Story
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Original Storyline
The story of Galaxy Express 999 is set in a space-faring, high-tech future, where mechanized people with "machine bodies" are pushing humanity towards irrelevance and extinction. A street urchin named Tetsuro Hoshino desperately wants an indestructible machine body, giving him the ability to live forever and have the freedom that the poor humans on Earth don't have. While machine bodies are impossibly expensive, they are supposedly given away for free on the planet Andromeda, the end of the line for the space train Galaxy Express 999 (Technology has advanced to the point where space-faring vehicles can assume any shape, such as the classical locomotive in the story.).
Tetsuro meets up with a beautiful woman, Maetel (sometimes translated "Maeter", both from the Greek mitir for mother), who is the spitting image of his dead mother. Maetel offers him passage on 999 if he will be her traveling companion. Tetsuro agrees.
Along the way, Tetsuro has many adventures and meets many machine people, including Count Mecha, the machine man who killed Tetsuro's mother. Tetsuro is able to get his revenge on the cruel count, who had the body of Tetsuro's mother stuffed and hung on his wall. Increasingly, Tetsuro realizes that a machine body won't fix all of his problems. In fact, most of the machine people he meets regret the decision to give up their humanity. Most pathetic of all is Crystal Claire, who works aboard 999. Her body, always nude, is a beautiful clear crystal, yet she longs for the warmth of a human touch, like Tetsuro's.
It is also strongly implied that Maetel has a machine body, as she visits her human body on Pluto, where discarded human bodies are encased in ice in a giant planetary tomb. Maetel also says she has been endlessly travelling with young men like Tetsuro. In the manga, she is referred to by one of the characters as "the other universe that I fear!", raising the question of who, or what, she truly is even more nebulous.
Eventually Tetsuro and Maetel finally reach Andromeda where Tetsuro learns the horrifying truth... that he's going to be turned into a bolt. Queen Prometheum, ruler of the mechanized empire and Maetel's mother, controls the planet of Andromeda by entirely mechanized human components. With the prospect of Tetsuro being turned into a bolt, Maetel finally turns on her mother. With the help of her father, Dr. Ban, who exists in the pendant she carries over her neck, Maetel destroys her mother and Andromeda. The true nature of Maetel is revealed; she exists in a human body and is able to replace with a new one each time it grows old, enabling her to live forever.
Maetel and the 999 bring Tetsuro back to Earth and head back into space, presumably never to return.
In 1996, Matsumoto began a new GE999 series, set a year after the original, in which the Earth is destroyed and Tetsuro sets out to discover the source of the "darkness" that threatens all life in the universe.
Adieu Galaxy Express 999
Adieu Galaxy Express 999 was a sequel made to the movie version, which was released in 1981. Adieu presents an entirely new storyline, one taking place two years after the destruction of Andromeda. The machine empire know has even more of a stranglehold over the Galaxy. Rumors are afoot of Maetel being the new Prometheum. Tetsuro, a freedom fighter is shocked when a messenger brings him news - that the 999 is returning. Tetsuro narrowly makes his way to the 999 and departs Earth.
Although Tetsuro finds that Maetel isn't present on the 999, he does meet Metalmena, a machine woman who has replaced Claire. Also, a mysterious Ghost Train has been travelling the universe and nearly crashes into the 999. The 999 heads to the planet La Metal, which was actually the birthplace of Prometheum and Maetel. Here Tetsuro helps in the resistance, befriending a man named Meowdar. As the 999 departs, Maetel finally makes her appearance.
Shortly after leaving La Metal the 999 is encountered forced to dock at a station where Tetsuro meets the mysterious Faust. When Tetsuro attacks him, Faust causes Tetsuro to drop into a flashback where he must relive his mother's death. The 999 continues on to the planet Mosaic, the last stop before Great Andromeda, capital of the mechanized empire. Here Tetsuro finds the Ghost Train and is nearly killed.
The 999 finally makes its way to Great Andromeda where Faust greets Tetsuro once more. Maetel meanwhile travels down to the center of the planet where Prometheum's spirit still exists. Maetel is put in charge of the mechanized empire, just like the rumors said, and she reveals the horrible truth to Tetsuro and the others, that the energy the machine people use is actually drained from living human beings. Tetsuro is shocked to find his old friend Meowdar among the dead.
About this time a great comet, Siren the Witch approaches Great Andromeda, sucking up all machine energy. With Great Andromeda collapsing, the 999 is set to depart, but Tetsuro must face Faust one last time. After dealing Faust a fatal blow, it is revealed to Tetsuro that Faust is actually Tetsuro's father. The 999 heads back to La Metal where Maetel and Tetsuro separate once more.
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Space Symphony Maetel
As a prelude of Galaxy Express 999, it explained a lot of the series' backstory. Maetel (the protagonist) is actually the daughter of Queen Promethium of the Planet La Metal, a wandering planet, and one of the first groups of civilization that mechanized their body. As Queen Promethium was afraid of the forces of nature, she decides to mechanize everything, believing it's proper, and will help its citizens survive the harsh climate of the planet. However, people/cyborg of La Metal began to mechanise galaxy after galaxy against the will of many humans, and ended up creating rebellions and revolutions. Maetel was originally asked to return to La Metal to succeed her mother, only to find the numerous harshness her mother inflicted. This may be the cause of her endless wandering.
In here, Harlock and Emeraldas (Maetel's sister) worked together to assassinate Promethium, and they have asked Maetel to do so.
Parallels with Galaxy Express 999 are prevalent. Instead of a boy who wants a mechanized body meeting her, she met a boy who has a grudge against Promethium and detests being mechanized.
from Wikipedia
See the highlight? which means 美達露=千年女王雪爾生??
