- Type: TV
- Studio: Toei Animation
- Publish Date 1978-09-14
- Status: Completed
- Genre: Adventure Animation Drama Sci-Fi
- Scores: 2.53 by 4,405 reviews
- Duration: 25 min
- Views: 462
Galaxy Express 999
Tetsuro Hoshino, a ten-year-old from a poor family, longs for an immortal machine body that will grant him the freedom that only the mechanized can experience. The Andromeda Galaxy is the destination of the Galaxy Express 999, a space train that only visits Earth once a year, and is said to be the land of free machine bodies despite the fact that machine bodies are absurdly expensive. Tetsuro and his mother travel to Megalopolis at the start of the series in the hopes of finding employment to pay for passes for the 999. But on the way, Tetsuro's mother is murdered by Count Mecha and a group of "human hunters." She instructs him to get a machine body so that he can live the endless life that she couldn't and to carry on the trip they began before she passes away. Tetsuro makes an attempt to advance alone toward the city but is swiftly overpowered by the freezing wind and cold. As he expires, he sobs an apology to his mother for not granting her desire and expresses the wish that in his next life, he would have been born a robot from the start.