This is a two part addition to the Ten Years Later series. To begin with, Maetel Legend is a 2-part OAV from 2000 that was designed to add to a vast mythos created by anime and manga maker Leiji Matsumoto. The groundwork was laid in the late 70s when the TV shows Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 were produced. Soon after in the early 80s two GE999 films were created as was an origin story for Captain Harlock entitled Arcadia of My Youth, with a subsequent TV show as well. There was also another TV series produced in this period entitled Queen Millennia: The Queen of 1000 Years.
For a long while after then, there weren’t any anime projects for Matsumoto’s galaxy spanning space operas. Then in the mid-90s, there was a renaissance of anime works about these characters including Harlock Saga, Queen Emeraldas, Cosmowarrior Zero, Galaxy Railways, Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy and the subject of this article, Maetel Legend. Throughout all these works, there have been two women who’ve played crucial roles in these storylines: Maetel, the mysterious traveler frequently seen on the Galaxy Express trains, and Emeraldas, the space pirate with an all-android crew. Maetel Legend was conceived to give these characters their own origin story, which also ties to another character in these works.
We’re shown the planet La Metalle (last seen in the Queen Millennia anime) which is decaying due to the fact its sun is dying. As a result the population is starting to die off and a cyborg scientist named Hardgear decides the best way to save the people is to put everyone into machine bodies that can last forever if need be. The Queen decides to order all her people to take on this process (due to the fact, it turns out, that Hardgear has injected her with nanites to convert and ultimately control The Queen.) However, her twin daughters, Maetel and Emeraldas, choose not to go along with this and work to fight off Hardgear’s plans.
Until this video was released, it was never known these two were sisters. They clearly knew each other in previous Matsumoto related anime, but the connection was never established beforehand. Seeing them in this video was somewhat interesting as Maetel is shown to be gentle and a bit of a princess in her demeanor. Emeraldas on the other hand is very much an action oriented character with a fierce spirit, and it’s easy to see how she became a space pirate eventually. For anyone who’s ever watched the Queen Millennia series, it’s also a bit of a tragedy as we see her descent into madness, ultimately becoming the Galaxy Express 999 villain Queen Promethium.
In the space opera genre, which much of Leiji Matsumoto’s works popularized, there’s a lot of drama and a general feel of intense emotion caused by desperate odds that characters must face and/or painful/romantic situations they must endure. Unfortunately, the screenplay here by Mugi Kamio and the direction of Kazuyoshi Yokota falls flat compared to many Matsumoto-based entries in the genre. Sure, the sisters have a seemingly impossible problem to solve, but something about the execution here feels off. It may simply be because of the comparative budget for an OAV shown here as opposed to movie budgets for such stories; perhaps it simply doesn’t measure up to the execution of scenes by director Rintaro on the GE999 films. For Maetel Legend, the tone at times feels a bit more fast-paced like the Dirty Pair anime (sci-fi misadventures of two female troubleshooters). Still, it’s nice to see some fleshing out of these peoples’ origins, even if the overall effort is average at best.
The OAVs were brought to the U.S. by Central Park Media. The voice acting work is all right though so there is that. Lisa Ortiz (of Slayers fame) and Veronica Tyler play off each other well as Maetel and Emeraldas, respectively. Even though this is an origin story of sorts, it still feels a little strange to hear Maetel being a bit less self-assured than usual, compared to earlier works. Rachael Lillis is convincing enough as the once heroic Queen La Andromeda decays into to villainous Promethium.
Funny enough, the last time La Andromeda was seen in the U.S. was on the series Captain Harlock and The Queen of 1000 Years (two anime edited together by Harmony Gold to create a 65 episode single series, even though these shows originally took place 1000 years apart from each other.) However, this was something that was broadcast in the 80s and likely thought of not noticed since that series was little more than a footnote in anime history by the time 2001 came around and Central Park Media acquired and sold Maetel Legend for the home markets. In addition, other sci-fi shows like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star and Trigun were finding favor with American audiences looking for new animation techniques and memorable characters showing for long periods on Cartoon Network television at this point. Maetel Legend on the other hand was a short OAV series with less distribution and older looking designs, which didn’t connect with American fans nearly as much.
In Japan, the videos did well enough to earn a 2004 follow-up TV series entitled Space Symphony Maetel, showing more of the origins of Matsumoto’s favorite characters. This is the second part in which we see Maetel return to La Metalle only to find her mother Promescium attempting to force the planet’s population into becoming machine people. She meets a young boy named Nasuka who now lives for revenge against Promescium. The show itself is ok, like the OAVs, though there’s more time to develop a decent storyline. Familiar subplots from GE 999 are slowly revealed, making the show more fun for long time Matsumoto fans.
Another series entitled Galaxy Railways was produced about a team of soldiers who work on different galactic trains besides the 999. This one was not only imported to the U.S. by Funimation, but also earned a sequel TV series in its own right as well as a 4-volume OAV series entitled A Letter From The Abandoned Planet in which the Galaxy Railways characters go to search for the 999, which has turned up missing.
However, neither this GR sequel nor Space Symphony Maetel have ever been imported to the American market. Central Park Media closed its doors for good in 2009, so the license for Maetel Legend has remained available for some time as of this writing. Other long standing Matsumoto-based works like Captain Harlock and GE 999 have remained classic icons of anime fandom to some degree in America which are cosplayed and discussed at anime convention panels. The characters are also still thought of very fondly in Japan with merchandise, trains and even boat rides dedicated to them as well as a recent all CG Captain Harlock movie released in theaters last year. Maetel Legend itself though remains an obscure (and somewhat forgettable) bit of anime history for U.S. fandom and will likely remain that way unless another importer chooses to license it.
For more information on how the various Leiji Matsumoto anime connect together, visit Corn Pone Flicks’ Captain Harlock Archives found at this site: http://www.cornponeflicks.org/harlock/harlockmain.html
