Undersea Super-train: Marine Express (Anime)
Also known as 海底超特急 マリン・エクスプレス (Kaitei Choutokkyuu Marin Ekusupuresu)
Undersea Super-train: Marine Express 1979
The Undersea Super-train: Marine Express (1979) TV Special aired on August 26, 1979 and, along with One Million-year Trip: Bander Book (1978) and Fumoon (1980), is part of Nippon TV Network’s annual 24-hour charity program, “Love Saves the Earth”. Despite a relatively short run time (91 min.), the telefilm features a veritable “Who’s Who” of Osamu Tezuka’s Star System. Each character has an important role, with many intertwining and overlapping stories. In keeping with the central theme of a charity program, the story emphasizes the dangers of environmental destruction and the need to work together to overcome them.
What it’s about
The story is in two parts, and packs an enormous quantity of plot into a fairly short running time. The first section follows the maiden voyage of a new, experimental super-fast undersea train, running across the Pacific Ocean. The action follows the passengers, who include the train’s creator and financier, and a number of other characters, some of whom are supposed to be on the train, some of whom are definitely not. Half way through, after hijackings, natural disasters, betrayal, mechanical problems, onboard surgery and shark attacks, the train reaches the island of Mu, where the second part of the story begins with the remaining crew being sent back in time. Five thousand years earlier, the ancient and mysterious civilization of Mu, known in the modern day only through sparse archaeological remnants, is under threat by a three-eyed demon and a vampire, and our heroes must team up with Mu’s supernatural protectors to liberate the natives.
Plot of the train section:
Shunsaku Ban is shot while pursuing Skunk, and saved by Black Jack. Seeing Skunk on TV sneaking onto the Marine Express, which is about to take its maiden voyage, Shunsaku Ban leaves Black Jack’s clinic and rushes to the train, with Black Jack in pursuit, demanding payment. Meanwhile the VIPs board for the test run, including Nazenkopf, his sons Adam and son Rock, and Duke Red and his daughter. The rest of the train is filled with dummies, simulating passengers for the test-run. On board, Millie and Astro have several serious conversations about the nature of humans and dolls, while the pilot Rock deals with damage to the track due to a volcanic eruption, and Shunsaku Ban seeks Skunk.
Several mysterious and sudden deaths among lesser characters on board lead Shunsaku Ban to discover that Skunk is smuggling special weapons by hiding them inside the mock dummy passengers. Skunk hijacks the train, holding Rock and others at gunpoint, and critically injuring Nazenkopf. As they deal with Skunk, and Black Jack undertakes emergency brain surgery to save the injured Nazenkopf, the situation worsens when Nazenkopf’s plan goes into motion even without his presence: determined that he would rather destroy the Marine Express than let it bring envitonmental and cultural destruction to his homeland by increasing traffic and tourism, he had programmed the robot Adam to interface with the control computer of the train and force it to crash.
Rock and the others struggle desperately to regain control of the train, and in the end Millie, also revealed to be a robot, interfaces with Adam and gets him to release the train. Thanks to Rock’s good piloting skills, the arrive at the island which is the halfway stop of the train without further trouble.
Plot of the Mu section:
As the survivors emerge onto the island where they are surrounded by the Inca-like step pyramids and walls of the ancient civilization of Mu. Rock has a vision of a beautiful woman calling out for help, and soon they are all transported back in time. They are led by the vampire Don Dracula into the imperial throne room, where Sharaku declares his intention to use the time machine to further strengthen his hold over the terrified people of Mu.
Meanwhile, empress Sapphire is confined to the tower, where she is aided only by the apparition of Leo the sacred lion. Rock, aided by Leo, arranges her escape, and, donning the armor of a warrior of Mu, he joins her leading the battle to drive out the invaders. The war is a success, and Rock decides to remain and marry Sapphire and help oversee the restoration of Mu. The others each make individual decisions either to return to the present, or remain in Mu for a while, which Black Jack chooses, wanting to help the injured.
What you should know
This film was, like Fumoon, produced for the Charity show Ai wa Chikyu wo Suku” in 1979. It is an original story, crossing over many of Tezuka’s most popular works and including almost all of his most popular characters – the most you will ever see in one story. It served as the basis for much of the recent Astro Boy: Omega Factor video game for GameBoy Advance.
Broadcast Information
| Released: | August 26, 1979 |
| Released by: | Tezuka Productions |
| Network: | Nippon Television Network |
| Runtime: | 91 minutes |
| Format: | Full Colour |
| Genre: | Drama, Science Fiction, Fantasy |
| Cast: | Nazenkopf (Ochanomizu), Duke Red, Rock, Adam (Astro Boy), Millie, Skunk, Shunsaku Ban, Black Jack, Lamp, Sasaki, Sharaku, Don Dracula, Sapphire, Leo |
Character Roles in Undersea Super Train: Marine Express
| Character: Nazenkopf (Ochanomizu) |
| Professor Nazenkopf, played by Tezuka’s most lovable mad scientist Dr. Ochanomizu, is a rather darker version of Astro Boy’s usual creator. While Ochanomizu in Astro Boy enjoys success and respect as the head of Japan’s Ministry of Science, Dr. Nazenkopf has had a career of frustration and betrayal, and is determined not to see his latest work, the Marine Express, contribute to the destruction of the planet and his homeland, as he fears it will. |
| Character: Duke Red |
| Duke Red is the financier of the Marine Express, along on the maiden voyage with the intention of declaring it to be his achievement when they arrive triumphant at their destination. A typical role for the character, Duke Red here is a politician and scientist, internationally famous and influential, and wealthy after a long career stealing credit for others’ achievements. He is not a wholly evil man, but willing to exploit the inventions of his friend, and criminal enterprize, for hisown trade. |
| Character: Rock |
| Rock here is the pilot of the Marine Express, and the elder son of Dr. Nazenkopf. Though Rock often appears as a villain in late Tezuka, here he is closer to his earlier roles as a young, good-hearted man. He is deeply invested in the success of the train, and of his father, and committed to ensuring the safety of the passengers. In the second half of the story he plays more of a heroic role, and, unusually for Rock, a romantic one. |
| Character: Adam (Astro Boy) |
| The robotic younger son and creation of Dr. Nazenkopf, Adam is a version of Astro Boy, one quite new at interacting with people, unfamiliar with human ways. Over the course of the story he experiences some of his first contact with other human children, and with the concepts of dolls and toys and other pseudo-humans, bringing him to a crisis over his identity as a robot. Unlike Astro, Adam knows he is not a robot designed to help others, but a destructive device, created by Dr. Nazenkopf to thwart Duke Red. The theme of a robot created as a bomb or other destructive device is one Tezuka treats many times in Astro Boy and elsewhere, and it is striking to see Astro here as the one created to destroy. |
| Character: Millie |
| Duke Red’s daughter, the same age as Adam, accompanies her father on his grand voyage. Like many children of wealthy parents, she is sweet but rather insensitive, and begins an awkward but interesting friendship with Adam, who is the only other child on the train. Her father tries to keep the two from interacting, but children will be children. In the end when Adam’s destructive functions are activated, it is revealed that Millie is also a robot, though she did not know it herself, and it is her connection with Adam, both as a fellow robot and as a friend, which allows them to save the train. |
| Character: Skunk |
| A master criminal, as usual, Skunk flees onto the Marine Express and hides there in order to evade the detective Shunsaku Ban who has been pursuing him. He is engaged in a scheme to smuggle a strange new weapon across the sea using the Marine Express. |
| Character: Lamp |
| His usual dastardly self, Lamp is an associate of Skunk. |
| Character: Shunsaku Ban |
| As ever a detective, Shunsaku Ban is hot on Skunk’s trail at the beginning of the story, and nearly killed by Skunk and his men. He is rescued by Dr. Black Jack, but then runs away from Black Jack’s surgery when he sees Skunk board the Marine Express. He sneaks on board, where he plays his typical role, cunning mixed with brawn. |
| Character: Black Jack |
| Tezuka’s famous mysterious and brooding doctor saves Shunsaku Ban’s life at the beginning of the story, but is, as always, insistent that the detective pay his fee, and when Shunsaku Ban runs onto the Marine Express, he follows. Throughout the story, Black Jack remains largely detached from the action, even napping through critical fights, but takes action when necessary to treat medical emergencies. In typical Black Jack style, he performs high-speed brain surgery while on a super-fast train being threatened by a volcano, sharks and gangsters. Supposedly, though Tezuka left much of the animation of this film to his assistants, he insisted on drawing every cell of Black Jack personally. |
| Character: Sasaki |
| A straight-forward young man carrying a wooden sword, Sasaki appears in a number of Tezuka’s samurai stories, and in his real world adventures, but is seen less in science-fiction and fantasy, and thus not very familiar to American readers. He is on board the Marine Express and helps combat Skunk and his villainy. |
| Character: Sharaku |
| In his own series, The Three-Eyed One, Sharaku is the last survivor of a race of ancient three-eyed magical beings, fiendishly powerful and wicked, but whose powers can be sealed by the closing of the third eye. Sharaku has two personalities – when his third eye is closed, he is a shy, lovable schoolboy, as we see him in the Black Jack TV series, but with the eye open he becomes a mischievous and powerful demon. Here he is in his second form, as the oppressor of the ancient civilization of Mu, imprisoning the empress and dominating the people with a mixture of sophisticated alien technology and his own sorcery. It is common for Sharaku to have some time traveling capacity, which he retains here. |
| Character: Don Dracula |
| Don Dracula is usually a humerous character, the title character of a comedy series which Tezuka created to run in Weekly Shounen Champion to take the place of Black Jack when he stopped writing in weekly. Dracula is a bumbling and silly but still noble vampire. Here he is in Sharaku’s thrall, acting as the tyrant’s primary servant and majordomo, servile but still carrying himself and speaking in the old-fashioned aristocratic manner worthy of a vampire count. |
| Character: Sapphire |
| Sapphire here is the empress of the ancient civilization of Mu. As is customary in her lesser roles, she does not retain here the double gender she was known for in Princess Knight, but is straight-forwardly a woman, held prisoner by Sharaku, and using magical powers to seek help from the others, particularly Rock. |
| Character: Leo |
| Leo, from Kimba the White Lion is here a magical flying lion, the enchanted protector of Mu, who helps Sapphire in her resistance to Sharaku. |
