Hmm, after three episodes I’m still just not sure about this show! I’m having a pleasant enough time with it but this episode was kinda meh, with a plot that seemed bland and phoned-in in comparison to the in-your-face wackiness of last week’s trip to Mars. This week it was Pluto, with yet another father-daughter tourism team in need of they boys’ help (are they all going to be father-daughter tourism teams? Is that just the default tourism board structure in this universe? Were the creators super into that one Atlanta episode of Futurama or something?) I guess Robby and Hatchi are freelance tourism consultants now. That’s nice for them. They’re going harder with the tourism theme than I thought th
ey would, which is kind of interesting and could potentially lead to some great moments down the road, but I don’t think this episode necessarily brought anything in particular to the table.
I thought the Plutonian father and daughter were pretty cute characters, but there wasn’t really anything much to differentiate them from the father and daughter on Mars other than superficial things like character design. I did find their extreme saltiness over the kanji for Monday being given over to the moon instead of Pluto pretty funny, though. Poor Pluto. The true underdog of the solar system. I for one will always recognise its planethood. Also I guess I’m a pleb because I actually thought those mascots were kind of cute.
The PR company weren’t amazing villains of the week, although their mecha fight scene with Hizakuriger had its moments. Overall, though, they were just a bit… blah. So much blah all over this episode. Our main villains, Yang et al, didn’t really stand out much either, but somehow they’re starting to grow on me anyway? Maybe I’ll end up liking them, I won’t rule it out.
I was also kind of disappointed that the cliffhanger from the end of episode 2 didn’t get much attention, with just a few seconds at the start being devoted to the mysteries of Hizakuriger and his anime. I know they’ll get to it later, but I feel like this episode was a little sparse on plot, and some real in-depth Hizakuriger lore would have been a nice way of padding it out. For a 12-episoder, they’re taking their time getting into gear with this.
So yeah, I dunno, I am still very much going back and forth on this one. Nothing I’ve seen so far has particularly wowed me and this episode has made me even more uncertain if anything, but my curiosity about Hizakuriger and Isekandar are enough for me to keep an eye on it for at least another episode or two. If it doesn’t start up in earnest soon, though, I might have to drop this one. At least they’re out of the Milky Way now!