Maris is a young woman from the planet Thanatos. She works for the Space Patrol's Special Police. She and her partner, Murphy, are just getting back from a suspension. Maris had destroyed three rockets and was having to work as a human taxi to pay off the bill. Maris is given a job to rescue Koganemaru Matsushida, son of the biggest quadrillionaire in the galaxy. Maris realizes winning over this suave beau will make her financial problems go away, so she sets out to resuce him.
Maris arrives on planet Moroi and meets Suzy, one of the kidnappers and a fellow Thanatosian. Like Maris she has to wear a "power suppessor cast" around her arms and bust to keep from destroying everything with her strength. After a long battle Maris is able to defeat Suzy, but then the Ringleader arrives. He removes his mask and is revealed to be Koganemaru Matsushida, the hostage! He explains that Suzy had captured him, but he wanted to play the role of the villian. After revealing himself he proposes to Suzy and she accepts.
With no other choice, Maris returns to her menial Space Patrol job cursing her luck.
This story was published simultaneously while Rumiko Takahashi was working on Urusei Yatsurachapters 52 and 53.
Human Taxi - Not to be confused with the practice of ubasute (姥捨て), but as a mode of transportation in Japan, strong villagers could be hired to carry travellers piggyback a short distance, usually over streams or shallows rivers as far back as the Edo period. In 2016, Japanese politician Shunsuke Mutai was heavily criticized for visiting Iwaizumi, an area devastated by typhoon Lionrock and demanding that one of his junior staff members carry him over puddles on his back.
Stereotypical Japanese Tourist - The alien/robot that has hired Maris as a taxi is a parody of the stereotypical Japanese tourist trope. Before the economic bubble burst Japanese tourists would travel in large groups to foreign countries. They did this for three reasons; one, travelling in groups as part of a package deal is cheaper, two, most countries don't have signage in Japanese, and so getting around is challenging for non-native speakers, and three, most foriegn countries don't have Japanese speakers who could assist them if necessary. Surprisingly, Takahashi designs the character using a trio of design motifs the evoke negative-Asian stereotypes from the 20th century, including narrow eyes, Hirohito-style glasses and buck teeth.
Thanatos - The planet that Mari and Suzi hail from is named for the Greek personification of death. He is the son of Nyx and brother of the God of sleep, Hypnos.
Planet Moroi aka Frajyl - In the translation Viz shows that "moroi" does in fact translate to "fragile."
Koganemaru Matsushita (マツシタ黄金丸) - "Kogane" is a gold coin and "maru" in addition to being a suffix for male names can also mean "money."
Almost all the character names in The Supergal are in katakana denoting they are "foreign". Koganemaru is the only one that has Japanese characters. The other part of his name "Matsushita" is written in katakana too which is unusual given the Japanese origin of the name.
“Oo I hate your shape-changing!” - Murphy is an alien who appears much as a kitsune (狐) or Earth fox, specfically a nine-tailed fox. Kitsune are known in mythology to be shapeshifters and once a kitsune reaches the age of 100 they can take a human form if they place an object on top of their head. Of course Kitsune from Urusei Yatsura and Shippo from Inuyasha are the best known kitsune to fans of Rumiko Takahashi's works.
In an interview the English language rewriter, Gerard Jones, discusses the challenge of some of the dialect in this short story.
Interior Chapter Comment
A: Long time no see readers of the special issue. I guess the last time was Dust Spurt. This time is The Supergal. I hustled to create an interesting work with a cute woman in messy situations to make a funny work.
