The Planet of Dimensional Expedition

The Planet of Dimensional Expedition

Manga Chapter 5-3

TV Episode 24

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999 passes through an area of space where there are numerous fragments of a planet floating around. The Conductor says their next stop was to be the Ocean Planet, but it has now vanished. He goes to verify it with the train’s computer. The train is suddenly derailed, and its artificial gravity fails. The 999 finds itself crashed on a desolate looking planet. The Conductor is confused though as this is at the site of what is supposed to be the Ocean Planet.

Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor ask the train’s locomotive computer, but it does not have any data on the planet. There also aren’t any errors in the computer. Maetel spots a long haired woman dressed in black atop a cliff. Tetsuro says she looks like a Queen. Maetel says she is Queen Egoterina, of the Planet of Dimensional Expedition. Suddenly a lot of explosions occur around the 999, which Maetel says are warning shots for them not to move. Maetel tells Tetsuro to eat so he’ll be prepared to fight and the two quickly consume a meal.

 

There is suddenly another explosion as the 999 is hit. Egoterina comes by, standing on a floating device and claims those who stand in her way shall perish. Egoterina tells her soldiers to recover Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor. The three of them eventually wake up, in a giant bed! A handmaiden comes in, telling them the Queen’s Banquet is all set and to come eat with her. They sit at an extremely long table, with lavish food all over it. Egoterina sits at the other end and asks them their names, getting upset when the Conductor is about to say his. Egoterina tells them to eat with no restraint and they will remember it for the rest of their life. Egoterina quickly gets upset at how Tetsuro eats like a pig and demands her underlings throw them in prison.

 

Maetel explains to Tetsuro that a trait of those in Egoterina’s dynasty is to change their mind all the time and never dwell on the problems they cause others. Tetsuro spots a guillotine outside and Maetel suspects they will be executed tomorrow. The Conductor is able to remove a stone in the wall, finding a passage they can crawl through. They eventually make their way out through the fireplace in Egoterina’s room, where she sleeps.

The three of them quietly make their way out and head to the core of the planet, a giant computer that enables its propulsion. Tetsuro grabs a lamp and smashes it into it. They make their way out back towards the 999 while Egoterina is informed of what happened. Egoterina quickly approaches them and Maetel stays back to confront her while Tetsuro and the Conductor make their way to the 999. Maetel quickly comes back and we find Egoterina, knocked out on the ground.

 

Back on the 999, Maetel explains to Tetsuro how Egoterina’s planet arrived from another dimension and drove the Ocean Planet out of existence. She says the victim planet won’t always be of diminutive size and that someday this planet will be reduced to ashes. The 999 decouples its destroyed train cars and takes off. Maetel tells Tetsuro that without its propulsion system this planet will remain stationary for a while, but if it is mended it will continue to roam the universe. Eventually she says though, the planet will fade away.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV episode doesn’t make any major changes to the plot, but does flesh things out a bit. In a new scene at the start of the episode, we see a green train heading in the opposite direction which Maetel says is heading for Earth. Tetsuro confirms his intentions to not go home and to continue on his journey to obtain a mechanical body.

 

Once on the Planet of Dimensional Expedition, we see warning shots fired around the 999 before Tetsuro spots Egoterina; this occurred after that in the manga. We see a shot of the Planet of Dimensional Expedition destroying a planet when Maetel first talks about her. Egoterina has her soldiers show the destruction of another nearby train as a warning to the 999, and we see a flashback of the train being destroyed. Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor remain on the 999, wanting to fight. Egoterina sends her soldiers after them and they shoot at each other. Eventually the soldiers blow up one of the train cars resulting in the capture we see in the manga.

 

Tetsuro is much more of a slob at the dinner table in the episode, including having a really good time eating the food, getting his face all messy, and pushing the Conductor to eat. Egoterina gets so angry that she pulls the tablecloth and messes up the entire table. Instead of making their way out of the tunnel via Egoterina’s room, our protagonists exit via a hallway and take one of Egoterina’s guards hostage and have him lead them to the navigation room. Tetsuro shoots at the computer core with his gun instead of just throwing a lamp at it. We see more of the escape from Egoterina’s castle than in the manga. We also see her get up and angrily slap and knock down one of her subordinates after being told the news.

 

We see Maetel pull out a whip as Egoterina approaches her. Unlike the manga, we are able to see the two fight each other, with Maetel also utilizing a beam that she fires out of a ring on her finger. Maetel eventually knocks Egoterina off her hovering platform. Egoterina tells Maetel to kill her because she’s been disgraced. Maetel tells her off over her behavior and says she won’t be able to freely decide when she dies. Egoterina cries as Maetel departs. Maetel tells Tetsuro that she let Egoterina live and that being humiliated is worse for her than death.

 

The scene of Tetsuro and Maetel eating on the 999 is the one scene notable in the manga to me that was cut from the episode. Also, a line of dialogue at the dinner table that almost reveals the Conductor’s name is cut.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Egoterina – Taeko Nakanishi

Soldier A – Keaton Yamada

Soldier B – Kouji Totani

Soldier C – Seiji Sato

Handmaiden – Satomi Majima

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This chapter features a planet that can travel throughout space and dimension, as if it is a giant wrecking ball. As the 999 approaches its next destination, the Ocean Planet, it finds the planet completely destroyed, replaced by what Maetel calls the Planet of Dimensional Expedition. We soon find the planet, which is ruled by Queen Egoterina, a rather mentally unstable woman who causes a lot of problems for our heroes. Egoterina’s mood seems to swing wildly. After initially shooting warning shots, she blows up part of the 999 without further warning or action from our heroes. She then invites our protagonists to a lavish dinner, one fit for a Queen. Yet, in one of the most hilarious scenes in all of Galaxy Express 999 for me (in particular in the episode, where he is much more over the top), Tetsuro is such a slob eating that Egoterina demands they all get thrown in prison! The end of the TV episode has Maetel telling off Egoterina based on her behavior. That she basically has done whatever she wants and no one has ever told her no until now. It’s a good way to describe her. While a full grown adult, she comes off like a rowdy teenager.

 

It is luckily an easy escape for our protagonists. I liked the setting for the episode, primarily taking place in what is like an old European castle. The landscape outside reminds me much of what we saw fairly recently on planet Jewel in “Pirate Ship Queen Emeraldas”. The mystery over Maetel continues; she stays behind to take on Egoterina and quickly subdues her although we don’t see how, at least in the manga. In the TV episode we do have a fight sequence between the two.

One thing I didn’t particularly care for in the chapter was a scene where Maetel tells Tetsuro they should eat before heading out, this is for all intents and purposes an exact duplication of a scene from the recent “Pirate Ship Queen Emeraldas” chapter and makes a bit less sense occurring here as well as its after they’ve already landed on the planet and are in danger. Maetel even has some wine; you’d think she shouldn’t consume alcohol before they could be pushed into danger. This is a wise cut from the episode. We came awfully close to learning the Conductor’s name in this chapter, which I would have liked to see, although Egoterina interrupts him before he can say it.