Witch of Plated City

Witch of Plated City

Manga Chapter 7-2

TV Episodes 34 and 35

Manga Chapter Summary:

Tetsuro notices a bright light emanating throughout the 999. It is coming from the next planet that they are approaching, Plated. The planet shines so brightly that Tetsuro can’t make anything out. Maetel tells him everything on this world is gold; not just objects but people too. Tetsuro wonders if people can tell each other apart on such a planet. The 999 lands and Tetsuro finds the sparkling city unbearable. The two of them head to a hotel where the staff person calls them dirty beings before realizing they are 999 passengers.

As they are brought to their room Tetsuro comments on how the people here are like those on the planet of Fireflies they visited. Tetsuro finds that everything in their hotel room is also gold, the bed, the walls, even the bath water! Tetsuro climbs into his bed, planning to go to sleep when there is a buzzing at the door. Tetsuro answers it but is knocked out. Maetel finds that her trunk is gone and Tetsuro rushes out of the door with his gun, trying to take down the thief. Tetsuro shoots at the thief, who falls off a bridge into the water.

Tetsuro looks down at the thief and realizes that he is no longer gold. He is a boy around his age and was wearing fake gold plating. The boy tells Tetsuro there is no gold plating down here in the sewers as no one looks down here. The boy plans on selling the contents of the trunk, including the 999 tickets, so he can cover the price of gold plating. The boy tells Tetsuro only those who are poor or those who are travelers don’t have gold plating. He wants to get it to be beautiful and so he won’t rush, as he is a mechanized person.

Tetsuro shoots again at the boy as he tries to flee and the boy backs off. A voice calls out from inside Maetel’s trunk, asking what happened. As Tetsuro looks at it, the boy bashes Tetsuro in the back of a head with a stick, knocking him out. He plans to crush Tetsuro’s head with a rock when a woman approaches. Calling him Wheeler Lock, she tells him to not do that. It is Wheeler’s mother, and she shoots away the rock in his hands.

Tetsuro wakes up in Wheeler’s home, a wooden and stone house next to the sewer waterway. Wheeler offers him food, 100 year old bread that glows goldly like everything else around here. The gold city above them shines so brightly that it looks like daytime, even though it is 2:00 AM. Tetsuro finds the concept of everything being gold plated to be beautiful petty, and that it looses its impact when so much is gold plated. Wheeler is angry, claiming those who don’t have gold plating can’t be with those who are, and shows Tetsuro a photo of his girlfriend, who has gold plating. Wheeler tells Tetsuro he should get gold plating himself, but Tetsuro is uninterested. He tells Tetsuro he lives here with his mother, but the two of them don’t get along.

Suddenly, Wheeler’s home is hit by an explosion. Wheeler tells Tetsuro it is the peace keeping patrol. His mother has been breaking the law, causing trouble for him. They flee into the sewers, where Wheeler finds his mother, floating face down in the water. She tells Wheeler to save himself as they are going to destroy this place. She hands him an oval device and to contact their group at the gathering place, then dies. The oval device announces the location of the gathering place. Suddenly, a lot of air flows through the tunnel. A giant wave of water knocks them out of the sewer tunnel.

Tetsuro looks to the sky, seeing the 999 taking off.  Wheeler and Tetsuro get back together later in the sewers, heading to the gathering spot, with Tetsuro not wanting to eat some gold plated canned food. Tetsuro gets angry as the 999 has now left without him, and attacks Wheeler, who doesn’t fight back, Wheeler says no one came and notifications have stopped on the oval device. Tetsuro wonders if they have all died. Wheeler says they need to destroy the heart of the city. If they do so, the force attracting the gold to all the people will dwindle, and the plating will disappear. Wheeler is the last non-plated person who can do it, and Tetsuro decides to help.

The two of them cover themselves with gold dust and head back up to the surface. They head towards the magnetic plating tower. Wheeler says they usually kill anyone who looks at it, but because they think they’ve killed all the rebels, there is no one there to act as guard. They head inside the tower and go up an optical elevator. The two of them find themselves in front of the magnetic device. Wheeler heads towards its core, only to be grabbed by long mechanical arms from above.

A woman appears in the core, saying Wheeler will go to eternal sleep in her golden paradise. He is the first rebel in 1,000 years to reach her. Tetsuro shoots at her, hitting her in the face and her body dissolves in the golden liquid around her. Tetsuro and Wheeler flee from the magnetic plating tower, with the gold glow fading from around them as they do so. Soon the entire planet stops glowing. People around Wheeler and Tetsuro ask how they got gold, as they are the only ones who appear that way now. The two of them flee to the sewers and jump in.

Tetsuro wakes up, with Maetel greeting him, saying the 999 is waiting for him in orbit. Tetsuro returns Maetel’s trunk and she asks if he looked inside. He claims an odd voice called out of it but he quickly closed it and didn’t see anything. She tells Tetsuro the Conductor appealed to the main office so the 999 made an emergency stop. Tetsuro wonders about Wheeler, who lost his mother and all his friends. Maetel says he must have wanted to be gold plated for ages, but a change came over him after meeting him. Tetsuro says he understands his feelings and both their mothers died in front of them. Maetel claims Wheeler will be fine. Now that the people of Plated are seeing each other as they are, the world will change and he will be in good company.

TV Episode Summary:

The TV adaption is spread across 2 episodes, episodes 34 and 35. In the TV adaption the Conductor (who has a rare no show in the manga chapter) calls the planet Plated Witch; it was just called Plated in the manga. We have several new scenes in episode 34. This starts by us seeing Wheeler Lock watching Tetsuro and Maetel enter the hotel. When Tetsuro and Wheeler first confront each other in the sewers we see a flashback of Wheeler coming to bring his girlfriend, Mekki, a rose. Gold plated people prevent him from entering and tear apart the rose. 

 

We also have 2 new scenes of Maetel in her hotel room after Tetsuro initially gets knocked out by Wheeler, wondering how he is doing and pacing around later. While talking with Wheeler, Tetsuro speaks of his time on the City of Fireflies planet and we see flashbacks to episode 16. Episode 34 ends as Wheeler sees his mother’s body floating by in the sewer.

 

Episode 35 continues with some more additions. Wheeler’s mother mentions the witch of plated city when she dies; there is no such reference in the manga. Tetsuro flashes back to his mother’s death after seeing Wheeler’s mother die. We see Maetel head to the 999 as it is about to lift off, begging the Conductor for them to wait for Tetsuro. The Conductor goes to ask administration but is rejected, so Maetel goes to the engine room and makes the same request. 

 

Off screen the 999 agrees to stop so Maetel can head down the planet to get back Tetsuro. We have another new scene where the allies of Wheeler’s mother get blasted on the surface, as well as seeing the Witch ordering the sewers to be flooded. Maetel drives by in a vehicle to pick Tetsuro up in the TV episode; in the manga he wakes up with her over him. She brings him back to the 999, where the engine is impatient and looking to leave. Finally, we get a brief new scene with Wheeler being reunited with Mekki, who now lacks the gold plating.

 

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Wheeler Lock – Kiyoshi Komiyama

Wheeler’s Mother – Nana Yamaguchi

Enigma Voice – Banjou Ginga (episode 34 only)

Mekki – Tomiko Suzuki

Computer Voice – Keaton Yamada (episode 35 only)

Witch – Satomi Majima (episode 35 only)

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This episode is rather similar in nature to chapter 4-2, “The City of Fireflies”. Both feature those who are considered beautiful based on how much they glow. In that previous chapter it was dependent on how they were born, but on Plated everyone is plated in gold artificially. Tetsuro meets Wheeler Lock, a boy of his own age, who despite being mechanized, lives a poor existence and is one of the few unable to get plated in gold. It is a world where those who aren’t plated in gold are discriminated against and unable to be with friends or lovers if they are plated in gold. The parallels to our own society, such as previous bans on interracial marriages are obvious. Tetsuro and Maetel find themselves treated as second class citizens themselves briefly, while at the hotel, although the fact that they are 999 passengers quickly causes any bad treatment to cease.

 

This is yet another chapter where Tetsuro’s pass is stolen, although we don’t go much into it, and unlike many other pass thieves, Wheeler has no plans of boarding the 999 himself. Tetsuro finds himself feeling kinship with Wheeler, although he still has some animosity towards him for getting him in this mess. Wheeler lives a poor life as Tetsuro did and also sees his mother die in front of him, although he and her didn’t seem to have the good relationship with each other that Tetsuro had with his mother. We have a brief scene with the mysterious voice we have heard at times in the past coming out of Maetel’s briefcase. So whatever the source of that voice is, it comes from within it. As he has done in the past, Tetsuro doesn’t seem interested in delving into Maetel’s mysteries and ignores trying to find thing out any further.

 

Despite being a pretty lengthy chapter at just under 50 pages, things start to spiral out of control as we approach the end of the chapter. All of a sudden the authorities on this planet have completely stepped back, thinking all the rebels have been killed, enabling Wheeler and Tetsuro to approach a tower which is the forefront of the gold plating technology, with no one trying to stop them. We see a woman in the control center of the tower, I assume the titular “Witch” of the Plated city and once Tetsuro shoots her in the face, her body dissolves with no explanation and all the gold plating on the planet disappears.

This could have been an interesting story, but it seems incredibly rushed, without proper exposition (there is no mention of this Witch until she appears) and it seems rather ridiculous that it was as easy as that for Wheeler to eliminate all the gold plating for the entire planet. We also have the 999 coming back for Tetsuro, something it’s not supposed to do and Maetel is able to board the 999 without a pass, as hers is still in the suitcase Wheeler stole. It seems like Matsumoto was in a rush to finish the storyline and move on. The net result is a rather lackluster end. That and the fact that the main concept of this chapter is already really similar to another one makes it one of the weaker storylines thus far.