Galaxy Express 999

Galaxy Express 999 (銀河鉄道999 Ginga Tetsudō Surī Nain) is a 1979 Japanese anime film directed by Rintaro and based on the manga and anime by Leiji Matsumoto. The film is a condensed remake of the first year of the most popular episodes of the anime series. It was released on August 4, 1979 in Japan.

Synopsis

After the death of his mother at the hands of the evil robot Count Mecha, young Tetsuro has become a delinquent street urchin who dreams only of revenge. Tetsuro lives in a far future world in which humans have the choice to travel to another planet where they can exchange their bodies for immortal, robotic counterparts. His goal is to someday acquire (through theft) enough money to board the Galaxy Express 999, a train which is capable of traveling through space, and which will take him to the planet of robots. One day, after escaping from the police, he meets the beautiful Maetel, who resembles his mother. She offers to take him on the Galaxy Express 999 to get a robotic body and to get revenge on Count Mecha. Along the journey, the two meet many varied people, and Tetsuro learns what it means to be human.

Dubbing History[]

Galaxy Express 999 was originally dubbed and released in the United States under the title Galaxy Express in 1980 by New World Pictures, the production company of notorious B-Movie maker Roger Corman. Although relatively faithful to the original script, Corman's dub was highly edited, removing approximately 30 minutes of content and changing character names. The voice characterizations are more cartoony in nature compared to Ocean's dub. Antonia Levi, the author of "Samurai From Outer Space" said that "many otaku consider it too damaged to watch."^[1]

The film was later redubbed in 1996 by Ocean Productions for Viz Media. Released on VHS, this dub was more true to the source material. Viz would also dub the sequel, Adieu Galaxy Express 999. For many years, this release would only be exclusive to VHS as Viz had lost the licenses for the two films. The films would finally get a release on Region 1 DVD in 2011 by Discotek Media. They later announced on June 11, 2017 at AnimeNEXT that the films were slated for a 2018 Blu-Ray release.

Cast[]

Character	Seiyū	New World Dub^[2]	Ocean Dub
Tetsuro Hoshino	Masako Nozawa	B.J. Ward	Saffron Henderson
Maetel	Masako Ikeda	Fay McKay	Kathleen Barr
Conductor	Kaneta Kimotsuki	Corey Burton	Terry Klassen
Captain Harlock	Makio Inoue	Tony Pope	Scott McNeil
Emeraldas	Reiko Tajima	B.J. Ward	Nicole Oliver
Claire	Yōko Asagami		Janyse Jaud
Antares	Yasuo Hisamatsu	Tony Pope	Don Brown
Count Mecha	Hidekatsu Shibata		Paul Dobson
Ryuzu	Noriko Ohara	Renee Feldman (singing)^[3]	Willow Johnson
Queen Promethium	Ryōko Kinomiya		Kathleen Barr
Kanae Hoshino	Akiko Tsuboi		Kathleen Barr
Dr. Ban	Gorō Naya		Gerard Plunkett
Tochiro Ōyama	Kei Tomiyama		John Payne
Shadow	Toshiko Fujita		Jane Perry
Narrator	Tatsuya Jo		Don Brown

Additional Voices[]

New World Pictures Dub

Dicey Adams
Booker Bradshaw
Jill Fisher
Gary Seegar

Ocean Dub

Notes[]

The Character names changes in the New World Pictures
- Tetsuro was changed to Joey "Hanakanabobakananda" Smith
- Captain Harlock was changed to Captain Warlock
- Tochiro Ōyama was changed to Sundown McMoon
- Antares was changed to Olaf
Harlock's (Warlock's) voice characterization in the New World dub was an imitation of John Wayne, while the Conductor's is an imitation of Ed Wynn.
The New World dub replaces the lyrics to the song "Yasashiku Shinaide" and renames it "Love Seems Light Years Away".

Transmission[]

Date(s)	Channel	Country
1997-1998	Space	Canada
—	Sci-Fi	United States

Video Releases[]

Distributor	Year	Dub	Region	Country
Embassy Home Entertainment	1984	New World	NTSC	United States
Viz Media	1996	Viz	NTSC
Discotek Media	2011		1 NTSC
Discotek Media	2018		A DVB-T

References[]

↑ Levi, Antonia. "Chapter Five: Androids, Cyborgs, and other Mecha."Samurai from Outer Space. 1996, Carus Publishing Company. Fifth printing, 2000. 94. ISBN
↑ Galaxy Express on CrystalAcids Anime Voice Actor Database. Retrieved December 15, 2017.
↑

External Links[]

Galaxy Express 999 (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
Galaxy Express 999 at the Internet Movie Database

[1] Levi, Antonia. "Chapter Five: Androids, Cyborgs, and other Mecha."Samurai from Outer Space. 1996, Carus Publishing Company. Fifth printing, 2000. 94. ISBN

[2] Galaxy Express on CrystalAcids Anime Voice Actor Database. Retrieved December 15, 2017.

[3] ↑

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