So here it is: Isekandar in all its glory. And guess what, it’s a fake theme park planet. Who could have possibly seen this coming? Well, not Robby and Hatchi (or Yang and his crew, for that matter), it would appear. This was another resolutely anticlimactic episode, but I’d be a fool to expect otherwise at this point. But hell, at least my mild curiosity surrounding Hatchi’s backstory is now sated. He’s the prince of the moon. Fine. That’s fine.
There isn’t a whole lot to talk about regarding Isekan
dar, which, again, seems to be a very conscious decision on the part of the writers. The Akafucrystals are fake, all the other famous Isekandar attractions are fake. Perhaps most distressingly of all, the Isekangaroos, the glue holding this show together, are fake. The scene where they go to the actual temple is kinda cute, though.
Also, I feel dumb for only just now getting this, but I guess Robby and Hatchi are supposed to be the two extremes on either end of the tourist spectrum? Robby being the wing-it, haphazard traveller and Hatchi being the obsessive researcher and list-maker. And JPS-19 is the killjoy who doesn’t want to spend any money ever. I get kind of confused when I’m reminded that this show is, essentially, a tourism-themed show, because I’ve just… never seen such half-assed enforcement of a theme in all my days. Which is a shame, because it’s not actually a terrible concept and there are flashes here and there that make me think the writers could put together something fun if they cared enough. It just makes me wonder, though. Who on earth commissioned this, and why? What purpose could this possibly serve? If it’s an attempt to boost tourism, it’s not a very good one, considering half the planets in this solar system are apparently shams. And I guess the moral of the story is probably supposed to be “It’s the journey, not the destination”, which is why we’ve taken 11 episodes to get to Isekandar and it ends up being a huge dud, but the journey didn’t have any effort put into it either. In this sense, it is an enigma of a show.
Hey, it’s those marketing guys from Pluto. I forgot about them because they had no compelling characteristics whatsoever, just like all other marketing people. But sure, bring ‘em back, why not. The more the merrier.
So I guess the grand finale is a showdown between Robbie and Hatchi and the moon fleets, presumably Yang’s going to help them win or something. I can’t imagine there’ll be too many surprises in store for the final leg of the journey, but we’ll see.