The Great Chief, Cicropros

The Great Chief, Cicropros

Manga Chapter 7-4

TV Episode 36

Manga Chapter Summary:

The Conductor announces the 999’s next stop as Ghost Colony, with a stop of only a little over 2 hours. Maetel claims it is an old, long-abandoned space station. Galactic trains stop there but there is no desire to stay long. The station looks like a planet encased in a glass globe. Maetel claims it functions perfectly, but all the people have left it. She also says its climate is similar to that of Earth’s. The layout in the colony looks perfectly arranged, but Maetel claims no one trusts it so no one stays there.

Tetsuro is a bit hesitant once they reach the station; why get off on a world where no one resides? The Conductor claims the computer is detecting signs of life though, with human thought patterns. Maetel wonders if someone crashed here and hands Tetsuro his gun, saying they should check it out. They find a half-eaten turkey leg, then wander the streets of the town, finding it nostalgic, but still abandoned. Tetsuro also finds a cup of ramen, which is still warm. They head into the house nearby and suddenly numerous doors open, all with the same bald man peeking his head out! They call Tetsuro and Maetel monsters and soon a massive crowd; hundreds of them appear.

Maetel claims this is Doctor Cicropros, the great doctor who built this colony and is the best designer of satellite colonies in the universe. Maetel wonders where the original Dr. Cicropros is and he shows his face from a nearby building. Cicropros claims he is doing well, and created these men as clones from his cells. He claims this is an experiment to show how secure and convenient his colony is. His replicates will then spill out into more territories. Some of the replicates outside call Tetsuro a demon and a dog.

Suddenly Cicropros collapses; Maetel claims he must be overworked. Tetsuro goes to the closet to try and get a futon for him only for a ton of dirty shorts to fall out! Maetel tells Tetsuro she’ll take care of Cicropros and that he should go back to the train. Cicropros calls out to his replicates to not lay a hand on Tetsuro. Tetsuro starts heading back, thinking of how lucky he is that Maetel and Cicropros are friends. In his home, Maetel takes off her coat and Cicropros adjusts the temperature, claiming he can do it for the whole colony within his room.

At the station, Tetsuro and the Conductor worry about Maetel, although the Conductor is confident they won’t harm her. Suddenly the entire colony starts shaking! Maetel makes her way back to the station and claims the colony will explode very soon! Tetsuro asks about Cicropros and his clones, but Maetel simply remains silent. The entire colony explodes shortly after the 999 departs.

Maetel says Cicropros decided his efforts were in vain and he decided to commit suicide. She says he, along with his clones, tried to regain the trust he lost. During construction of a prior colony, he made a mistake and all the colonists who settled there died, due to a single loose screw. Since then no one trusted him. She shows Tetsuro a book, saying it’s his journal, full of his regrets. She says Cicropros wanted Tetsuro to have it, although once it is read it should be ripped apart. She says sometimes it takes more than a lifetime to regain trust. We soon see ripped pages of the journal floating out into space as torn out by Tetsuro. Maetel says these regrets will be the only thing remaining of him and his colony.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV episode is fairly faithful to the original chapter, with just some expanded sequences, most likely to be able to spread the story across the whole episode. At the start of the episode we have a brief new scene where another train passes the 999, heading to another planet. Once they arrive at the colony, Tetsuro shows more desire to get off the train than he had in the manga, while Maetel is hesitant until the Conductor says they have detected signs of life.

In the episode, Tetsuro and Maetel spot someone in the house before they head into it, via the window. As in the manga, they quickly come across many of Cicropros’ replicas. There’s a chase sequence where the replicas chase Tetsuro and Maetel until they hide in an alley. Maetel says they have to find the real Cicropros causing them to run into the giant crowd of his replicas again. The real Cicropros appears in a flying car instead of being spotted at a nearby house. Cicropros starts showing signs of being ill before they even step inside his home.

We have some more dialogue between Cicropros and Maetel where he’s happy that he’s found someone who trusts him and this colony, and that it is her who does so. We also see him deciding to give something to Tetsuro before she goes. After Maetel returns to the train and the colony starts shaking, we get another brief scene of Cicropros in his futon, thinking to himself of how he is happy. Finally, Maetel’s explanation of Cyclop’s past failure with the colony is described as applying to this colony, while in the manga it was another colony he had built that failed.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Cicropros – Teiichi Takiguchi

Clone A – Kouji Totani

Clone B – Seiji Satou

Clone C – Banjou Ginga

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This chapter features the 999 arriving at a colony that initially appears abandoned, but is soon revealed to be populated by hundreds of clones! It is a rather funny, but also frightening sight as Tetsuro and Maetel are quickly surrounded by them. Luckily Maetel knows their creator, Dr. Cicropros, the creator of the colony, leading to their visit with him. This is another one of those chapters where things with Maetel seem a bit mysterious. She spends time with Cicropros, tells Tetsuro to return back to the 999, then the entire colony explodes. Just what happened in that final conversation between Maetel and Cicropros? Cicropros actually seemed rather optimistic that his plan to clone himself would help result in people thinking his colony was safe and come here. Yet mere moments later he decides to kill himself? I’m not saying Maetel purposely killed him, and she has no motive, but it really does seem strange that things happened this way.

I did like the final reveal of Cyclop’s backstory, which explained why the colony was empty and he had to resort to cloning himself. The chapter includes a couple of references back to the “Illusion World of 4 ½ Mats” chapter, in particular the closet full of dirty shorts, and Tetsuro name drops that world while they are wandering the streets. The chapter also ties back to the previous chapter, “Ulatores’ Mountain of Screws” in that it mentions the colony failed because of one loose screw. Beyond that, this isn’t that interesting of a chapter to me; I don’t know if I’d say it’s one of the weaker storylines, but it is one that I struggle to have much thoughts about.