English Dub Review: RobiHachi “Dream of the Moon, Dream of the Earth”

Fly me to the Earth and let me play among the stars…

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Robby and Ikku are blown away by the reveal of Hatchi being the Prince of the Moon, but they don’t have time to when they’re being chased by the Lunar Guard looking for Hatchi and Yang chasing Robby. The two groups end up fighting each other, giving the boys a chance to escape, but the only place they can think to go is back to Earth in order to properly finish their journey. Once they get a chance to breathe, Hatchi explains how he got in this whole mess: Apparently his family became royalty because Hatchi’s grandfather was the one who made first contact with aliens on the moon 50 years ago. So, Hatchi’s whole life was spent training to become king, which was so stifling that he ran away and joined Yang’s gang, but then ran away from that to journey with Robby, and ended up liking it so much that he ended up paying for Robby’s debt which also wiped him out in terms of cash.

Soon, both of their pursuers catch up, but they find a secret wormhole/hyper road back to Earth that the Dontsu Corporation has been using, which zips them past every stop they visited over the course of their journey. But things aren’t the same as they left them on the pale blue dot, as an invading alien ship is about to destroy the planet! Or they would, until the Nagaya Voyager ends up right in its laser cannon, which destroys both ships and leaving only a recently upgraded Hizakuriger behind. A crowd sees this and decides that Robby and Hatchi are the saviors of Earth, with some even recognizing the robot from its old cartoon. Their journey over, the two also realize that the tiny rock they picked up on Isekandar was a genuine Akufucrystal! So, Robby gives it to Hatchi as a souvenir of their adventures.

With this sudden brush with fame, Hatchi finally goes back to being the Moon Prince and Robby sucks up all the fame and fortune that comes from Hizakuriger’s sudden resurgence in popularity…until he inevitably runs out of money again and is back on the street. Luckily, Hatchi and Ikku arrive to help and they all go on another big adventure. In the aftermath, Yang decides to get over Robby upon meeting another pretty dude who offers snacks, and Ikku writes a biography of the show called “RobiHachi”.

OUR TAKE

And so our journey ends and it feels like at the speed of light. By that I mean this ending feels pretty dang rushed, as if they had to wrap up a bunch of story they had planned for a longer timeframe. There was mention between the OP and some of the latter episodes that they had planned a longer anime, but the studio decided against it, which might prove those suspicions true…or it could be the director doubling down on the meta commentary by making a deliberately short show with a rushed ending and blaming the studio for cancelling it. That WOULD make it amusingly similar to the in-universe fate of the Hizakuriger series as described a few episodes ago, which was also planned for a longer episode count but then got cancelled because of first contact. But it’s also just as likely that this real show, RobiHachi, simply didn’t get great numbers and was given the ax.

Honestly, if that’s the case, then I can see why. This series hasn’t exactly been a home run when it came to either sci-fi or comedy, so I could see why a studio wouldn’t want to continue it. Though, as a result, this ending does end up feeling like too much crammed in to feel very satisfying. Hatchi’s true origins of royalty pretty much come out of nowhere, with no attention paid to the odd fact that his family’s rise to power was ironically what led to the cancellation of Robby’s grandfather’s series, even though I’m not sure how that would impact their friendship. The fact Hatchi paid Robby’s debt finally comes up, but it’s not really much of an impact and gets lost in the shuffle of trying to make things come full circle rather artificially. So many things come at you at once that it’s hard to register, much like the hyperjump the crew takes back to Earth this episode. Again, I genuinely don’t know how much is meta commentary or genuinely mediocre writing!

Would I have liked it if this show had gotten even one more season of episodes? Well, it might have given more time to flesh out the characters and the world, but I can’t say I’m very torn up about the show ending here. I can’t say it was an awful time, but certainly nothing remarkable. It was just sort of…average, which is not something you want to feel after a big trip you hoped would make you feel better. And we’ll go back and dissect what made this trip feel average in our Season Review of the whole series!