The Settlers of Sisyphus

The Settlers of Sisyphus

Manga Chapter 5-2

TV Episode 71

Manga Chapter Summary:

The 999 passes through a portion of space where a variety of nebulas can be seen around them. Maetel Tetsuro some are recently created while others are ancient. One of them passes close by the window and into the train car itself. Maetel holds it within her hands, saying it has planets and stars within it, just like our solar system. People live and die in the blink of an eye. She ponders if it is the same for their universe and if it is simply held in the hands of creatures far larger than them. Maetel lets it out the window back into the vacuum of space.

 

The Conductor announces their next stop as “Sisyphus”, with a layover of 30 minutes. Maetel tells him this planet is a barren region that resembles the entrance of hell. People live there, but they are quite strange. As the 999 heads down towards the planet Tetsuro notices that there are fields of rock throughout the land. Small nebulas continue to float in the air around them. Tetsuro wonders where the people are and if they are human.

A mud covered man announces himself, right behind Tetsuro. He works on the field, although Tetsuro is flabbergasted at how anything can grow here. The mud man’s goal is to plow the surface of the world and has faith that someday rice, wheat, radishes and turnips will grow here. He claims his body got covered with mud while he was working here and now he can’t get rid of it; it’s like second skin to him. Tetsuro wonders if it ever rains here and asks if he has fertilizer. The man claims there is more than enough although he can’t show it to him. He tells Tetsuro his name is Gonbei.

 

Tetsuro and Maetel return to the 999. In the dining car, Tetsuro claims even ramen tastes bland while looking at the terrain here. They lower the blinds. The Conductor stops by with his eyes closed, acting as if the planet disturbs him. Suddenly a large bird flies over the 999 and starts going through the field, eating the seeds Gonbei planted. Tetsuro yells at the bird, making it angry and fires several times into it. The wounded bird flees and Tetsuro chases it, causing him to fall off a cliff.

At the bottom of the cliff, Tetsuro finds the bodies of numerous people, all with mud-like skin like Gonbei. Gonbei is there, mixing them up in some sort of vat and reveals to Tetsuro he uses their bodies as fertilizer. Tetsuro finds this cruel, but Gonbei says that making this world lush with vegetation was critical to them. They all passed away with the wish that their deaths would be useful. The dead all appear to have smiles on their faces. Gonbei says leaving this world was a relief for them and now he’s all alone. He puts some of the fertilizer in two wooden buckets and heads off.

 

 The 999 returns to space. Tetsuro tells Maetel he hopes this world will be covered in green when they return on the journey back. Tetsuro and Maetel talk about how there must be others like Gonbei out in the universe, believing in the future of their work.

TV Episode Summary:

Being a rather simple chapter, this episode adds quite a bit to it. When hearing of the name of the planet Tetsuro thinks of a fable of children who would stack rocks and a giant ogre would come to smash them. The layover time on the planet is extended to over 5 hours. The biggest change is we have a new character, Yosaku, who is Gonbei’s son. Yosaku doesn’t have faith like Gonbei does and claims they are the only two left on the planet as everyone else left. He plans to leave as well once an emigration ship arrives. Gonbei is dedicated to pioneering this planet and doesn’t want to leave with him.

 

Yosaku talks about how many other pioneers came to this planet, but due to the planet’s conditions, they weren’t able to have success. Even when crops grew a monster would arrive to destroy them. It is he who reveals to Tetsuro that Gonbei has used the dead as fertilizer, and the scene where Tetsuro finds many bodies and Gonbei turning them into fertilizer is cut. Yosaku says even his mother passed away. We flash back to Yosaku crying over his dead mother. Yosaku returns to their home where he starts playing the guitar.

When the monster bird arrives, Gonbei charges at it and the bird simply knocks him away. Tetsuro comes out to help and chases the bird away as he did in the manga, but passes out upon falling down the cliff. Tetsuro wakes up in Gonbei’s home with Gonbei and Maetel watching over him. Yosaku thinks Tetsuro is idiotic for fighting over things that have nothing to do with him. Maetel claims that’s how Tetsuro lives his life. Yosaku thinks humans just live for themselves but Maetel claims his father isn’t like that; he’ll stay here for the sake of those that have died. The emigration ship Yosaku is waiting for arrives just after.

 

Yosaku asks his father one last time to come with him, but he declines. As Yosaku heads out towards the ship, the monster bird returns. Gonbei heads out to fight him, trying to defend the field his son planted. The monster bird simply tosses him aside again. The ship is only a minute away from departing, but Yosaku can’t help but run to help his father and the ship takes off. Yosaku charges at the bird, attacking its foot with his hoe. Tetsuro shoots the bird in the mouth and it changes to stone then crumbles. Yosaku thanks Tetsuro and tells his father he understands him better now and will stay here with him.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Gonbei – Kouhei Miyauchi

Yosaku – Keiichi Noda

Emigration Ship Voice – Kouji Totani

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

It is a rather odd and quiet chapter this time. It reminds me in part of some of the earlier, brief storylines we would get in the manga which have been overtaken by longer, more complicated storylines for a while The first part of the chapter features the 999 traveling through a part of space with a lot of small nebulas floating around. Maetel even grabs one to hold in her hands and talks about the planets and small beings that must live inside it. The concept of miniature worlds is a common one I’ve seen in science fiction, going back to decades before this manga even came out. For all we know, we could be part of a universe that is miniature to beings exponentially larger than us. Hopefully not! Wiping away an entire universe to them may be like stepping on a bug to us.

 

The latter part of the chapter brings us to the planet Sisyphus. Sisyphus is a reference to Greek mythology. Sisyphus was the king of Corinth and was known for trickery and cheating death. Eventually, the God Zeus punished him by forcing him to forever roll a boulder up a hill in Hades (Hell). The actual planet by this name in the chapter doesn’t appear to have direct inspiration from this myth beyond the name. It is a planet where we see only one person alive, a man named Gonbei who has been covered in mud for so long that it’s like skin to him. Although we see that all others that lived on the planet with him have similar such skin. Either they were working long in the fields like him, or that is part of this planet’s environment. The big surprise in the chapter comes when Tetsuro realizes that Gonbei is using the bodies of his deceased colleagues to make fertilizer! A rather morbid concept, but it is something that can be done in real life.

 

Beyond that, I don’t have much to say about this chapter. For me it was one of the less interesting ones. The most drama the chapter has is a few pages where a giant bird shows up, but Tetsuro simply chases it away rather quickly. The TV episode adds Yosaku, Gonbei’s son, and there is a bit of drama surrounding Yosaku wanting to leave the planet, but Gonbei being dedicated to staying. I will say the ending was a bit more hopeful than I figured it would be. My prediction was that the monster bird would kill Gonbei and Yosaku would stay on the planet to honor his memory but both survived. I guess I’m used to the rather melancholy nature of many of Galaxy Express 999’s stories!

 

Translation Note: The official streaming version of Galaxy Express 999 as seen on platforms such as Crunchyroll and Tubi title this episode “Pioneers of the River of Purgatory” instead of “The Settlers of Sisyphus”.