The Monster of Loose Zone

 The Monster of Loose Zone

Manga Chapter 14-3

TV Episode 100

Manga Chapter Summary:

The narrator explains how the space track of the Galaxy Express is accurately laid and the train won’t derail unless there is a serious accident. Train derailments can be repaired, but derailments in the human mind are irreversible. The Conductor steps into the train car to announce their next stop as “The Loose Zone”. Just Maetel is there, and she tells him Tetsuro was going to the Library car. The Conductor doesn’t recall seeing him there and heads back looking for him.

The Conductor heads through the dining car and finds it empty, although there are footprints on the floor! They look like Tetsuro’s, and even go up the wall! The Conductor heads to the Locomotive, who tells him there is no sign of the current whereabouts of Tetsuro. The Locomotive computer says that as it approaches Loose Zone, for some reason the device becomes affected, as if it is looser, and it can’t judge things accurately. At that moment we see the 999 from outside in space, and hear the calling of Tetsuro, towards the back! He is handing from the bottom of the train car, as the bottom had suddenly fallen out of it.

Tetsuro’s grip loosens and he falls into space. Tetsuro luckily still within the space shield of the 999, and on the pathway towards Loose Zone instead of the absolute vacuum of space. The Conductor reports back to Maetel and tells her Tetsuro has fallen out of the train. Tetsuro tries swimming around within the space shield as he descends towards Loose Zone. The 999 makes its way to the planet, which is filled with junk, enough so that the Conductor can’t find the station. The Locomotive says it entered the planetary airspace according to its orbit, and it knows a station exists, but there is no way to know where to stop at. The 999 passes over a residential area which is also filled with junk; it is said people simply throw away their trash at random. The Locomotive is able to detect the station after all and heads there. It arrives at a place with even more junk around.

Tetsuro meanwhile continues to descend towards the planet, eventually making it into the planet’s atmosphere. He lands in a large landfill area full of trash. Maetel spots him from nearby and asks if he’s injured. He wonders why he fell here and Maetel says since he was in the space shield he fell where the station would be. The Conductor says they should go back to the train and take a rest. It seems that due to the garbage here, the station was moved without permission.

They head back onboard and Tetsuro looks out with binoculars at the residential area nearby. He sees house, but no moving figures. Maetel tells him all the houses are empty; there are no inhabitants here. The Conductor says they abandoned it and moved someplace else because of all the garbage. Tetsuro thinks of how it became this way due to the trash they were throwing out and that it would become a mountain eventually. But for Tetsuro, the ability to make a pile of garbage puts him in a happy place. The narrator explains how there are poor places in the universe where they can’t collect garbage or build a mountain of it. The people who used to live here on Loose Zone are now living someplace else in the universe, building another pile of garbage.

TV Episode Summary:

The episode begins with Tetsuro waking up from a nap next to Maetel, and telling her he feels out of it and is tired. Maetel tells him something he can do is go to the library car and get her a specific book. She thinks to herself how he is showing symptoms of the Loose Zone. Tetsuro heads there and finds the book, but the train shakes causing him to fall outside the train as he does in the manga. The Conductor also mentions Tetsuro having the symptoms of the Loose Zone and that he doesn’t feel as up on his responsibilities right now himself. The Conductor doesn’t find Tetsuro’s footprints all over the floor, but he does see the broken window he fell out of.

The Conductor starts reading the book Tetsuro got and Maetel eventually comes to see him. The Conductor claims the life of those on Loose Zone is sloth and obesity. When Maetel says Tetsuro may be in trouble and hanging outside the train, the Conductor doesn’t want to bother with it. The Locomotive also doesn’t want to bother with it.  The Conductor shows some unwillingness to bother until Maetel criticizes him. Maetel and him search around the train, including a scene where the Conductor sees the bathroom is dirty but doesn’t bother cleaning it up. Tetsuro soon falls off the train as he does in the manga. We then see the Conductor relaxing in the dining car, drinking wine. Maetel tells him to put the train in reverse so they can go back to get Tetsuro.

Tetsuro lands in a garbage filled area immediately. We see emissions come out of the garbage which eventually forms itself into a large monster! The Locomotive refuses to go back to find Tetsuro, saying it needs to focus its efforts on finding the station. Tetsuro makes his way back through the tunnel, but the monster follows him! The 999 makes its way to the planet as it does in the manga, and the Conductor continues to be lazy, relaxing on the seat by Maetel. Maetel tells the Conductor they must search for Tetsuro after they got off the 999. Maetel spots Tetsuro as he’s falling from the sky; the Conductor is able to carry a bed at the spot where he lands.

Tetsuro tells Maetel how he was chased by a garbage monster. Maetel comments on how the station here was in good shape the last time they were here. The Conductor is able to find binoculars in the garbage rather than them merely appearing as they do in the manga. As Maetel talks about the way the planet used to be, we see flashbacks to when it was cleaner. Maetel says the loose environment of this planet made this happen. Tetsuro flashes back to him complaining to his mother about his shoes, which she repairs for him. Tetsuro thinks the monster that attacked him was the garbage that was tossed away before its time. Lightning starts hitting the garbage piles, and we even see the Conductor temporarily shut in within a refrigerator before it blows open. The monster forms again so they rush to the 999, which takes off. The monster takes a swing at the 999, hitting the final train car. It tries another attack but its fist breaks up as it hits the train. The monster collapses soon after. The Conductor seems back to normal after they leave and he tells them due to their extra short stay at Loose Zone, the train will be slowing down.

The planet is designed quite a bit differently in the episode than the manga, in particular with rings around it.

TV Episode Cast:

Tetsuro Hoshino – Masako Nozawa

Maetel – Masako Ikeda

Conductor – Kaneta Kimotsuki

Tetsuro’s Mother – Akiko Tsuboi

Mechanical Car Voice – Kouji Totani

Narrator – Hitoshi Takagi

Beyond Tetsuro’s mother, Akiko Tsuboi also voiced Artemis’ Mother in episode 52 and a Policewoman in episode 62. Kouji Totani has played a variety of minor characters beyond the Locomotive.

Non-Spoiler Analysis:

This chapter/episode has a couple of focuses to it. From one standpoint we have a bit more action than usual. There is an accident while the 999 is heading to its next planet and Tetsuro falls out of the train car! For a bit he hangs on, but he soon falls off. This results in him floating around in space for a while in the space tunnel that the 999 travels in. It’s a good thing that is there or this would have been the end for our protagonist! In the episode we also see a giant monster form, made out of garbage and chase him to the planet.

Another big aspect of the chapter/episode is garbage. An aspect that we touch upon a little bit in the manga chapter, but is much expanded upon in the TV episode is that people are affected by being in this area, the Loose Zone. It as if they become lazy and unable to focus. We see this impact Tetsuro, the Conductor and even the Locomotive! Oddly enough Maetel is not affected at all by it and we frequently see her chewing the Conductor out as he acts quite lazily and fails to do his job properly.

This mentality ties in a bit for those on the planet Loose Zone, although I think the manga chapter handled that aspect a little better and it isn’t necessary. Essentially the message is that the people who lived on this planet were wealthy enough that they simply tossed out their garbage for no regard for where it went, or the environment around them. Eventually the planet became so trashed because of this that they headed to another planet, where they are likely to cause the same thing to happen. This is a mentality very similar to what we see in the “Cheyenne, the Nation of Water” chapter/episodes where we saw another civilization that trashed where they lived and simply moved on without doing anything to fix it. An interesting point brought up that you don’t really think about is that it’s really the more well to do who have the luxury of having a lot of garbage. When you are poor you don’t have the luxury to waste things or to throw things out. A flashback for Tetsuro having some junky old shoes is added in the episode to add to this point.

This is a rare chapter/episode that has no new side characters. I think back to the “C-6248’s Rebellion” as a rare manga chapter that was similar, although the episode adaption added new characters.