The Rebellion of C62

The Rebellion of C62

Manga Chapter 8-3

TV Episode 69

Manga Chapter Summary:

Tetsuro comments on what looks like a blue belt in front of them, which Maetel says is an oxygen jet stream. The train suddenly comes to a stop. The Conductor comes in and says he’s waiting for a signal, claiming there was an accident ahead of them. He opens the train window and points out a red traffic light nearby. It is okay to open the window because of the oxygen jet stream. Maetel asks what the cause of the accident is and the Conductor claims he doesn’t know; there’s been no report on it.

The Conductor goes to the 999’s locomotive to see if there’s any report. A couple of hours pass and Tetsuro waits for the traffic light to turn blue, signaling that they can go. He decides to doze off. He wakes up, finding that the Conductor has dumped a lot of books on him that he brought from the library car. The Conductor claims that the books are for Maetel, and Tetsuro realizes that they will likely be stopped a while with so many books. The Conductor says she has gone to the locomotive, and despite his objections, Tetsuro says he’s going to head over there.

In the locomotive, Maetel is talking to the mysterious voice that has appeared several times previously. He claims this is a test, one that he doesn’t want Tetsuro to be aware of. The train’s locomotive, C62, says it is neutral and simply runs according to the rules of the Galaxy Express. Tetsuro comes in and Maetel claims she was talking to the locomotive about the accident, which C62 corroborates. They head back to their train car.

More time passes and Tetsuro doesn’t feel like reading any of the books so he goes to sleep. Suddenly, the locomotive train car of the 999 detaches itself and flies off. Even the Conductor doesn’t know what is going on. They are thankful to be in a zone where there is oxygen. More time passes. It has now been 15 hours since the 999 stopped, and the Conductor takes out some alcohol for them to drink. In order to pass the time, Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor play a game where they stack up the books like dominos, with Tetsuro winning.

We next see Maetel playing a guitar while the Conductor dances and Tetsuro watches. We see the locomotive referencing how the train has now stopped for 58 hours, yet Tetsuro has somehow been able to pass the time. At the Galaxy Express administration office at Megalopolis Station on Earth, we see administrators questioning why the locomotive left the rest of the train and how strange it is, because locomotives shouldn’t have their own will. They talk about sending out a sensor car.

Back on the 999, 60 hours have now passed. Tetsuro and the Conductor have a race and end up tying. Maetel suggests they sleep some more, which they do. While they are sleeping, the locomotive returns. Tetsuro wakes up and Maetel tells him it has returned, and the traffic light has turned blue. After a 74 hour wait, the 999 can finally move again.

The Conductor comes in and says their next stop will be “Femail’s Memories”. This surprises Maetel, as there is no station with that name. Maetel tells Tetsuro he has passed the test, the most boring test in the universe, a test about killing time. C62 ponders Tetsuro’s purpose, and the fact that he is seeking to get a mechanical body despite the fact that a mechanical man killed his mother. C62 thinks it will be clearer when they reach the planet Heavy Melder.

TV Episode Summary:

With this being a manga chapter with not much plot happening, we have a lot of stuff added to the episode, in particular a plotline about a couple of robbers. The episode begins with the robbers stealing gold from a downed train, the 555, at a medical asteroid. Early in the episode when the Conductor goes to the locomotive, he is tripped by a man who is sitting there with a companion. It is pretty obvious that they are the two robbers, and we will learn through the course of the episode that their names are Gandel and Mozel. 

Tetsuro running over to the locomotive to see what Maetel is doing is cut; rather the locomotive car takes off before she comes back. Tetsuro worries if Maetel is on it, but she steps into the train car shortly afterwards. Tetsuro despairs over not being able to fulfill the promise to his mother about traveling to Andromeda and Maetel tells him to be patient. Tetsuro asks Maetel what she was doing in the locomotive, but she doesn’t say. The robbers come in and demand to know what is going on, and that they are in a rush. Tetsuro quickly grows to dislike them. They get frustrated at the Conductor not being able to call back the locomotive.

Time with the Galaxy Express railway administration is fleshed out a bit, and they talk more about the recent robbery and that the 999 is reportedly nearby. The robbers get frustrated at the Conductor and Tetsuro running and while talking, the Conductor notices they have a bag of money with the 555 train written on it. He and Tetsuro realize that the two of them must have boarded the 999 while they were at the medical asteroid in a prior episode (one that the 999 landed at in the episode “Dyruz the Space Monk” which was adapted in episode 67). The two robbers pull out guns and tell them to go to the center of the train.

One of the robbers sees a light approaching the 999, which the Conductor says is an SDF (self-defense force) train. Tetsuro says they are coming after the robbers. The armed SDF train car shortly arrives and aims its cannon at the 999, saying they are going to search them. Tetsuro tells the robbers they should turn themselves in and that happiness comes from hard work, not thievery. A bridge makes its way out of the SDF train towards them with some men on it. Mozel warns them that he will kill Tetsuro if they approach, causing them to back off. Mozel demands they attach a SDF train car to the 999. Tetsuro says he’d rather die than let these jerks get away with this.

The men from the SDF train go along with the robber’s demands, and its front train car attaches itself to the 999. With the new car in front, the 999 is able to move again. Suddenly we see the 999’s locomotive return, and it attaches itself to the other side of the 999. The 999 shakes and this enables Tetsuro and Maetel to disarm the robbers. Mozel flees with the money while Gandel is brought down by Maetel’s whip. Tetsuro chases Mozel through several train cars and shoots his bag of money, causing him to surrender. We later see the robbers handed over to the authorities from the SDF train. At the end of the episode, Maetel returns to the locomotive, asking the mysterious voice if she really has to take Tetsuro with her, and she is told yes.

The Conductor bringing out alcohol to drink is cut out, as is any references to Femail’s Memories being the next stop. Some dialogue that the locomotive has with itself about Tetsuro’s quest for a mechanical body is also cut.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Gandel – Hiroshi Masuoka

Mozel – Rokurou Naya

Mysterious Voice – Banjou Ginga

Management Staff – Hiroshi Takagi

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This is quite the odd chapter, with a storyline I never really expected. Maetel wants to test Tetsuro’s ability to kill time, and the 999’s locomotive, C62, agrees and detaches from the train, causing it to be stranded in space for 74 hours. During that time Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor have to do a bunch of different things to kill time. Eventually C62 returns, enabling the 999 to move again, and Maetel admits to Tetsuro that it was a test. Why is Maetel testing Tetsuro? Unfortunately this isn’t explained in the manga chapter or the episode. Perhaps because when he becomes mechanized, Tetsuro will be living for such a long period of time that Maetel wants to know if he will be able to handle the boredom?

It was fun to see some down time on the 999, including our protagonists playing various kinds of games to keep themselves occupied. At the same time, I can totally understand why they felt the need in the TV episode to add in an entirely new storyline that takes up roughly half the episode, if not more. This is a rather dull chapter, but one you can read through really quickly. Stretching out just what was in the manga to a 25 minute episode would have been extremely difficult without adding something. That said, the storyline with the robbers was not that interesting and just comes off as total filler. It has been a long time since we’ve had an episode of the show that included two separate manga storylines in it, but this would have been a good opportunity to do so.

The fact that they held back on adapting this manga chapter for the TV show for quite a while causes some complications with references to other chapters/episodes which this chapter/episode has several of! In something that is extremely rare for this manga, we have some dialogue leading into the next manga chapter, “Femail’s Memories”. This dialogue is cut from the episode, as they had already adapted that episode quite a lot earlier (around 25-30 episodes or so earlier in fact). Also the episode references them landing at a medical asteroid recently, this is an event that occurred in episode 67 of the TV show, adapting the manga chapter “Dyruz the Space Monk” which we haven’t reached yet in the manga. Oddly enough, we have another unrelated story, “A Planet Called Curiosity” used between them for episode 68, where neither of the robbers appear.

Translator’s Note: Translating the chapter, it was a bit difficult on my part to always be able to tell with some of the dialogue whether it was C62 speaking or the mysterious voice that occasionally talks to Maetel. It was obvious in the early scene with Maetel in the locomotive that both of them were talking, but in later scenes it’s a lot harder to tell, especially because these later scenes were cut from the episode. So it is possible that some of the dialogue I attribute to C62 in my summary of the chapter was actually the mysterious voice.

Spoiler Analysis:

There is reference to the planet Heavy Melder towards the end of the chapter; we will eventually come to this planet in chapters 12-4/13-1, “The Pirate’s Time Castle”. Those who have seen the Galaxy Express 999 movie will also recognize it as a stop.