Galaxy Express 999

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In the future mankind has made quite a number of advancements in space travel. For those with enough money, it is possible to travel on the Galaxy Express 999 from Megalopolis station, on Earth, to a number of places in the known galaxy.

Tetsuro Hoshino wants to board the Three Nine very much so that he can travel to Andromeda and get a free mechanical body.

With this new body, he hopes to take revenge on Count Mecha, who hunted down and killed his mother.

Tetsuro finally manages to get a ticket on the Galaxy Express 999 with the help of an odd girl named Maetel. Together they visit several places before getting to Andromeda.

The first stop is the Jupiter moon of Titan. This reformed world is a place where anyone can do simply anything they want at anytime. Here Tetsuro rescues Maetel from a bandit king named Antares. He also meets the mother of Tochiro Oyama, the genus designer of the space ship Arcadia of my Youth.

The second stop is Pluto. The real bodies of those who got mechanical bodies are stored on Pluto. Here Tetsuro meets the caretaker of these "graves", an odd girl named Shadow.

On the Three Nine Tetsuro gets to know a young girl named Claire, who has a mechanical body made of glass. Claire is working on the train to get enough money to buy her real body back.

On their way to the third stop, the Three Nine is met by Queen Emeraldas, the infamous female pirate.

The third stop is a place called Trader's Fork on the planet Heavy Melder. Here Tetsuro meets Tochiro Oyama and Captain Harlock, the very infamous space pirate. Here also, is the current location of Count Mecha's Time Castle and the long awaited battle between Tetsuro and the Count is staged.

The final stop and terminating station is the Mechanization Homeworld.

To say anything more would be to give away too much of the story.....

Galaxy Express 999 is as much a story about a young boy's quest for revenge as it is a story about lost youth. In general, it is reasonably well done as long as one remembers that this is completely space opera. There is a sequel called adieu Galaxy Express 999 which continues the adventures of Tetsuro on the 999.

This is one of the oldest pieces of Anime that can be acquired which also makes it interesting to note how the various animation techniques have changed over the years.