English Dub Review: RobiHachi “Qu-eel-le Surprise”

It’s the R-eel D-eel.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The gang touches down on Hamama II, the 29th planet on the Galaxy Highway, best known for its eel. Eel so large that it eats herds of oxen in a single bite. Their people are all giant muscular men who look the same, aside from what appears to be a little girl who offers to be their tour guide. Little do they know that Yang and his crew are just about to land on Hamama II as well. Yang starts ingesting some of the local eel, which puts his Robby-hunting senses into overdrive, but narrowly avoiding them every time. But his luck turns around when Robby and Hachi take part in an eel race for some prize money, where Yang spots Robby and pounces. Obviously Robby can’t pay back his massive debt since he’s flat broke, but in his thirst for Robby’s booty, Yang ends up winning the eel race.

Robby wins second place and the girl tour guide turns out to be a boy, so the main gang makes a break for it. But Yang is at a loss for how to proceed in his chase next.

OUR TAKE

Okay guys, this is getting pretty tough to defend at this point. I feel like pretty much every problem I had with the last episode could probably apply to this episode just as easily. Planet theme that was a total snore fest, most definitely. Robby and Hachi basically being whittled down to their most basic character traits, most assuredly. Disjointed and low stakes plot that ultimately ends up going nowhere, absolutely. I know this show didn’t exactly hit the ground running with its stellar (pun intended) premise, but they had to have planned for a trip that would be more engaging than this. And it’s not like what they have now isn’t possible to make exciting if they could just inject some energy into things. Just because the animation is bland doesn’t mean the writing has to be.

The one key difference this time around is that Yang finally catches up with and confronts Robby about his debt. This interaction goes about the way you would expect from a loan shark having it out with a guy who can’t hold onto five bucks if it wasn’t stapled to his back, but at least it’s SOMETHING in the way of progression. There is also a bit of development in Yang’s seeming crush on Robby, which looks to be escalating now that he’s let go of his anger and could be fully embracing his more romantic feelings. Given what we know about Robby and where his sexual orientation compass points, I can’t see wherever this is going ending well for Yang. Then again, if it doesn’t end well for Yang, it’s probably going to end worse for Robby.

And with that, we reach the halfway point of our twelve episode road trip across the galaxy. Aaaaaaaaand I still have no clue where this story is headed. The PLOT is most likely headed to Isekandar like the singing kangaroos keep saying after the theme song, but the STORY is…unclear. Robby doesn’t look to be getting a proper character arc anytime soon, but if he did, I guess it would have to do with owning up to his debt and paying it, however long that takes. Hachi, meanwhile, is still pretty much a blank slate aside from a brief mention that he might have a bad relationship with his parents, which I am surprised he hasn’t bonded over with Robby since they have that in common. But hey, six down, six more to go!