The Fury Planet

The Fury Planet

Manga Chapter 6-5

TV Episode 31

Manga Chapter Summary:

The narrator explains to us that throughout the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies there are many planets with disturbing cultures of various kinds. Tetsuro asks Maetel if Andromeda has its own government like the Milky Way and if they get along with each other. He wonders why machine bodies are only given for free in Andromeda, whether due to technology, relations, or something else.

The Conductor announces their next stop as the Fury Planet, with a layover of 24 hours. He says to Tetsuro to expect to get a few lumps if leaving the train, although his life is unlikely to be in danger. Tetsuro considers the planet to look as if it’s raging in anger, and Maetel says that is because of the rapidly escaping atmospheric flow. Tetsuro starts feeling hot and takes his shirt off, but Maetel stays in her coat. Tetsuro wonders if people here will be similar to Sakezan’s Continent. Maetel steps away to get changed. The Conductor says he is going to change as well, although it won’t be just down to boxer shorts like Tetsuro. The Conductor soon reveals his new set of clothes to Tetsuro, which look just like the old ones, but are for a lighter climate.

The 999 stops in mid-air and the Conductor tells Tetsuro that a lift will come to get the passengers. Once Tetsuro and Maetel make their way down to the surface, Tetsuro finds himself immediately punched in the face by a man walking by, just for looking at him. Maetel tells Tetsuro to remain calm, but he is quite angry. He heads to a shop to get something to drink only to have a couple of men who are fighting each other make their way out of the place and into him. One of the men grabs the cloak off of Tetsuro and runs off.

Tetsuro and Maetel eventually make their way to a restaurant and Maetel offers Tetsuro her coat but he claims he’d be ashamed if he wore woman’s clothes. They order some pudding but just as it gets served another fight breaks out nearby and there’s an explosion in the restaurant. Tetsuro and Maetel walk down the street and a woman demands Maetel remove all of her clothes and give them to her. She comes at Maetel with a knife, but Maetel knocks her over. She offers Maetel her coat back but Maetel lets her keep it and they leave on friendly terms.

Tetsuro reads a newspaper expecting to read about murders, but doesn’t see any. A man approaches them in an alley with a gun, claiming he wants to shoot them. Maetel shoots back immediately, killing him. Tetsuro is surprised to see he’s a machine man, with green fuel, that Maetel claims is a new brand of mechanized humans. She claims he is an assassin, although not a local one, and thinks they should go back to the 999.

As they go on the lift and return to the 999, Tetsuro mentions the people here are as bright as angels, as if they don’t know sorrow. Maetel claims people lash out at each other without hesitation here and can freely vent their anger. Their joy and quarrels are as natural as breaths of air, and maybe people on the Earth wouldn’t need mechanical bodies if they were like this. Someone fires at them from the ground and nearly kills them, but they make it inside to the 999. Tetsuro wonders why they tried to kill them and Maetel says presumably to prevent their goal.

TV Episode Summary:

With this chapter not having the most in depth plot, the episode adds several elements, in particular there are four assassins who have been sent by the unseen Duke Mech, a friend of Count Mecha, to take out Tetsuro. Tetsuro also spends a decent amount of time with an old man, his wife and their sons.

One of the assassins tries to kill Tetsuro just after they try to enter the restaurant, but Maetel shoots him. Maetel removes something from his brain, causing her to determine he was an assassin sent after them. Shortly afterwards another of the assassins drives by on a flying car and throws a noose around Tetsuro’s neck, dragging him down the street. Tetsuro pulls out his gun and shoots down the vehicle. Tetsuro goes flying and falls into a bath being prepared by an old man, an old man who was fighting with his wife at the restaurant. He and his wife let Tetsuro sleep in their home and introduce him to their kids when he gets up. Maetel searches around for Tetsuro after finding the body of the assassin he killed and runs across a pair of men by a bridge who tell her someone else, the third assassin, has been asking about Tetsuro. Maetel finds the man, then pulls away his gun with her whip. He tells her about Duke Mech being responsible for things. The fourth assassin, and leader of the operation shoots him before he can finish revealing everything.

The assassin finds out from a girl where Tetsuro is. He enters the old couple’s house and forces Tetsuro to disarm by taking the wife hostage. The husband throws ice into his face just as he’s about to shoot Tetsuro, and the assassin flees. Tetsuro decides he’ll cause them trouble and leaves. The assassin again comes upon Tetsuro when he’s walking down the street, but Maetel shows up and shoots him. They decide to stay on a hotel that night instead of immediately returning to the 999, and head back up on the lift the next day.

The episode cuts a few things from the manga chapter, in particular much of the dialogue at the beginning between Tetsuro and Maetel about Andromeda and the Milky Way, the woman who tries to take all of Maetel’s clothes, and the shots being fired at Tetsuro and Maetel as they are on the lift back up to the 999. Finally, from a visual design standpoint, while they are down on the planet, Maetel leaves her coat open the entire time instead of having it closed as it is in the manga until the woman takes it from her.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Assassin A – Osamu Katou

Assassin B – Kouji Totani

Assassin C – Banjou Ginga

Mother – Shima Sakai

Father – Jouji Yanami

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

In this chapter the 999 heads to the Fury Planet, a planet filled with people who are often angry. Tetsuro experiences this anger immediately as a man punches him as soon as he gets to the planet! Although people are angry with each other and often get in fights here, both the Conductor and Maetel try to get across to Tetsuro that people aren’t doing it with deadly intentions. In fact it is Tetsuro who has to be calmed down by Maetel into not doing something he’d regret after he gets punched. This is later supported by a woman who tries to seize Maetel’s clothes and brandishes a knife, but suddenly becomes quite friendly once Maetel punches her out. Speaking of Maetel’s clothes, things are a bit odd this chapter; she mentions changing them on the train, and we see her bare legs as the 999 arrives at the planet, but in the next panel she has her coat on as usual. Maetel gives her coat away to the aforementioned woman, but then suddenly has another one once back on the 999. This is at least the third version of Maetel’s coat as we saw one taken by a beggar/thief back in chapter 2-4, “The Planet of 1,765,000,000 Beggars”.

There are a few on this planet though that actually want to take Tetsuro and Maetel’s life. First we have a man who corners them in an alley, and then as they are departing the planet on a lift, several shots are fired at them. Why this is the case isn’t explained at all. This is quite the oddity for this manga, as we typically get answers for any plot-related matters by the end of the chapter/story. The TV episode adds more backstory (and 3 more assassins), explaining that Duke Mech, a friend of Count Mecha hired them to kill Tetsuro. The leader of the assassins comes off as a low rent Captain Harlock, with the eyepatch and facial scar. I felt that the assassins were taken out too easily in the episode, and it was rather annoying that one of them grabs Tetsuro with a noose and drags him along the street given that the same thing happened back in chapter 3-2/3-3, “Professional’s Spirit”. Beyond that though, it was a fun chapter to read/episode to watch and rather fun with how much people argue with each other on this planet.

In Japanese, the title of the chapter is a bit of a play at words; the kanji for it means “Furious” planet, but Matsumoto uses the kanji for “Furious” and “Hair” so it could also be considered the “Furry” planet.