It’s terribly cute that Saeki is reading Flowers of Evil just then.  I mean, what a coincidence.  Or is it?  Did she hear the doorbell, figure that there was a decent chance her new beau had arrived, and picked up the book just in case?  It’s possible…

Second Comment:

gg’s translations are pretty spectacular.

Third Comment:

I had pretty much figured out that this was the reason Saeki was so distraught.  She thought she heard Nakamura tell Kasuga she (Nakamura, not Saeki) wanted to sleep with him.  It’s a delicious bind (well, delicious to us observers~) Saeki has gotten herself into.  Think back of the terms in which she started her relationship with Kasuga.  The boy was clear: he wanted a pure, platonic relationship with Saeki.  Saeki accepted gladly.  After all, for a regular girl her age, this kind of sounds like a splendid deal.  She gets to know and explore her feelings for a boy she likes at a leisurely pace, without having to worry about the boy jumping her on the second date (as boys his age often try to do).  And of course as the relationship blossoms she expects fully expects it to turn into something more normal and less…platonic.  (I’m thinking kisses and that kind of thing yo).

Aye, there’s the rub.  Saeki now has cause to suspect Kasuga is enganged in decidely physical pursuits with Nakamura.  But she can’t really blame for it if he is, since by the terms he presented (and which she agreed to) theirs is purely a platonic relationship.  Oops.

Fourth Comment:

Kasuga starts calling himself by Nakamura’s own names for him.  This is an important turning point, to be sure.  He calls himself a kusomushi, i.e. a dung beetle.  But at least at this point, he refuses to call himself a hentai, i.e. pervert.  I think these words are important.  A dung beetle is a regular creature, it does what it does and you can’t really blame it for doing so.  Kasuga might be appropriating Nakamura’s term because it’s liberating in a sense: “I creep around shit, it’s what I do so just back off.”  Hentai is something else altogether: something different, something that should not be.  So at this point Kasuga would rather relinquish his humanity and creep around like a bug than be dubbed a human deviant, an outcast.

Fifth Comment:

The sequence that begins now is just epic.  I relish the religious undertones here.  Kasuga basically takes Nakamura to be a priestess or a mediatrix for the redemption of his sins.  Only she can help him in this regard.  Nakamura, after laughing like a maniac, picks up the role and plays it marvelously.  I mean, that caress, wow.

Nakamura points out that the moon is full and about to burst.  Some of us might think of werewolves, others might think of how all of the important events in the Buddha’s life occurred on a full moon.  It is a time for action, in any case.

The sign works great here: 2 are about to become 1 in some sense.

See how he still rejects the “hentai” prompt?

Nakamura has the correct “ethical” approach in mind.  She can see a mile away that Kasuga is intending to cheat.  He wants to fess up to his crime, but only to Saeki (and not even in person, what scum~).  Kasuga knows Saeki’s character.  She knows the girl might be aghast and shattered, but that she’ll keep it to herself, she won’t go around school telling everyone about it.  So Kasuga will feel better without losing too much.  Hell, it’s almost as if he’s willing to pass the burden on to Saeki just to feel better himself.

That’s a no-no, so Nakamura plays it straight: you want to do the ethical thing, you confess to everyone.  Let everyone know, let Saeki get the support she needs from all of her classmates, and you, well, you just get ready to get ostracized as you should (and wait till your parents find out etc etc.)

She’s rubbing against him right there, isn’t she?

Here we get a pretty impressive speech/rant.  The “shit” hits the fan.  Nakamura’s contention, then, is that people are really dung beetles.  Not just Kasuga, everyone.  As a corollary to this, the word “hentai” is almost meaningless.  If everyone deviates from the social norm of what a good human being is, if everyone really loves to roll in shit and fuck, fuck, fuck, then who’s a hentai?  Everyone.  But if everyone is a deviant then no one is, because the norm is not truly real.

Therefore when Nakamura calls Kasuga a hentai, what she means is this: you are a dung beetle like everyone else, yet I know that you know you are a dung beetle even though most dung beetles are blissfully unaware of  it, and now you know that I know that were people to peek inside your brain they’d call you a hentai, and so I’ll call you a hentai until you truly realize your true potential and start going shit-crazy just like you’ve always wanted to.  Then you’ll wear that stupid word “deviant” like a badge of honor, because you know the measure of it and the others don’t.

The “confession” that Nakamura is supposed to mediate for Kasuga kind of falls to the side here, but the ground has been laid for an infinitely deeper confession.  She is literally forcing Kasuga to open up, let his walls down as she keeps saying, and become who he is.  His sin, if we can call it that, is not stealing Saeki’s clothes.  That’s just a symptom.

Nakamura’s sex, sex, sex is followed up by Kasuga dreaming back of Baudelaire.  We can be sure that to some extent at least Kasuga likes the Flowers of Evil because they’re sexy.  That’s no surprise, it’s a big appeal of the poems.  But Nakamura isn’t interested in Baudelaire, she really isn’t.  And no, it’s not that she hasn’t read the book and so doesn’t realize that if she did she’d end up loving it or at least empathizing with it or something along those lines.  No.  She has no use for Baudelaire.  Judging from her ranting, I think she’s already read a book that renders Baudelaire redundant and even pedantic.  It’s not necessary to find out for sure what that book is.  It could be Darwin’s Origin of Species, it could be Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene.  There’s a great irony here: it might just be that Nakamura is the student who has been paying the most attention in class, at least in Biology.  She knows what drives humans, and she realizes that IT is no different that what drives all the other creatures, even dung beetles.  Ipso facto, the word “human”, not as a shorthand for the species Homo sapiens but as an abstract counterpoint to the word “animal” or “beast,” is bullshit.

This knowledge, Nakamura senses, can be liberating.  But she wants, she needs, an ally.  Kasuga’s own standpoint, while still somewhat superior to that of the masses, is still woefully inadequate.  Why be tied down to the fetishes of a confused 19th century Frenchman when you have all the world to play with?  Why dream of Baudelaire when you can do whatever the fuck you want? (emphasis on fuck)

Kasuga wakes up from his “there’s no way out of this place” nightmare to Nakamura’s screams: “Boring, boring, boring!”  They’re on the same wavelength, then.  But there’s a key difference: Kasuga is constantly thinking extensionally.  That is, he thinks, he fools himself into believing, that his salvation lies “just beyond those hills”.  Who knows?  Maybe in Tokyo, maybe in Europe, in Baudelaire’s Paris.  The solution is travel, distance from where he began, extension.

Nakamura, on the other hand, thinks intensionally.  They don’t have to leave town to be free.  Hell, they don’t even need to leave their very own classroom (the very image of hell to many a high school student) in order to reach heaven.  It’s not about movement and distance, it’s about intensity and feeling.  To quote Hamlet again: “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space,” ergo fuck space.  And maybe it’s because travel is always a solitary thing (one always leaves the others) whereas feeling is always a group thing (one always feels the others) that Kasuga, who is stuck in this extensional framework, insists on daydreaming of non-existent pure angels (angel-Saeki) and basically being alone whereas Nakamura is obsessed with reaching out and touching someone.  And that lucky someone is Kasuga.

Among the things that Kasuga writes is hentai.  That’s a broken wall right there. And note that Nakamura has finally gotten him to write, which he’s been refusing since the beginning.

Nakamura prods him on and Kaasuga writes “I’m a hentai” again and again though he still can’t manage to yell out the complete sentence.  Nakamura prods him further.

And then the sex music begins.

What a beautiful episode.

Kasuga is on cloud nine and being such an arrogant little p***k about it.  Does he honestly think that Saeki has “seen into his soul” and that’s why she likes him.  There’s a huge gap in his thinking about himself and the world around him.  On the one hand, he feels different and better than all of the commoners, on the grounds of special qualities that almost by definition would make him feared and reviled if they were known.  And yet, he’s in love with this girl who seems to represent more than anything the commonness of life (and that’s why Kasuga loves her).  But then by his own interpretation of things, the only way Saeki (the angel of the mundane) could ever love him, would be by completely misunderstanding him.  Which is not to say this would-be archdevil is supposed to give up on her.  Not at all.  Devils want their angels, but they know that must force and deception to enslave them, not (duh) open up their hearts to them.  And that’s what Nakamura doing for Kasuga now.  Setting this all up and validating, at some fundamental level, the lad’s conception of himself.  He just doesn’t know it yet.

Very little time elapsed in this episode, but it packed such a punch!!  By the way, I totally get the feeling this Kinoshita character could turn (horribly) important later on.

Anyway, I refuse to read the script so please if you did read it don’t comment on it here.

However, I do want to bring up some more things from the super trailer, and I should start it off by asking once more: Does anyone have any info on the song??  My first thought was Linkin Park (and several others have suspected the same) but I’m not an expert on this group or others that sound similar so I don’t know..

Shot 1

So, here we see Yuki and Daiba rescuing Harlock.  Yes, indeed, a very Endless Odyssey vibe there…  And I like the fact that Daiba and Harlock resemble each other.  I did mention this beforehand, but it’s worth repeating.  Can you imagine the incredible amount of pressure Leiji and his crew must have suffered to make them look as different from each other as possible?

Shot 2

Very different vibe from most Leiji Earth governments.  The name is the same, as Gaia Coalition in English is an OK equivalent of Earth Federation, or the classic corrupt government of Earth in the Leijiverse, but these guys look more like a cross between Moria and Gondor than the Federation of SPCH…

Shot 3

So is that Earth (I guess that’s South America on the left and a bit of Africa on the right)?  It shows up a number of times, and I have to say it looks gorgeous.  And right after that, just look at Daiba looking at Earth:

Shot 4

You see his eyes just devouring the planet (unless, of course, there’s been a major edit here, and he’s not at all looking at what we just saw, but to me the sequence makes perfect sense as is).  He is mystified and awed, a bit of resistance around his mouth (like: I’m too cool for the mother planet) but dude, he’s fooling himself, he’s about to burst into tears.  This is awesome.

Shot 5

Does the Arcadia look the same, or has it changed since fans started hollering about it?  I can’t tell.

Shot 6

I’m not a mecha man at all, but there’s definitely something sexy about triple turrets.  Books on the IJN are always talking about the triple turrets on the Yamato etc., and I once did some serious research on why they never came up with 4 or 5 (apparently 3 is the maximum that is still stable or something along those lines, it’s an optimum arrangement design-wise).

Shot 7

OH YEAH BABY THE TIME HAS COME!!!

Shot 8

Cool to see the same scene replicated like this, once for the “good guys” and once for the “bad guys.”  (What’s really neat is that just looking at this trailer, you can see how Leijiesque the whole project is).

Shot 9

The art is superb, and the animation is superb.

Shot 10

Harlock sheds a tear.  I just reread El Cantar de Mio Cid and so I’m very attuned to the power of a hero’s tears, and how it can reveal their strength (because they’re not afraid of exposing their weakness).

Shot 11

I’m dying to know just what’s going on in this scene (but you know what, not dying fast enough to read the script or have someone spoilt it for me!!!).

In conclusion, this trailer rocks and all evidence suggests that the film will rock.  Any other opinion on the matter is just silliness.

I hated this.

I felt as if an Evangelion hater had concocted this film just to provide his/her posse with more ammunition.  Kaworu was lethally boring.  He really was.  In the TV series he comes in, acts really nicely toward Shinji for what feels like an brief instant, and is then crushed.  Here, we have to endure him saying practically the same BS over and over and over.   Like he was some creepy cultish figure.  And there was something off about his character design, I swear.

I spent this film, as I’ve spent each of the films in the series, clenching my teeth in the vain hopes that Asuka would not get hanged, drawn and quartered like she was in the TV series.  I wish I could happily report that she survives this film.  She does survive, but it’s not a happy report at all, when Misato (and others, but I was shocked mostly about her) has practically taken her place as far as character demolition is concerned.  What on Earth did they do to Misato?!  OMG.  Misato shouldn’t try to be Harlock, she should stay Misato.  She is now officially lame.  Scream it from the rooftops.

From about minute 1:25 I was hoping this was going to be a dream or an alternate reality, and that we’d get back on track at some point and I’d be able to skip this part if I ever did a rewatch.  I’m still kind of hoping the first scene in the final film will be of Shinji waking in a hospital etc.  The damage has been done, though.  It’s a waste of a film.

PS: It’s my 600th post

Since there’s a gap of several hours between the “Kasuga covers for Nakamura” incident and Saeki all of a sudden thinking he’s like the coolest guy for doing so, I think there was plenty of time for the wily Nakamura to have a word with Saeki.  It seems to me that the spectacle we’re watching develop throughout this episode (Saeki+Kasuga) has really been engineered by Nakamura, and that Kasuga will soon be confronted by a horrible, bitter truth: that the woman he sees as the only stumbling block on his way to eternal happiness, Nakamura, is the one who created this “happiness,” which is thus only a mirage.  And if I’m right then when it all collapses, poor Kasuga will be asked to write an essay on it, and I guess he might this time around.

Re: Kasuga’s mom, she proves once again that anime moms are the worst ever (let’s not even start on the dads…).

We keep getting clues (as if we needed any) on Kasuga’s basic personality from the books on his shelf.  He’s got a couple of volumes of Dostoyevsky’s works (incl. Notes from the Underground), and the complete works of Sakutaro Hagiwara.  I know nothing of this Japanese poet, but just look at his face!!  [He's also got shogi, philosophy, journalism,  and Anne of Green Gables stuff]. In short, Kasuga is somewhat smarter than most, with delusions of grandeur and not an ounce of will to get anything done, but he projects his frustration out and is resentful at everybody else but himself.  Honestly, Nakamura’s coming is pretty much a blessing to him.

The sort of perverse combos that Nakamura comes up with reminds me a lot of the very Baudelairian Α rebours, which by the way I’ve never read to the end.

Visually I’m reminded of Kiriko Nananan, and I don’t mean anything deeper by that statement, so just take it at face value (I like Nananan).  And then all of the ambient sound reminds me of stuff like Ghost Hound.

So, in this episode, dude is marveling at the shampooey fragrance of Saeki’s clothes when he hears a clatter behind him and ends up stuffing the whole thing down his pants.  I bet that if Nakamura, it must have been her that made the noise, hadn’t done that then dude would have gotten his fill and put Saeki’s clothes back where they were.  Don’t you think?

As soon as Takao, that’s the dude’s name, arrives home, we get a short demonstration of the disfunctionality of the Japanese family.  The kid is acting extremely weird, Mom shows verbal concern, kid runs upstairs and Mom forgets about it.  From firsthand accounts that I’ve heard, this is actually pretty normal in Japanese households.  If that had been my Mom, she wouldn’t have left me alone at that point, trust me.

Anyway, the voice acting is splendid, it really is.  And note that this Nakamura girl orders Takao to take her beyond a hill, right after Takao muses that he can’t escape beyond the mountains etc etc.  So it’s like she’s trying to help him leave, but of course like many of us that pray we could do X or Y, he falters when the actual chance of doing it is right before him.  Which means he’s scared, or he doesn’t really want to leave, or maybe it’s a mixture of both.

The general rule is that as a man grows older, he considers more and more different types of women attractive.  (Nothing more snobbish aestheticswise than a kid).  The popular explanation is that older men get desperate or perverted or both, and that what they are doing is willfully “lowering their standards.”  I don’t think that’s right at all.  I’ve actually had deep and meaningful conversations with older men (back when these older men were around the age I am now, in some cases) were I was told that as men grow older they simply appreciate beauty better.  I don’t want to get all metaphysical, but I would even say that as you grow old you start getting a sense for the link between minute physical details (include mannerisms and speech patterns in this) and actual spiritual traits.  But enough, my point is that I think Nakamura is quite cute, but I understand that younger fans might not think so.  Plus the manga fans are probably aghast, as the manga Nakamura is classically prettier and thinner.  Or should I just say thinner?  Is that it?

Next to the portrait of C. Baudelaire, there are some volumes by a Yoshihiko Hanazawa, which as far as I can tell does not exist but is probably code for Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, who translated French literature and wrote on the occult.

The conversation during gym class is the best.  The dialogue and the images are just stupendously perfect.  It’s so freakin’ real!!  If the best kind of escapism is into a reality not your own, then this kind of scene is just superb.

(So, basically the prime spot for adventure in a Japanese classroom is the next-to-last seat in the back, near the windows.  Not the last, because that’s reserved for the alien/crazy person that will rock your world.)

Saeki is awesome in the last scene.  The only possible reason that Takao could have for calling her into the library after class, in Japanese schoolworld terms, is to confess he loves her.  We see that she has concluded this right off the bat, as she’s extremely nervous, hoping she’s wrong but already bracing herself to reject the boy.  (The gym clothes thing is not in her mind at all).  And then you just gotta love how Nakamura pushes him toward Saeki, so that he’s almost on her chest but not quite, and then he himself goes forward and finds his way there.  So this boy does have some potential for mayhem after all.

Now, as to the freaky ED song, well, we’re kind of used to this sort of experimental stuff coming from Japan.  I’m always very cynical of these experiments, but in this case I think it does the job, though maybe that’s because I like the show so much already.

P.S. Are people complaining that the character designs are ugly or something?!  Boy, am I glad I didn’t put my picture up on the blog or what!!

P.P.S. Been working weekends and stuff, but this one should be the last for a while.  So hopefully I’ll be able to watch shows and stuff soon, and I promise I’ll finish that translation of the Matsumoto interview…

A Dignified Teacher’s Influence on Maetel

Interviewer: So Kokura in Kita-Kyushu was a starting point…

LM: I learned the basics of drawing, an attitude to life and a perspective on humanity.  My father Tsuyoshi had been a major during the war but he had been purged [the officer class was purged after the war, but were rehabilitated and able to gain employment again rather quickly].  He set up a greengrocer’s on the road.  “Won’t you become a pilot?”, he was asked, and I told him “I want you to fly too.”  However, he said “I cannot justify it to my dead cohorts and subordinates.  With what face would I dare to get back on an airplane today?  I’m not flying.”  He never gripped that yoke again.  My heart was so struck by my father’s thoughts for those that had passed, that I wouldn’t even look at the chocolate offered by the occupation troops.

After the war, and keeping in mind that my family was a military family, someone told me once: “You guys didn’t go up in the world.  You’ve fallen down in the world!”  I said: “Shit, what did you say?  I’ll show you!” and clenched my fists.

Interviewer: And then?

And then the Kokura period of my life began, as I entered Komemachi Primary School as a third grader (second semester).  The classroom teacher was Ms. Tamae Masuya, a beautiful teacher with a slim figure.  Whem Ms. Masuya learned I liked comics she told me: “Akira.  If you want to draw comics in class it’s OK.”  But when the important part of the class came along she’d tell me: “Akira, stop drawing your comic.”

She was dignified, hated improper things, and was very kind.  I grew to like her a lot.  Whenever I did something bad she would slap me and scold me with eyes full of tears, “Akira…  We Japanese didn’t suffer through the war just so you could do such things!”  That became 999 Maetel’s viewpoint and her “anti-gravity electronic ring” to fight against evil. [OK, I confess I'm confused a bit.]

The real clincher was the “classroom library” that Ms. Masuya set up for us in the back of the room.  It included Osamu Tezuka’s long series “Dr. Mars” as well as Toshima Araki’s “Great Space Trip”.  I read “Dr. Mars” several times, and I drew the “Martian Devil”, the “Giant Planet”, the “Detective King” and the “Dragon Tiger” over and over.  Miyoko Kuroda, in my same class, bound my artwork, wrote the [student?] number in the front page and placed it along with the other books in the classroom library.  Another classmate, Ueda, innkeeper’s son, saw me shivering in the middle of winter once and said “Put this on!”, putting his jacket on me.

In class, kids weren’t naughty and they didn’t bully each other.  Everyone only thought of helping each other.  They told me “Your pictures are so good!” and “This is funny!”.  This gave me courage and hope, so everyday I let my pen run happily.

Filled with happiness, I got into the daily habit of yelling out “Harlock, Harlock” as I walked on the path next to the railway track.  This “command” didn’t make any sense, but it was where the “keeping to one’s conviction even until one has been reduced to bones” that Captain Harlock holds to actually sprouted forth.

Interviewer: What was happening outside of school?

LM: We lived opposite the Western headquarters of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.  There was an employee of Asahi’s who lived in the same run-down row house that we did, and he took me to the company with him.  At the company, one of the men said: “So you’re drawing manga, huh,” and he gave me a zinc printing plate of Sazae-san.  From that plate I learned the secrets of printing technology and how it expresses gradation.  In later times, after I had become a pro, these techniques which my cohorts hadn’t picked up came to my aid.  Afterwards I was told by someone associated with Asahi Shimbun that “That man [who gave you the plate] was Seicho Matsumoto!!”

OK, so here it is, the last bit of my overview of GE 999 Ultimate Journey, Glide Media Vol. 1.  Enjoy.

Stop Six Section Four

This section gives us a glimpse of the ongoing battle between the Great Galactic and Metanoid Fleets.

At the Milky Way’s outer edge, the League deploys the crane wing formation that Capt. Kodai devised.  The Great Yamato itself is the “spear” within the formation.  Capt. Harlock’s Arcadia has a detached, roving role, seeking and neutralizing elements of the enemy which have eluded the concentrated fire in the middle and are attacking on the Galactic wings.  We join the action right as the Arcadia has helped relieve the Bolar Fleet’s section of the wings in a particularly hard battle against the Metanoids.

Yattaran is studying the situation and his assessment is bleak.  There’s no end in sight to the battle, and it looks like it will be a super long conflict.  That being so, the Metanoids are bound to win as their endurance is that much higher.  Harlock asks what’s the attrition rate so far.  According to Yattaran, both sides have lost about 20% of their ships.  Harlock is shocked that only 20% of the enemy has been destroyed, and though he does not show it, he starts to have doubts.  A voice tells him to stand fast, that once their hearts falter the battle will be lost.  The voice (a spiritual one, mind you, not physical) is coming from the Arcadia’s main computer, from Tochiro himself.

At that moment Kei Yuki says Freia is trying to communicate with the ship all the way from Valhalla.  Harlock yells for Miime to come in.  Miime turns up just as the main screen reveals Freia.  The goddess tells report that the gods are preparing a fleet and will warp very soon in order to stop the war.  She gives the warp coordinates and asks that the Arcadia inform the Galactic units in the area to clear out before the divine fleet comes in.  Harlock orders Kei to forward the coordinates to the Mahoroba.

Harlock next asks Freia if she has any knowledge of what’s happenning on Eternal, since they can’t communicate with that planet.  Freia says that if Photon were to “act”, that the gods would sense it, but so far they haven’t felt anything.

Once Harlock is aware of the Valhalla fleet’s warp out point, he orders Maji to set full speed for the location and make sure that they arrive there before the gods.  Yattaran jokingly accuses Harlock of being curious and wanting to see the action up close.  The Captain is not into fun and games, so rather than laughing he simply explains that the gods are planning to warp out right in the middle of a great battle without really knowing what the situation on the ground is.  No matter how powerful they are, doing so is reckless and
Harlock wants to make sure the Arcadia is there to guide them when they arrive.

Yattaran disagrees.  Rushing like this will put the Arcadia in danger.  They shouldn’t meddle.  But Harlock says Brünnhilde did good for him in the past, and he needs to pay her back.  Yattaran points out that pirates don’t usually do this, if someone gives you something you take it and keep it.  Why pay it back?

The conversation is cut off when a young girl comes onto the bridge, reporting that Hiroshi, Meguru and Zero have just contacted the Arcadia, having safely arrived at Eternal.  The girl us Mayu Oyama.  Harlock’s eyes glimmer and he quips:  “I see, so Heaven, Sea and Earth are finally together!”

And here ends Stop Six.

Explanation of Harlock’s Statement

OK, so remember that Tetsuro was on his way to the planet Eternal.  Tetsuro’s name is Hoshino, literally: Star-Field.  So he is the Heaven in the statement.

Mayu has just reported that three people have arrived at Eternal.  Hiroshi is actually from the Queen Emeraldas series, and his surname is Umino, literally: Sea-Field.  So here we have our Sea.

Meguru is one Meguru Daichi, the protagonist of a 1986 GE 999 live musical called Trip to Transparent Castle.  know next to nothing of this project, but [here] is a Japanese page with images and info. [He also shows up in Arei no Kagami, with a Zero and a Mayu].  Anyway, Daichi means Great-Earth, so there you have it: Heaven, Sea and Earth.

Mayu also mentioned Zero, and this is the one and only Diver Zero.  And Harlock doesn’t mention him because, you know, if you add zero to X you just get X.  That’s basic math.

The First and Last Station – Eternal Youths

This is a coda to the volume, and deals with the three boys just mentioned.  The title is obviously a pun, yes, these youths just arrived at the planet called Eternal, but they also happen to be kids who never grow old: Diver Zero is an android, so that goes without saying, whereas Hiroshi Umino and Meguru Daichi have been exposed to the magical pixie dust of the Promethium sisters (Emeraldas and Maetel, respectively), which makes your body stops growing (that’s my theory anyway).

The ship the three youths arrive in looks like an ammonite, we’re told.  It’s called Silur [I'm guessing for the Silurian Period when ammonites thrived; Silur is the name of a ship in Hotaruna too apparently].  It lands in the eastern part of the central continent, where Eternal’s only spaceport is located.

Hiroshi and Meguru begin to argue over the fact that the place looks deserted.  Hiroshi says spaceports these days are automated, so it’s no big deal.  Meguru thinks it’s mighty odd.  Ultimately, he’s scared that they’ll be shot as intruders, since they weren’t able to contact anyone before landing.  Hiroshi is portrayed as a rambunctious boy, whereas Meguru is more thoughtful and graceful (and feminine, apparently).

Hiroshi says not to worry.  Silur was designed by the great Tochiro.  If they need to flee nobody will catch them.  Meguru gets even madder.  They’re not supposed to flee, right?  They’re supposed to join the 999ers, wherever they are.  Hiroshi looks over at Zero who’s sitting down, and asks him what he’s doing.

Zero says he’s checking the route inland, by way of his Mama Ball (this is his android mom’s remains pretty much, if you don’t know Diver Zero).  Zero finds out that the 999 is actually inside the spaceport at that moment.  The 999 is empty.  Instead, Zero determines that there is a large group of Machiners nearby, and they include war vehicles and the such.

Hiroshi is scared but happy.  He takes out a Cosmo Warrior gun, then Meguru takes out another Cosmo Warrior gun (how many of these are there again?!).  Well, Hiroshi actually explains this a bit for us, thankfully: Tetsuro’s gun is No. 4, Meguru’s is No. 3, and Hiroshi’s own is No. 0.  And all in all there are 5, so the fact that 3 of them are on Eternal is pretty marvelous.  In fact, it turns out that it was Harlock’s plan to send the kids to Eternal, because he figured Tetsuro and his lone gun could use more help (hmm…I think Maetel is enough but oh well).

Zero finally figures out the route inland and tells the others to follow him, guns in hand.  And here the volume ends.

1

Kakouton says: “If you have business with Moutoku,”  “I think I’ll have you deal with me first.”

The narrator adds: “Will the battle turn around now that Kakouton has arrived?!”

Kakouton keeps talking: “But,”  “it’s my fist that will do the talking.”  Then he looks at Chouryou and adds: “Chouryo!”  “Keep out of this.”  Chouryou answers: “Alright, alright.”

2

The historical blurb focuses on Yoshitsune Minamoto and how he met Benkei.  Wikipedia talks about this incident [here].  The narrator’s lines are: “The Kyoshou warriors are in a tough battle”  “but an even larger threat approaches.”

3

Benkei comments: “What a…”  “grand spectacle this is.”  (She’s being sarcastic yo).

But maybe she’s not being sarcastic.  She says, “First, Lady Kyocho”  “Lord Chouryou”  “Lady Kakouen”  “and then”  “Lord Kakouton.”  “I never dreamt I would see the day that all of these great generals whose fame has reached as far as the land of Yamato”  “would be gathered together before me.”

4

“Heeeyyyyyy!!!”  screams Soujin.  “What’s the big idea omitting the great A-rank (self-styled) Soujin from the list?!”

And Benkei honestly replies: “”Who could you be?”

The Three Pillar Gods come around.  “It won’t do to forget us either.”  “If we let ourselves be killed with one shot”  “how can we dare look in Kan’u's face?”

5

Then all the dreg soldiers start coming in like so many zombies.  “Don’t count me out.”  “I can fight.”  Kakouton looks at them and asks: “Are you guys..”  “really OK?”  And another guy says “Ye-yeah.”

Benkei can only marvel: “What kind…”  What kind…”

6

Benkei finishes her thought: “What kind of a man”  “is this Sousou..?!”

7

Benkei says: “I’m envious…”  “You guys have a leader with so much caliber.”  “I can’t help but..”

8

“…envy you,” Benkei ends up saying.

And Sousou on the roof just chuckles.  “Hehe”  “hehe.”

9

Sousou keeps chuckling:  “Hehe” x 5 here.

Then an intruder shows up, saying: “What is..”  “so funny?”

Sousou’s response: “The junior high’s next door,”  “young lady.”

Then he adds: “Are you lost?”  “Or maybe…”

10

Sousou says: “an assassin?”

11

Sousou chuckes two more times: “Hehe”  “hehe”.

Then he thinks: “A Japanese sword…”  “and an obscenely long one to boot.”  “But she doesn’t have enough space…”

12

And well, apparently she does.  “Uh..”  “Ugh..”

13

Everyone can tell down below that something has happened.

Kakouton yells: “Mo-Moutoku!”

Benkei says or more likely thinks: “Uhm..this ch’i…”  Then she yells “Leader!!”

And Kaku helpfully repeats: “Lea-der?!”

14

The narrator introduces us: “Yamashiro Academy – Junior High – Second Year S Rank”  “The Leader: Minamoto Kurou Yoshitsune”.

And then the tease: “Will even Sousou be killed?!”

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