The Capital of Kind Flowers

The Capital of Kind Flowers

Manga Chapter 11-4

TV Episode 70

Manga Chapter Summary:

The chapter begins with us seeing a pair of farmers in a field full of beautiful flowers, watching as the 999 arrives. Tetsuro notices the beautiful flowers as the 999 approaches its landing and some of the petals come in through the window. The Conductor announces their stop as the “Capital of Flowers” with a layover time of around 11 hours. The Conductor chuckles upon hearing Tetsuro call it a nice place. Tetsuro and Maetel depart the train, leaving a station full of flowers and approach a hotel where they appear just as numerous, with many of them literally inside the hotel itself. Maetel tells Tetsuro to leave his luggage in the room and they’ll go to the dining hall. Tetsuro calls this place a peaceful paradise.

Upon arriving at their hotel room, Tetsuro is disappointed to notice that there aren’t any flowers there. Tetsuro notices a shadow behind their curtain, and suddenly there is a big explosion. Tetsuro wakes up with smoke everywhere. As the smoke departs the room, Tetsuro finds that Maetel and their luggage are missing. A fire rages in the field of flowers outside. The loudspeaker says this is an emergency and everyone should head underground. Tetsuro finds the elevator not working so he heads to the stairway, hearing many people under him. Tetsuro stops, finding Maetel’s hat. After he picks it up however a fully cloaked figure appears behind him, brandishing a gun. While the fire continues to rage both outside and in the hotel, the cloaked figure forces Tetsuro to come back up to the top floor and return to their room, where he is held at gunpoint.

The temperature in the hotel room starts rising, but this doesn’t bother the cloaked person, causing Tetsuro to speculate if he’s a machine person. The cloaked figure remains quite calm and claims all the flowers on the surface of the planet are burning. Even the Galaxy Express Administration offices detect the danger the 999 is in due to the raging fires on the planet and orders the 999 to depart. The fire approaches the hotel room and starts getting in. The cloaked figure’s cloak starts catching ablaze, but even that doesn’t bother him. Tetsuro grabs some water from a flower vase and pours it on him so as to put the fire out, causing the cloaked figure to shoot him. Onboard the 999, the Conductor is depressed about Maetel and Tetsuro not making it on the train before it departed.

In the hotel, the cloaked figure, whose cloak has now burned away, revealing a humanoid form with no actual features, carries Tetsuro away. Tetsuro wakes up in the figure’s home, finding Maetel there with them! The formerly cloaked figure tells Tetsuro he and his family aren’t mechanized people and tear away at the featureless body suits they are wearing, which he calls Tektite coats. They are the Magnetorium family, with father Coa, wife Rea, daughter Mia and son Doa. Rea gives Tetsuro a plate of food, making him quite happy. Maetel admits to Tetsuro that the 999 has departed, even though it hasn’t reached departure time. Coa tells Tetsuro that their home is within the center of the planet. He tells Tetsuro that he is responsible for causing the fire, having used a high speed craft to set fire to the flowers across the planet. Tetsuro asks why he did this and starts coughing. Maetel tells him it is from the pollen of the poisonous flowers here.

Rea tells Tetsuro that the beautiful flowers all over the planet are in fact poisonous. A long time ago, this was a barren planet, but a founder was able to transplant in some beautiful flowers. For 300 years the planet has been full of them. This has caused the planet’s population to decrease by 80% in just the last 100 years. The flowers can’t be touched due to a law that says anyone who touches them will be put to death. Here, flowers are more important than human life. Tetsuro thinks of the fact that when the fire was spreading, no one tried to put it out. We see some people outside hiding in holes, fearful of touching any of the flowers. Tetsuro is provided some more food and he asks them why they are eating so much. Coa tells Tetsuro he is the last person they shall be sharing a meal with. Eventually the fires will go out once the flowers become ashes, and their family will be sentenced to death.

Tetsuro asks why they didn’t bring in flowers from another planet that would have been a natural enemy to the poisonous ones and Coa claims that was also illegal. Tetsuro asks how those in charge of this planet could be so stupid. Tetsuro and Maetel travel back up to the surface in a transparent elevator. The authorities immediately arrive there, asking why the Magnetoriums haven’t come up to the surface. Their leader demands the passageway up be sealed with nickel, even though the family’s actions will enable more to live. Tetsuro spots the 999 returning. They head by the station and find the Conductor. The Conductor claims he argued with the computer in charge and ultimately convinced it to enable the 999 to come back. Tetsuro and Maetel look outside as the 999 departs and Maetel says the entire planet may perish eventually. Tetsuro feels bad for the Magnetoriums having to sacrifice themselves. Maetel says that some people are willing to be human sacrifices, while others are forced to be them. The narrator explains that Tetsuro vowed to never forget the name of the Mangetoriums.

TV Episode Summary:

This episode makes a lot of radical changes, including both some cut content and new material. The scene with the 2 farmers at the start is cut. We have a brief shot added of Coa when Maetel and Tetsuro arrive in their hotel room. Tetsuro claims he loves flowers as he recalls picking them with his mother. The smell of the flowers reminds him her. After the fire starts, Tetsuro runs a little bit more in the hallway before Coa comes upon him. Before the 999 leaves, we see the Conductor argue with the Galaxy Express administration about waiting for Tetsuro and Maetel as the fire rages at the station.

Coa’s costume is a lot different; rather than merely be covered by a cloak he is wearing a trench coat and a top hat and his face has some features to it. He also doesn’t hold Tetsuro at gunpoint. Tetsuro panics upon seeing the 999 taking off. Coa’s costume doesn’t catch on fire; rather he punches Tetsuro to knock him out so he’ll escape with him. We find that he was able to escape via a plane he had on the roof of the hotel. Upon waking up in Coa’s home, Tetsuro panics more so about the 999 being gone than he had in the manga, fearing he’ll never get his mechanical body now. The meal that they have in the manga chapter doesn’t happen in the TV episode. Coa’s family has a surprised reaction when he claims he set the flowers aflame, whereas I had the impression they were in on it in the manga chapter. We see that Doa needs a respirator machine because of the flowers. Coa describes only 40% of the planet’s population dying in the last 100 years rather than 80% as in the manga.

We have another new scene with the Conductor calling out for Tetsuro and Maetel from the 999 as the planet burns. We see more residents on the planet, in Tektite suits, calling for the flowers to burn and calling Coa their savior. They all flee when the authorities arrive. When telling the planet’s backstory, Coa references the planet having a queen that didn’t exist in the manga. The queen is the one who had the flowers transported to this world. While she died, her rule over the flowers has continued to this day. The police catch a boy on the surface and get him to give up the name of Coa. The police contact Coa via a communication system in his home. Coa tells his family to head up to the surface with Tetsuro and Maetel but Rea refuses. Rea tells Mia to take care of Doa and that the two of them should grow up strong. Doa grabs a hose and says he doesn’t want to go to the surface either. Ultimately, only Tetsuro and Maetel go up, matching what happened in the manga.

Upon making it back up to the surface, Tetsuro argues with the police captain, and then pulls a gun on him. Tetsuro shoots a policeman in the shoulder when he fires at him, but because they are 999 passengers, Tetsuro and Maetel aren’t punished. As the Magnetorium’s home is sealed up, we hear them enjoying themselves and see many of their colleagues on the surface looking sorrowful. Tetsuro angrily shouts at the captain again. A big crowd of Coa’s supporters surround the police force. The captain then decides to back down and falsely claims the family died in the fire, causing everyone to be very happy.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Coa – Takeshi Takano

Rea – Yoshiko Matsuo

Mia – Michiko Nomura

Doa – Satomi Majima

Captain – Hidekatsu Shibata

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Yoshiko Matsuo previously appeared as Artemis in episodes 51 and 52. Michiko previously appeared as Tiny in episodes 56 – 57. Satomi Majima previously appeared as Rosanne in episodes 44 – 45 and a Handmaiden in episode 24. Hidekatsu Shibata appeared as Count Mecha in the first episode.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

The message of this chapter is that don’t think that because something is beautiful that it is good! The 999 heads to a planet full of beautiful flowers. Tetsuro gleefully looks at them as they arrive at the station and head to their hotel. But as soon as they arrive in their hotel room an explosion hits and a massive fire rages. It’s quite scary for Tetsuro, who tries to make his way down a stairwell only for a mysterious cloaked individual to force him at gunpoint back to the hotel room. There Tetsuro is forced to wait as the room gets hotter and eventually even the cloaked figure catches aflame before knocking Tetsuro out.

Upon waking up underground, the truth is revealed. The beautiful flowers on this planet are in fact poisonous, and the cloaked figure, a man named Coa Mangetorium (quite a crazy name) and his family have decided to sacrifice their lives in order to destroy them. Those in charge of the planet have decreed that the flowers are more important than human life; to destroy them, to even touch them is against the law and punishable by death. I think back to chapter 4-4, “The Kingdom of Atonement” where a planet had a good reputation for tourists and did anything it could to keep that reputation, even murder. Perhaps there is a similar notion on this planet. The beautiful flowers attract tourists here, perhaps it keeps the economy going, and that is decreed more important than the lives of the locals. The Magnetoriums have decided to bravely sacrifice themselves and have destroyed the flowers across the entire planet. With merely four of them, it seems rather unrealistic that they could have destroyed all of them across the entire planet, even though they claim to have done so. Even if one of the flowers remains it may be enough to repopulate them. And with the law being the way it is, the planet will probably be incentivized to grow more of them. These things are just speculation on my part. It would be quite unfortunate for the Magnetorium family to sacrifice themselves for nothing.

Overall this was a fairly enjoyable chapter for me. The segment in the burning hotel was quite thrilling. I also like the design work; Coa’s cloaked design reminds me much of the pirates in chapter 4-3, “Pirate Queen Emeraldas”, and the tektite suits, while extremely basic in design I think just add to the strangeness.

I was rather disappointed with the TV episode in comparison to the manga. For starters, the TV episode rushes through things incredibly quickly. The burning hotel sequence was an exciting part of the manga chapter but they go through it too fast in the TV episode. Coa’s costume is also changed, making it a bit less interesting. The worst change is tacking on what is essentially a happy ending. In the manga chapter Coa and his family knew they were sacrificing their lives for the planet and died. In the manga chapter Tetsuro gets incredibly angry and the police and a crowd of Coa supporters arrive, ultimately causing the police to back down and not kill the family. To its credit, the TV episodes pretty much always follow the tragic events of the manga chapters fairly closely and this is the first time I can recall such a major change occurring to lighten things up. It results in the rare Galaxy Express 999 TV episode that has a happy ending and in which no one dies.