Childhood Memory: Galaxy Express 999
Do you remember the anime movie Galaxy Express 999? Today I'm pondering the magic of childhood and trying to hold on to it. What's a favorite childhood memory you don't want to ruin by revisiting it?
Sometime during the last six months, I read a post about childhood memories on someone’s blog, somewhere out there in the blogosphere. I don’t remember the details. All I remember is that the blogger described revisiting a favorite something from childhood and being pleasantly surprised that reality lived up to the memory. The post inspired me to leave the following comment, which I preserved for blogging here:
Galaxy Express 999
My memory is an animated movie about a boy traveling through space on a locomotive. He’s trying to get to a planet where they give humans cyborg bodies. On the way, he has lots of adventures, including a run-in with something called a “Medusa Cloud.” I must’ve been 8 or 9 when I saw the movie, and it has always stuck with me in magical bits and pieces. I’m afraid that if I tried to watch it again nearly 30 years later, the magic would disappear.
I should perhaps add that I’ve been in love with my memory of this movie ever since I saw it. In the Medusa Cloud scene, the boy meets a young man who’s defending the statue of a girl against thieves. Turns out that the Medusa Cloud passes through the skies of planets and turns all the inhabitants to stone. The thieves come to this particular planet and steal the petrified forms of people in order to sell them to collectors. The young man who’s fighting them is actually protecting the petrified form of his wife.
That’s how I remember it, anyway. I remember thinking it was beautifully tragic and romantic. It probably played a great role in forming my personal concept of romance and is likely the reason I’m a sucker for good ol’ “Boy Rescues Girl” romantic drivel. ; )
I’ve never seen the movie again, and I’m not sure I ever want to see it again. I’m just afraid that viewing it with adult (and, let’s admit it, somewhat jaded) eyes would shatter the beauty, the romance, the thrill. The magic. I don’t want to lose the magic. Magic is hard enough to hold on to as it is; it doesn’t need me to go digging up the past so as to examine it in critical detail.
Yes, part of me is Peter Pan and always will be. : )
Do you remember Galaxy Express 999?
What’s a favorite childhood memory you’re reluctant to revisit in case it got ruined?