Galaxy Express 999: Glass Claire

ぎんがてつどうすりーないん がらすのくれあ

Aired: 1980

A short theatrical anime produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation) and released as part of the Toei Manga Matsuri program. Building on the world of Leiji Matsumoto's hit manga and the smash-hit 1979 Galaxy Express 999 feature, this roughly seventeen-minute companion piece focuses on a single hauntingly intimate story from the long voyage of the immortality-seeking boy Tetsuro and the mysterious beauty Maetel. On board the 999 they encounter Claire, a young woman whose body has been turned to crystal glass; tormented by the memory of the human suitor she once loved and the loneliness of her transparent existence, Claire finds in Tetsuro's quiet kindness a chance to reckon with what her life still means. Matsumoto's signature romantic melancholy, Isao Sasaki's theme song and Nozomi Aoki's score combine in a small but exquisite side-story for the Galaxy Express 999 saga.