REBEL 3199 Chapter 4 program book

INTRODUCTION

Dezarium’s schemes gradually change people’s hearts

Time slip loop

by Harutoshi Fukui (Contains spoilers. Please read only after watching.)

Now, the secret of the 3199 version of Sasha has finally been revealed. For those who didn’t catch it on the first viewing (though I hope you’ll watch it multiple times in theaters), here’s the explanation: This Sasha didn’t suddenly grow up because she’s an Iscandarian. She spent fifteen years on Dezarium’s Earth and grew up normally to be seventeen. Then, she used a space-time node to return to the present (2207). For the Yamato crew, this happened just two weeks after Sasha was abducted by Alphon. That’s why they were shocked, thinking, “How could a two-year-old…!?”

Originally, Earth and Dezarium’s times should have been linked through the space-time node. But the node was, after all, just an accidental space-time tunnel. Accidents often occurred. The Dezarium Pleiades-class battleship carrying the abducted Sasha, headed for 3199, drifted off course slightly and landed in 3184. At that point, the spacetime node hadn’t been discovered yet. The Dezarium people learned of the existence of a spacetime hole connecting to a thousand years ago through the sudden appearance of their own ship (one not even manufactured yet) and the two aboard it: Kaoru Niimi and Sasha. Consequently, a grand plan to “rewrite the future from the past” began. As part of this, the operation to abduct two-year-old Sasha from 2207 was executed.

They deliberately placed her aboard the malfunctioning Pleiades-class ship, intending for it to be lost at the spacetime node. They knew that ship would undoubtedly drift to 3184 and inform their past selves of the node’s existence. Conversely, had they not done this, Dezarium might never have learned of the spacetime node. The plan to rewrite the future from the past, and the very existence of those involved in it, might never have been. It might have been as if nothing had ever happened from the start. That is why “it had to be repeated,” as Kazan and Alphon explained.

Actions not yet taken by oneself are already woven into history, decisively influencing the world surrounding them. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This sensation of being literally “chased by time,” this endless, labyrinthine feeling of spinning in circles, is the very essence of the time slip genre. There are many masterpieces throughout history and across cultures, but the one that has unexpectedly struck a deep chord in the author’s heart is an episode of Doraemon titled “Doraemon Overload.”

Doraemon is saddled with a mountain of homework by Nobita. There’s no way he can finish it all in one night. So he uses his time machine to summon himself from two hours later, four hours later, six hours later, and eight hours later. Using sheer manpower, they finish the homework. But the problem? The one summoning is himself, and the one being summoned is also himself. An endless hell. After that, he gets summoned by his past self every two hours. Not only does he end up a complete wreck, but the versions of himself start fighting each other, nearly killing one another. That’s the story.

And of course, we can’t forget the other essential work: the Back to the Future trilogy. The first film, where traveling back in time with a time machine and interfering with his parents’ meeting leads to the threat of Marty McFly’s own extinction…this is practically the bible of Hollywood sci-fi.

However, the true strength of this work as a time slip story actually lies in Back to the Future Part II. Just when you think the first film restored history, the extremely convenient alterations made for the protagonist Marty backfire, ushering in a dystopian future. Marty, determined to prevent this, leaps back into the timeline of the first film. The adventure unfolding behind the iconic scenes of the first film, combined with brilliant special effects, truly represents the pinnacle of time slip cinema. Therefore, ‘Part 3’, which untangles that complexity and converges into the clear narrative of “rescuing the doctor stranded in the Wild West,” felt somewhat like a formality after the excitement of ‘Part 2’… and I suspect I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

However, the theme of Back to the Future, told over two sequels, comes to fruition in Part 3. In this grand, chaotic farce — one where only Marty knows the full truth, making it almost as if “none of it ever happened” — what did Marty ultimately gain? I’ll avoid spoilers for those who haven’t seen it, but it wasn’t the result of time slip-induced historical restoration. It was the experience he gained while caught in the whirlwind. It is precisely this “transformation of the heart” — something that cannot be redone or corrected — that ultimately saves Marty in the end.

If only I could ride a time machine and redo the past. Such thoughts become more frequent and more urgent as we grow older. Yet, at the same time, the feeling that altering the past would mean losing oneself gains equal weight.

This resonates with what Dessler stated earlier in this chapter about the history of Space Battleship Yamato, and also with the question Saburo Kato’s father, Ichiro Kato, posed to Fleur: “Can’t you accept things as they are?” That question is perhaps the idealism of someone unaware of the centuries of hell Dezarium endured. Yet Ittetsu Kato’s words, uttered even after losing his wife and son, carry an immense weight. Fleur weeps. While most Dezarians seem to have their emotional sensors suppressed for mission purposes, they likely cannot fully control the instinctive emotions inherent to living beings. Fleur’s tears might have been the condensation of emotional vapor, her heart unable to process the feelings locked deep within.

Sasha, raised in such a Dezarium world, seems to lack sufficient experience cultivating human emotions, even with a surrogate mother like Niimi. In that regard, she could be considered equally as unbalanced as the original Sasha, who turned seventeen in just one year.

But the Sasha of 3199 interacts with many people, unlike the original. She receives words from Dessler, from Ram, from the Yabu family, and learns what it means to be human. Not as the thread that established Dezarium’s history, but as a seventeen-year-old girl who has just begun walking as a human being, she will undoubtedly become the compass that charts the Yamato‘s future voyage.

Yet that compass needle wavers with her heart. Just as it was with Marty, no matter how much time she traverses or history she alters, the experiences of the journey accumulate, and those memories shape her heart. This voyage will surely prove far more complex than in the original. After all, at the end of Chapter 5, Yamato will…

The story so far