RobiHachi Episode 9 Review: The Family That Sticks Together, Hizakurige

Hey all and welcome to this week’s RobiHachi. I find myself to be in a good mood today, let’s see how long this can last. Probably not long.

Plot

The episode starts with a flashback to the 1969 space mission to the moon (if you wanna talk about how we didn’t go to the moon, and this is bullshit, and other non-anime related space-drama, this is not the place. also, science, look it up). According to some very accurate RobiHachi lore, the first man on the moon was a reckless Japanese man, and that made me laugh more that it should have. Apparently he also met some sort of green alien with CHRONIC CRAMPS (this is a real disease and completely not funny okay) and gave him a massage so good the alien recovered. Thus began the era of Galaxy Contact, also known as G.C. year one. It was about time we updated our scheduling system. This is serious history right there.

Somewhere in space, Robi and Hachi are approaching the industrial planet Yokkamarche, while cruising through some spaceship trucks that look very much alike the ones in the Cowboy Bebop truck driver episode. Yokkamarche is not a tourist attraction (well, that’s a first) but it does have great industry, and Ikku insists that both their spaceship and Hizakuriger need some decent service, and where better to service them than in the place where they were built: Yokkamarche. Even Ikku himself was made in Yokkamarche, and he has a ‘Made In’ label. Ugh… okay? Is that gonna be an Ikku episode? I highly doubt it. They land and set off to find Armeni (for those of you who don’t know, Armenia is a country, look it up). Armeni shows up driving a stupid car in the stupidest outfit imaginable and mistakes Robi for his dad Rouche. He is more excited than I would like. He must be a very lonely man. Surely enough, in a few minutes we find out the guy is an otaku. Oh no. Also, he’s an alien.

And so Armeni begins talking about how Hizakuriger is considered a cursed anime on earth- OH GOD – and that it has the longest streak of bad luck incidents to ever happen to an anime show production. Even some of the original episodes have been lost. I hope you are not holding your breath, dear reader (aaaand there it is, my good mood is gone). He then goes on to say that in his pilgrimage he visited Japan on Earth, where he met Rouche, Robi’s dad who was not rich but had a lot of Hizakuriger merch, which he donated to Armeni’s archive. Armeni gave him his all his money, his spaceship, and his fake robot in return. So really, it was like a donation, but with money and goods being exchanged. So not a donation. Some more painful conversation later, we find out that Robi’s grandfather was Hizakuriger’s anime producer. Mind. Blown.

Robi and Hachi piss off to the city center which is basically Akihabara and largely decorated with anime girls acting way more affectionate that any human female would ever even consider acting, then come back to the garage where Hizakuriger is being fixed. Armeni insists on dragging Robi to the archive, I’m guessing so that crazed alien otakus can fetishize of his ancestry a bit further. As expected, there they meet a bunch of otakus watching a screening of an ancient Hizakuriger episode. I suppose he is where we should take a moment to appreciate that all these aliens look just like humans, with the exception of wearing some strange earmuffs. Has human creativity gone too far? The Otakus take turns talking about things nobody in this filthy universe cares about and my mood is now ruined. Several hours later into conversing about the infamous lost episode, Robi remembers he had actually watched this as a child visiting his grandfather. Naturally, the aliens capture him and try to scan his memories. And, of course, mr Yang arrives in the archive right on time to save Robi’s ass (or, memory, more like). This guy really needs to get a life. He beats the shit out of everyone (not that it was a challenging thing to do) and even fights against a laser beam thanks to the power of his LUST (aka he is really horny). He lets them go in exchange for some anime stuff. Sigh. Roby escapes, also. Bless.

Yang san onegai

Can I just say that I totally watch the shit out of an anime starring mr Yang looking for his one true love and not the other way around, as in his completely banal love interest having holidays in space?

How did you find this RobiHachi episode? Let us know in the comment section! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Spring 2019 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!