The Country of Atonement

The Country of Atonement

Manga Chapter 4-4

TV Episode 19

 Manga Chapter Summary:

As the 999 approaches another planet, Tetsuro hears bell sounds ringing out from it. Maetel claims acoustic waves on the planet have been turned into gravitational waves that can be heard from space. The Conductor announces their next stop as the Country of Atonement, with a layover of just over 2 weeks. Tetsuro thinks the bell sound fits perfectly with the name of the planet, although Maetel tells him people don’t like it when travelers hear the bell. 

 

Tetsuro and Maetel get off the train, finding a beautiful town with no cars. As they start walking towards the hotel, they realize the Conductor is following them! He tells them that he is permitted one holiday each time they leave Earth, although he doesn’t get to choose when. This time it is on this planet. He is staying at another hotel, more modest than the one Tetsuro and Maetel are at. After they separate, Maetel realizes the Conductor is in danger and rushes to him, finding him knocked over on the ground in a nearby park. He claims he has been robbed, losing even his reservation voucher. Maetel and Tetsuro invite him to stay with him at their hotel.

At the hotel, a housekeeper claims the bath is ready for them, and the Conductor gets very nervous at the prospect of taking one. Maetel receives a call and says she and Tetsuro must go to the lobby, telling him he will be alone and can take his bath. As they depart the hotel, Tetsuro wonders what the Conductor looks like under his uniform. Maetel speculates that there may be nothing at all underneath there. Suddenly a trapdoor opens up beneath them and they fall into a dark room. Voices speak and plot to also seize the Conductor. 

 

A woman makes her way into the hotel room, then the bathroom, where the Conductor, revealed to be completely invisible without his uniform, demands she stop and not look at him. The woman claims to be a member of the 13^th service succeeding to the control of cleanliness. When she enters the bathroom, she screams. Meanwhile in the chamber where Tetsuro and Maetel are kept, the voices discuss this woman, and also talk about bringing Tetsuro and Maetel to an elimination chamber. The two of them are exported into a high speed craft. Maetel tells Tetsuro he’ll know what is going on soon enough and to not resist, kissing him on the forehead. 

 

The voices talk about how they must erase any bad memories of an incident occurring on their planet and start emitting gas into the craft. A light emanates out, and Tetsuro and Maetel wake up outside on the sidewalk. Tetsuro says he recalls their memories being erased, but he hasn’t actually lost his memory. Maetel tells him this planet’s machines have no effect on them. She tells him her kiss applied anti-radiation formula to his forehead which prevented any effect. They get into a taxi and head back towards the hotel. The authorities realize that their memory reformatting hasn’t worked and they still remain a danger.

A flying vehicle attacks the taxi Tetsuro and Maetel are in, although both make it out alive. It attacks again, but the Conductor, brandishing Tetsuro’s cosmo weapon, blows it up. The Conductor tells him of how the assassin sent to kill him lost consciousness when she saw him nude. He was able to get information from her about their location. At that moment the woman assassin is found muttering to herself in the hotel room. Maetel tells Tetsuro that reality is no different than any other on this planet. There are good and bad people here. But all attempts are made to make this planet seem as pure, fair and beautiful to travelers as possible. 

 

With Tetsuro and Maetel now safely on the train, a couple of uniformed men outside ask them to get off, claiming they’ll offer a delicious meal and put them up in the best hotel on the planet. Maetel claims there’s nothing they can do to them as long as they stay on the 999. The men beg them to not reveal the robbery, fearing it will damage the reputation of their planet. Tetsuro simply sticks out his tongue at them and the 999 takes off.

TV Episode Summary:

The biggest change in the TV episode is that there is a Cleanliness Committee Chief who acts as the main antagonist. Within the manga, we only hear the voice of the people in charge, but don’t actually see them. We get a few scenes with the character and he also is one of the men who goes to the 999 at the end of the chapter to try and convince Tetsuro and Maetel to come off. 

 

Other than that, there are only a couple of minor changes. At the start of the episode we have a brief new scene when the 666 train passes by and Maetel tells Tetsuro they are 1/3 of the way on their journey, which, considering there are 94 episodes left, is way off the mark! In the TV episode we see the Conductor being mugged, in the manga we don’t see him until after it has happened.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Cleanliness Bureau Chief - Kouji Yada

Cleanliness Bureau Staff A - Eken Mine

Cleanliness Bureau Staff B - Tadashi Sato

Spy G – Harumi Ichiryusai

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This is a pretty interesting chapter, with a few things I really liked about it. The first is that this is a rare chance for the Conductor to have a larger role in the storyline. It is good to see him actually getting a vacation for once! The Conductor is the sole character beyond Tetsuro and Maetel that we get to see every chapter/episode and while he does get some characterization at times, it is rare for him to have a moment where he gets to step out of his role. Although I feel bad that he doesn’t get to choose when or where. He suffers from incredibly bad luck; mere minutes after coming off the train he gets robbed. I’m used to Tetsuro having his pass stolen, but this time it is the Conductor who is the target. This sets off a chain reaction that sets in motion the rest of the chapter’s events. While he can’t attend his hotel anymore, Tetsuro and Maetel invite him to stay with them. I noticed that the Conductor references having to stay at a more modest hotel, and the hotel room Tetsuro and Maetel are in is quite large. This, along with the allowance that we periodically see Tetsuro given by the 999 goes to show the amount of luxury one can experience if they are fortunate enough to maintain a 999 pass. The stay in the hotel room reveals that the Conductor is extremely nervous to reveal what he looks like underneath that uniform, and he faces his worst case scenario even with Tetsuro and Maetel leaving to give him some privacy. Luckily for him, his form scares the assassin sent to kill him, and he even gets information out of her! That the Conductor doesn’t have a visual form (I assume he has a body, but it is invisible) isn’t surprising to me, although it certainly was to the assassin.

 

The other notable aspect to this chapter was the authorities on the planet trying their hardest to silence Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor. The planet has a good reputation, but this is actually a complete ruse. Bad things do happen here, but the authorities do everything they can to cover it up. Even something as minor as a person being robbed causes them to go to great lengths to cover it up, even attempted murder! You’ve got to think that this wasn’t an isolated event (although perhaps word of the 999 arriving made it more apt to happen), and many people may have been silenced as they attempted to do to Tetsuro and Maetel. It makes me think back to George Orwell’s famous novel 1984 where history is constantly rewritten to serve the needs of “Big Brother’ and the ruling party. What actually happened needs to be covered up and forgotten if it doesn’t serve the needs of those in charge. Unfortunately I feel our society is moving more and more in that direction today where much of the news and what the media is saying is manufactured in order to influence people. Certainly not to the extent of what we see occurring on this planet, but it’s a dangerous precedent and unfortunate that it has just gotten so much worse since when this chapter was published over 40 years ago. Ultimately our heroes are able to escape the planet unscathed and one wonders if they will reveal the truth of what happened on this planet to anyone else.

 

I found it interesting in the manga that we never see who is in charge of the attempts to silence Tetsuro and Maetel, we just hear their voices. In the TV adaption they create a character to take this role who doesn’t come off as that threatening.

Spoiler Analysis:

This is one of the very few chapters in the manga/episodes that put the Conductor character in more of a spotlight. We will get another one in chapter 8-4/episode 42 (Femail’s Memories) where we meet a former girlfriend of his. My recollection is this is the only time we see the Conductor with his uniform fully removed, although there is another chapter where his hat falls off and you can see just empty space where his head is. Unfortunately I can’t recall what chapter that is in. 

 

In the movie Adieu Galaxy Express 999, which was an original story not based on the manga, we do have a brief scene where the Conductor opens up his coat and reveals his invisible body to Tetsuro.