The BEST episodes of Galaxy Express 999
Every episode of Galaxy Express 999 ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Galaxy Express 999!
Galaxy Express is a manga written and drawn by Leiji Matsumoto, as well as various anime films and TV series based on it. It is set in a space-faring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer their consciousnesses (but not their consciences) into mechanical bodies, thus achieving practical immortality. The manga won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 1978.[6] The anime series won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1981.
#1 - The Planet of Eternally Pursued Dreams
Season 1 - Episode 101 - Aired 12/25/1980
Tetsuro meets a man who would like to be a manga artist but can't do so because the planet has a caste system. Maetel's suitcase is stolen and the passes are taken. They have the manga artist thrown in jail with an execution pending if he is found guilty. He is found innocent but they will kill him anyway. Then it turns out his sister actually stole the passes. He has a spazz attack, runs into open traffic and gets hit by a car. As he sits in bed dying he dreams he could only find the books he read as a child then he dies. His sister regretfully returns Tetsuro and Maetel's passes having killed her brother by stealing them. But they forgive her because he at least died a peaceful if not delusional death.
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#2 - The Town of Fireflies
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/28/1978
On their latest planet, Tetsuro meets Freiya, a poor girl who appears beautiful to him but is considered ugly and deformed by the other inhabitants of her planet because she does not glow in the dark with a uniform light. Freiya is an amateur animator who hopes to become a director someday.
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#4 - The Footsteps of Footstep Village
Season 1 - Episode 58 - Aired 12/20/1979
Tetsuro and Maetel arrive on the planet Footsteps Village, and are told of evil spirits that possess and kill people. Tetsuro is warned to not go out at night, but when he meets a spirit that takes the form of water, he does it anyway.
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#5 - Planet of a Pint-Size Room (2)
Season 1 - Episode 61 - Aired 1/17/1980
While stranded on the planet without train passes, Maetel sought help from Galaxy Railways, but her efforts ended in vain. Meanwhile, with Adachi's help, Tetsuro found a job at a noodle shop to support himself and Maetel. Tetsuro and Maetel ran into the disguised Taro when they returned to the train station. Taro, not wanting to leave his friends behind, gave the passes to them, not knowing at first, that they were the rightful owners. As the train departed, Taro returned to Hanako and their friends. And Adachi, who also saw the train leave the planet, finally found inspiration for comic.
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#6 - The Sisters of the Pitch Dark Planet
Season 1 - Episode 63 - Aired 1/31/1980
The 999 stops at the Pitch Dark Planet, where all light is instantly absorbed. A while after Maetel leaves the train to "attend to private business", Tetsuro is beckoned outside by a figure at his window, who proves to be Miru, a daughter of the planet's ruler. She and her father tell him that Maetel has been kidnapped by Miru's sister Lelan, a deranged but brilliant scientist who plans to use Maetel's brain to launch an artificial sun into orbit, and that Maetel will die unless Tetsuro can infiltrate Lelan's base and kill her. Further, the new sun will doom most of the life on their world, which has never had light in its entire natural history. Tetsuro goes back for his gun, but is taken prisoner by Lelan the instant he steps off the train. His efforts to escape prove futile and Lelan launches the sun.
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#7 - Maetel's Journey (1)
Season 1 - Episode 109 - Aired 2/26/1981
To make up for the delay in the previous episode, the 999 enters Warp Space. Unexpectedly, a duplicate 999 materializes alongside them and the two trains collide and become entangled. Crippled, the 999 and its double are drawn into the gravity of a sinister-looking planet that seems to be adrift in Warp Space. Tetsuro climbs though a breach into the other 999 and encounters an exact double of Maetel; however her companion is not his own double, but a different boy named Redril Hammer. Redril explains that he is traveling on the 999 to a planet where he will receive a mechanical body for free. The trains narrowly avert crashing down but the car carrying both Maetels breaks loose and falls to the surface.
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#8 - Maetel's Journey (2)
Season 1 - Episode 110 - Aired 3/5/1981
The trains having landed on the Wandering Planet's surface to rescue the two Maetels, Redril and Testuro confront two extremely alien-looking creatures who refer to themselves as "humans". When the aliens confirm to their satisfaction that Tetsuro, Redril, the two Maetels and the two Conductors are flesh-and-blood and not mechanized, they are permitted to return to the trains. As they prepare to lift off, the Conductors are seized by a pair of mechanical creatures with a shape resembling that of the two "humans" they encountered before. They demand that the two boys surrender their passes and allow them to take their place on the train.
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#10 - Tetsuro on the Planet of Mirrors
Season 1 - Episode 53 - Aired 11/15/1979
A boy who looks just like Tetsuro, named Manabu, and his brother work hard and are able to purchase a single pass for 999. The brother passes away before they can make it to the town where 999 arrives. When Tetsuro goes out on his own, Maetel mistakes Manabu for him. Tetsuro arrives and fights Manabu, but they quickly become friends as they have so much in common. When Manabu tries to board the 999 however, he is told that the pass is counterfeit.
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#12 - Departure Ballad
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1978
Tetsuro's mother is murdered while the two of them travel through the snow by the villainous Count Mecha. Before she dies, Tetsuro's mother tells him to go to the planet Andromeda where he can get a machine body and not die like she did. Tetsuro passes out from the cold but is rescued by the mysterious Maetal, who gives him a pass to the Galaxy Express 999 for free under the condition that he will travel with her.
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#13 - The Laboratory of Eternal War (2)
Season 1 - Episode 48 - Aired 9/27/1979
At gunpoint (from the previous episode), Tetsuro told Zeda of his struggles back on Earth. Zeda was instead moved and decided to joined the rebels. With his companions Santana and Brudas, Zeda managed to unite the two soldier factions and started to attack government facilities.
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#14 - 1001 Nights in Andromeda (1)
Season 1 - Episode 103 - Aired 1/15/1981
the 999 crash lands on planet Ali-baba run by a woman named Ali Baba. Tetsuro and Maetel are stripped and taken hostage by her. Maetel tells her a totally bogus story she stole out of a book she read and they manage to get their things back. But then Ali Baba decides to reneg on the deal and tries to recapture Maetel. Tetsuro is attacked by a gigantic roc bird.
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#15 - The Fog of the Planet of Funerals
Season 1 - Episode 66 - Aired 2/21/1980
As the 999 touched down on the Funeral Planet, its arrival (and whistle) disturbed a funeral procession, who decided to bury Maetel and Tetsuro alive as punishment, with the proper pomp and circumstance. They were rescued by Machiru, a woman responsible for ringing the funeral bell. She explained that the inhabitants on the planet were immortal, so killing for funerals became a past time when they witnessed one over 120 years ago, when a couple crash landed on the planet. The bell stopped ringing, and Machiru was killed by the procession as a result. Maetel and Tetsuro came across the procession and stunned them all. Maetel explained to Testuro that funerals would be given to them when they stopped moving, whether they were still alive or not.
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#16 - City Without Night
Season 1 - Episode 62 - Aired 1/24/1980
As the 999 approaches the City Without Night, Maetel tells Tetsuro of a lake there, but tells him not to go out to see it. When they arrive on the planet, Tetsuro gets in trouble for going out at night, but is saved by Maetel. They are told that no one is allowed out at night because of a dangerous dinosaur, Heron, that lives in the lake. Tetsuro and Maetel head there anyway and help Heron when it is captured by some photographers. Heron actually is a friendly creature, and later helped Tetsuro and Maetel out when the police try to arrest them for the death of the photographers.
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#18 - Artemis of the Transparent Sea (1)
Season 1 - Episode 51 - Aired 11/1/1979
As the 999 approaches its next destination, a large number of small blue blobs start passing by the 999, warning it to not go any further. Eventually the 999 gets stuck in a larger version of these blobs, which apparantely is their mother. The Galaxy Railways headquarters gets ready to blow it up so the 999 can go on, but all of a sudden a ship crashes into the blob.
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#19 - Miikun's Mansion of Life
Season 1 - Episode 37 - Aired 6/14/1979
The 999 approaches the planet Mīkun's Mansion of Life, and all the passengers appear depressed, closing the blinds as they approach it. When Tetsuro and Maetel arrive at the hotel, Tetsuro finds a tiger and snake in the hallway, so he hides in his bed the rest of the night. The next day Maetel introduces Tetsuro to Mīkun, who takes care of all the various animals on the planet, which are actually all dead animals beloved by their master.
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#20 - The Witch of Plated City (1)
Season 1 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/18/1979
The 999 arrives on a planet where everything is plated in gold, the streets, the buildings, even the people. A thief knocks Tetsuro out and steals Maetel's luggage. Tetsuro runs after him into the sewers where he discovers the thief, a teenage boy named Hoilock, is not gold after all.
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#21 - The Ghost World Filament
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/12/1979
The episode opened with the story of the post-modern feudal world of Filament, which was destroyed when its sun went supernova. An energy cloud formed where the planet used to be, and its inhabitants, not accepting their untimely fate, became spirits. When the 999 passed through the energy cloud, the ghosts disabled the train and kidnapped Tetsuro. One of the spirits wanted her son to possess Tetsuro, so that he (the spirit) could travel to the destination and receive a mechanical body.
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#22 - The Graveyard at the Bottom of Gravity (1)
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1978
The 999 falls into the Sargasso, where they find the remains of the 333, a missing train. Traveling aboard, Tetsuro, Maetel and the Conductor find only skeletons. A woman aboard the train, Ryuzu, reveals herself, saying that she sped up time on the train which killed everyone. Through her threats, she takes a hold of Tetsuro and departs the train's remains with him.
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#23 - Professional Souls
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 1/25/1979
The 999 travels to a planet full of professionals, and Maetel warns Tetsuro not to look anyone in the eye. When Tetsuro does so, he is captured by a professional hangman who tries to hang Tetsuro. Tetsuro is saved when another professional, a gunman arrives and shoots the hangman. This professional however insists on teaching Tetsuro to become a professional dueler.
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#24 - The Grave of Dead Leaves
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/1/1979
The 999 arrives at a hollow planet with no gravity; as a result everything is a lot fatter looking, and can float through the air. Tetsuro and Maetel are confronted by cattle keepers but are able to escape. As they travel to their next planet Tetsuro meets an artist who has a wooden machine body. When they travel through a planet full of leaves, an electric mushroom threatens to destroy the train.
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#25 - The Laboratory of Eternal War (1)
Season 1 - Episode 47 - Aired 9/20/1979
The 999 landed on a planet called "Rifle Grenade", where slaves were brought in to fight a perpetual war between two factions as spectator sport. One of the slave soldiers, Zeda, escaped and found refuge in the hotel room of Maetel and Tetsuro.
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