she was back. Tetsuro approaches her but she says Horo-Horo is a creep and her current boyfriend grabs him. She says her return to this planet was just a coincidence. She says she was poor when she was with Horo-Horo and discovered pleasure when she went to work elsewhere. She doesn’t think he could make her happy at all. Tetsuro angrily says that Horo-Horo became a skeleton by waiting for her all this time. Maetel convinces Tetsuro to leave with her.

 

Later, Tetsuro eats some of the eggs, saying Horo-Horo wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t eat them all. That night, Tetsuro heads out into the desert to find Horo-Horo’s farm, although gets caught in a trap first. Tetsuro tells him that his former girlfriend has come back, but Horo-Horo admits he already knew. He doesn’t want to speak to her at this moment, and only would have done so back when his flesh, blood and ribs remained. He’s lost piece after piece from himself due to each of her betrayals. He tries to forget all of his pain by burying himself in his work.

Horo-Horo claims his only cure for sorrow is to murder people and make them into skeletons. He opens a door, revealing a large pile of skulls within! Horo-Horo says he must turn Tetsuro into a skeleton now that he knows the truth. Horo-Horo stares at Tetsuro until he passes out. Later, at the hotel, Horo-Horo fires a gun. Maetel wakes up Tetsuro, who is now back in his bed. Maetel says they must leave now. She says that while Horo-Horo brought him here, he used Tetsuro’s shoes and Tetsuro’s footprints are all over the crime scene. Tetsuro finds that Horo-Horo’s former girlfriend and lover are dead in one of the nearby rooms.

 

Maetel tells Tetsuro they will be fine if they make it to the 999, as the Galaxy Railways aren’t under any police jurisdiction. She says on this planet Tetsuro will always be considered guilty of murder unless he catches Horo-Horo and hands him over to the police. Tetsuro says he doesn’t mind that, since he knows he is innocent and has a clear conscience. He is happy at being of use to Horo-Horo and hopes this will cause at least one of his ribs to grow back. The 999 takes off and is watched by Horo-Horo. Horo-Horo thanks Tetsuro, saying he’s glad he met someone in this universe he can rely upon. But even with the emotion he holds, his face no longer can show a smile or tears. He says that if he met Tetsuro while he was still made of flesh, with a friend like him, he probably never would have lost all his ribs. Back on the 999, Tetsuro thinks the sounds coming from the planet are like Horo-Horo’s cries.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV episode fixes what I assume was an error in the manga about the layover time. Rather than be 7.6 hours, it is 26 hours, which makes considerably more sense. There are a few bits removed from the episode. The portion at the beginning where Maetel explains how the holes in the planet cause whistling sounds is removed. Also cut is Horo-Horo watching as the 999 approaches. Rather we cut immediately to Tetsuro and Maetel checking into the hotel. I assume these were cut for time.

 

Horo-Horo’s former girlfriend is even more unlikable in the TV version, yelling about hearing his voice from outside and throwing her dinner at the window before Tetsuro says a word to her. Horo-Horo is not presented as a mass murderer with a room full of skulls as he is in the manga, but does proclaim his intent to murder his former girlfriend to Tetsuro before knocking him out. While the manga just features a panel with him firing a gun, the TV episode shows him killing his former girlfriend’s new lover, her begging for him to refrain from killing her and saying they can get back together again, and Horo-Horo saying he doesn’t believe her and killing her.

 

Rather than return Tetsuro to the hotel, Horo-Horo brings him to the train station. The police show up in Maetel’s room and ask her for Tetsuro. She heads to the train station where she meets up with him. They rush towards the 999 as the police arrive, with some spilt eggs and an earring weapon thrown by Maetel stopping the police long enough to get into the train.

 

From a comedic standpoint, Tetsuro seems a lot more excited for the eggs in the TV version than in the manga.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Horo-Horo – Kohei Miyauchi

Lover – Nana Yamaguchi

Young Man – Akio Nojima

Policeman – Kouji Totani

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

The television version of this chapter was one of the earliest Galaxy Express 999 TV episodes I had seen, via a fansubbed VHS tape back in the days before the show was available on streaming services like Crunchyroll. It remains one of my favorite episodes. The overall concept of it is quite absurd, with Tetsuro meeting a living skeleton! The image of Horo-Horo revealing himself always stood out to me. Horo-Horo’s look before he reveals himself reminds me of design of black mage characters in the Final Fantasy video game series. At least early on, you do feel rather bad for Horo-Horo. Here’s this poor guy who is making it by only by selling eggs made on his farm. He must have been a bother to the hotel in the past as Tetsuro is warned not to let in peddlers like him. Of course, Tetsuro being who he is, both kind and naïve (not to mention thinking of his stomach!) lets Horo-Horo in anyway and gets quite the shock when he sees Horo-Horo’s true form! Horo-Horo used to be a flesh and blood human but through all the hard work he has endured and the betrayals suffered from his former girlfriend has been reduced to a skeleton, and one that is missing all his ribs too.

 

As the chapter continues, things start to take quite a dark turn. We do meet Horo-Horo’s former girlfriend, a beautiful young woman who left long ago for other worlds and is now back, most likely mechanized. She completely dismisses Horo-Horo and has a new lover who acts quite aggressively towards Tetsuro. Tetsuro goes to see Horo-Horo, who knows she is here but feels like he can’t show himself to her in this state. He speaks early in the chapter about working so he can get her back, but what has happened to him seems irreversible. He’s never going to get her back and it seems like he does realize that here. Horo-Horo is soon revealed to be a mass murderer, which was quite the shock to me, and opens a door full of skulls! He thankfully doesn’t actually kill Tetsuro, but does frame him and murders his former girlfriend and her lover.

 

Is Horo-Horo justified? Absolutely not. Horo-Horo is really obsessed with his former girlfriend, who was once poor like he was. She moved on to better herself, but he did not. Why she found an opportunity to leave but he did not is not explained. Horo-Horo should have accepted it for what it was and moved on. While beautiful, she doesn’t seem like that good a person here (although maybe she has changed over time). She seems materialistic, and is of an attitude that Horo-Horo, no matter what he did, never would get her back. It is unhealthy to focus so much on one person and Horo-Horo considered it so much of a betrayal that he loses all the flesh on his bones and his ribs too. Or perhaps Horo-Horo is in this state because he has kept himself living, despite his physical body dying? Perhaps he has gone on that long, wanting to get back to her? In any case he finally snaps here and kills her. Horo-Horo will now never get what he worked so much for. Will he keep on going? Who knows. It is rather unfortunate for Tetsuro that he is now branded a murderer on this planet because of it, but he is sympathetic enough to Horo-Horo to let it go.