Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am absolutely thrilled to be returning to Galaxy Express 999, and continuing the journey of the intrepid Tetsuro and mysterious Maetel. Though the anime community at large tends to be interested only in following the latest and flashiest of productions, my excursions into classic anime have regularly proven the most rewarding of all, with Galaxy Express 999 already establishing a place of honor among my ongoing projects. In fact, I’m enjoying the show so much that I actually munched through the first five funded episodes all in a row, meaning I’m now returning to the express for the first time in months.

When last we left off, Tetsuro and Maetel had just escaped the icy planes of Pluto, a cold and lonely planet harboring the bodies of those who could never escape the solar system, or who did so only by leaving their old shells behind. Many travelers in this world seem desperate for the eternity of a metal body, but our representative cyborgs seem no happier than our flesh-and-blood humans, most of them craving a return to the bodies they once discarded. Happiness is elusive in this world, a hope we pin on distant stars, knowing only that this planet holds nothing but regrets. And so the express journeys from station to station, each new destination reiterating the capitalist barbarism of society and the insatiable emptiness of the human heart. Shall we take our seats?

Continue reading →

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am impatient to continue our journey aboard the Galaxy Express, and see what wonders await us as the edge of the solar system. Our last adventure featured an impromptu trainjacking by the Great Space Pirate Antares, who actually turned out to be a perfectly reasonable sort of guy. All he really wanted was to steal luxury items from the rich and catch a ride home, which Tetsuro and Maetel were ultimately happy to assist in. In this harshly stratified universe, the have-nots must band together if they are to survive; and as that last episode made clear, the Galaxy Express itself is not just an impartial observer of the cosmos.

The loneliness of space, the impersonal bloodlessness of a metal body, and the desperation for, if not a good life, at least a proper death – Galaxy Express 999 is as melancholy as it is marvelous, offering a vision of the future whose substance is as grim as its surface fantastical. It’s an intoxicating mixture that quite understandably stoked both the imagination and social consciousness of a generation of viewers, and I feel fortunate to explore it with all of you. Let’s hop aboard!

Continue reading →

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to continue our journey aboard the Galaxy Express, and see what wonders the cosmos have to offer us. Well, I say that like I’m expecting anything good to happen, when in truth Tetsuro’s journeys have mostly centered on veneers of exotic beauty peeling away to reveal cores of profound tragedy. The abandoned sands of Mars, the superficial freedom of Titan, and even the majestic beauty of one-time train attendant Claire, all vivid dreams that soon proved themselves nightmares of mankind’s eternal, self-destructive striving.

Of course, theme-ravenous cynic that I am, Galaxy Express 999’s broader reflections on society, capitalism, and whatever else Matsumoto can think of has only made the experience all the more rewarding for me. Through its mixture of fantastical vistas and humanity-in-decline parables, Galaxy Express has proven itself a paragon of one of my favorite genres: the post-apocalyptic travelog, typified by stories like Girls’ Last Tour and Kemurikusa. As it turns out, the ruins of mankind’s hubris serve as an ideal venue for ruminations on what is most essential to humanity, what we must hold sacred even when all else has crumbled. Let’s see what wonders await us at the next station!

Continue reading →

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to hop back aboard the Galaxy Express, which most recently made its departure from the lonely dunes of Mars. Initially propped up as a tourist destination after one hundred years of atmospheric adjustments, Mars was ultimately abandoned for more exotic pastures, its soil barren and inhabitants left to waste away among the ashes of their dreams. The planet is now little more than a dust-strewn graveyard, a waystation embodying the scope and callousness of mankind’s hubris.

That’s how it seems to go within Tetsuro’s mournful odyssey. Though Galaxy Express is full of imaginative scifi wonders, each new vista comes with it a promise of societal interrogation and personal sorrow, each planet in some way reflecting how our grand ambitions often conceal a fundamental apathy to the fate of our fellows. It’s a vivid mixture, like a space-faring collection of somber fairytales, and I’m sure there are many more wonders ahead of us. Let’s see what station is up next!

Continue reading →

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am beyond excited to be embarking on the Galaxy Express, and once more exploring the sights of Leiji Matsumoto’s fantastical adventure. The first episode proved more action-packed than I would ever have predicted, with our young hero Tetsuro responding to the death of his mother through a fit of righteously murderous fury, destroying the contemptible Count Mecha and fleeing the police with the mysterious Maetel. Escaping the earth as fugitives, the two now rest aboard the Galaxy Express itself, ready to experience the wonders of the universe.

Alongside the obvious excitement of so much immediate dramatic commotion, it’s also clear that, in spite of its fantastical embellishments, Galaxy Express is deeply concerned with the inherent injustices of modern society. Both Megalopolis’ stratified pleasures and the allure of cyborg bodies serve as clear illustrations of capitalism’s cruelties; the hope of “work hard and you’ll succeed” was immediately proven a false idol through the death of Tetsuro’s mother, emphasizing how class is for most people an inescapable life sentence. Whether Galaxy Express continues elaborating on that theme or uses its rambling structure as a vehicle for new meditations, I’m eager to experience whatever wonders are up ahead. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re embarking on a journey through another beloved classic of anime, the TV adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999. Inspired by the fantastical Night on the Galactic Railroad (itself the recipient of a majestic anime film adaptation, to say nothing of its significance to Ikuhara’s Mawaru Penguindrum), Galaxy Express tells the story of a young boy who wishes to live forever, and boards the space train Galaxy Express 999 in the hopes of receiving the metal body that will realize his dreams. Along the way, he joins up with a beautiful, mysterious woman with her own reasons for the journey, and experiences a dazzling array of adventures as he travels to the end of the line.

Alongside Space Battleship Yamato and Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express stands as one of Matsumoto’s most consequential contributions to manga and animation, a classic whose influence can be felt in the scope and style of space operas to this day. His work is also one of my most significant remaining blind spots regarding the history of anime, and I am thus absolutely thrilled to be starting this adventure. As for the staff, chief director Nobutaka Nishizawa appears to be most notable for his significant work on this franchise itself, though I’m intrigued to see this episode’s screenwriter also wrote the harrowing Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked. Let’s see what’s on offer as we board the Galaxy Express!

Continue reading →