I thought this whole episode might be a flashback episode to Robby’s past life (and I guess his past life was a major theme of the episode), but it was just that one pre-OP scene. I’m kind of disappointed, I would have been down for something like that. Really, I think this whole series might work better if they’d stayed in one place. This “one planet per episode” deal is all well and good but when there’s no apparent connection between any of the planets (yet) and they’re not really doing anything of consequence, things star
t to feel a little pointless. Which I’m usually fine with, I am very much not someone who needs everything they watch to be all plot all the time. But it’s kind of weird that they’ve dangled a plot in front of us and are almost wilfully not addressing it except when absolutely necessary. I guess it only bothers me because the episode padding doesn’t even have very much effort put into it, so I can’t quite see what they were going for with the structure. I did enjoy the Mars plot in Episode 2, but the plot of the most recent two episodes have largely seemed rushed and haphazardly-constructed.
I did like the one flashback scene we got, though! I think I might actually… kind of like Yang now? Maybe? The scenes with his henchmen were sweet, and I’m not sure why but the fact that Yang is secretly in love with Robby is endearing to me. I wish they could have spent a little more time on his gang and a little less time on Hatchi watching dishes. I feel like Hatchi has been pretty underutilised so far which is sad because I think he’s cute (although judging by that meaningful bracelet glance he did upon hearing the ship was being followed, that’ll probably change pretty soon). Robby ends up stealing the show most of the time, since he actually, you know, does the things that drive the plot, while Hatchi stands around being amazed at shit and occasionally knowing a helpful thing.
The planet shenanigans this time were just kind of blah. I liked the look of Odwarla and its residents – Gyo-Gyo in particular had an adorable design and I was rooting for him, but there wasn’t really anything special to speak of. Seeing Robby’s ex pop up out of nowhere solely to scam him into buying fishing rods was pretty f
un but I thought they might do a little more than that with her. This episode was full of nice ideas that it more or less refused to take anywhere.
I continue to enjoy Hizakuriger and hope he gets used a little more in the coming episodes. This must be my first time watching a show where I’ve actually thought to myself “give me more of the mecha”. So regardless of its mediocrity, I guess RobiHachi can consider that an achievement. I really don’t know whether I’m going to continue with this one, though. It’s possible that these last two episodes were just particularly phoned-in, but I’m starting to suspect that this thing is never going to get off the ground, despite its several good points. I’ll give it one last chance to keep my interest on Episode 5, but I may end up dropping this one.