Nagaya Voyager, with Robby, Hatchi and Ikku on board, finally leaves the Solar System. Their first step is the 9th planet on the Galaxy Highway, Odawarla[1]. There, they immediately head to the exciting downtime area and discover it to be full of half-fishmen?! As it turns out, Odawarla is the planet of merfolk.
“We might never come back here again,” says Hatchi, happily researching gourmet spots and actively enjoying sightseeing. Robby joins him. Eventually it turns out they’ve run out of money and have to take up part-time jobs at a seafood bowl restaurant...
The episode starts with a flashback: Allo and Gras lead Robby to meet Yang so he can ask for additional financing. Yang agrees, but reminds about the previous debit being already due. Grateful, Robby gives him a bag of strawberry milk candy.
Back in the present, the main trio talks about the road to Isekandar. It leads through 53 stage station planets – even though they have left the Solar System, Isekandar is still 2,290,000 light years away. Hatchi suggests stopping at the stage station planets to enjoy the trip to the fullest. Ikku comments he noticed some ships have been following them since they left Pluto – for some reason, Hatchi seems worried by this, while Robby brushes it off, joking he hopes it’s some nice girls after him.
The group arrives at Odawarla, a planet almost entirely covered in water. In the past, there was nothing but the ocean there, but since then, land has been artificially created to allow people to live on the planet too and native Odawarlans adapted to live out of water as well. Even now, there is mostly only water on the planet, and Robby soon loses his prior excitement over his expectation of beaches with hot girls and drinking cocktails.
At last on land, Hatchi explains why Odawarlans look like merfolk who walk the land. Robby jokes that Hatchi, with how he does background research, surely is the type to check the restaurants’ popularity ratings prior, to which the latter sulks and protests that it is perfectly logical to do so and drags Robby and Ikku to a restaurant he saw has a 4.5 star rating: Merfolk’s Odawarla Specialty Seafood Bowl Restaurant.
As it turns out, the restaurant’s speciality is that customers eat the fish they catch themselves. Hatchi is as usual very enthusiastic about this, but very soon calls for help when he catches something but, having no prior experience in fishing, doesn’t know what to do. In the end, Robby pulls the fish out. The fish is an Odawarla-uo, a local specialty. It produces a strangely colourful meal and Robby loses his appetite. Eventually, he is convinced to eat by Hatchi, who is happily devouring his own serving.
Afterwards, as he is about to pay for the meal, Hatchi suddenly pauses, as if he realised something, and says he is out of money. He asks if they can work the meal off, pointing to a sign saying that the restaurant is looking for part-time workers. Robby immediately protests and complains that he was counting on the other’s money, but before the argument can escalate, he falls to the ground, sick, and has to be hospitalised.
A local doctor diagnoses him with food poisoning and suggests it is probably due to the large amounts of Pluto shaved ice. Robby needs to be kept overnight for observation – the nurse assigned to him is the same one that he met two years back after he fell from the stairs, and she recognises him too.
In a flashback, Allo remembers his first meeting with Yang. It was a rainy, chilly day, and he was sitting alone and sad in a mikan carton box. Yang, who was walking down the alley with an umbrella, stopped next to him, gave him a comb and told him to pay more attention to his appearance, then offered to buy him something to eat. Allo sprang to his feet and ran after Yang after a brief moment of confusion.
A second flashback shows the first meeting between Allo and Gras. This time, the day was warm and sunny, so Gras was leaning comfortably against the same mikan carton box and listening to music through his headphones. Allo was walking down the alley, combing his hair, and saw Gras there. Intending to imitate Yang, he repeated the same words about paying more attention to appearance – but Gras didn’t hear a word due to his headphones. This repeated a few times, until Allo was shouting and stomping his feet trying to get the point across, before he gave up and walked away, offering a meal nevertheless. Gras ran after him and kicked him.
Back in the present, Robby talks to his nurse about their past meeting – she says it must be destiny that they met again on her home planet. She was forced to go back home after the gangster’s wife found out about her. She then tells him how if one offers a fish loaf made of the elusive Odawarla oarfish to the Odawarlan god, they get reward money from the planet.
Simultaneously, Hatchi is having a very similar conversation with his new co-worker Gyo-Gyo. The Odawarlan explains he can breathe with his lungs, but still has gills, only they are now atrophied from disuse after such a long time. He plans to work hard, save money and buy an undersea suit so he can dive and catch the Odawarla oarfish, collect the reward and pay for a wedding ceremony.
On the next day, Robby picks up Hatchi and Ikku from their part-time work: his nurse sold him a premium fishing set for hunting the Odawarla oarfish. Ikku scolds him for falling for another scam. The group still tries to use the set, since they already have it, but they cannot catch the oarfish. Robby gets fed up with waiting and decides they will dive down in Hizakuriger and look for the fish like this. Already after they go into the water, Ikku wonders if the robot is waterproof.
Very soon, Hatchi hears some cracking as it turns out the robot is, indeed, not waterproof and starts to leak. He explains it’s about the pressure, all while he slowly sinks. The duo tries to retreat upwards and eventually manages to reach the escape hatch and open it, but this just throws them into the vast of the ocean. Gyo-Gyo appears swimming and has to pull them both out, saving them from drowning.
Back on the surface, Hatchi laments they didn’t catch the fish after all, but is told he should be happy he is still alive as this is what is the most important. Gyo-Gyo comments there is something good that came from this adventure: he discovered his gills will work just fine with some training, so he doesn’t need to buy a suit. Hizakuriger then spits out lots of water, and with it – an Odawarla oarfish. The three immediately go after it and manage to catch it.
The reward they collect is partially used to pay for the premium fishing set, partially for Gyo-Gyo’s wedding, and partially to haul Hizakuriger from the sea, so it’s mostly gone, but Robby shrugs it off and says they have enough for their expenses for now.
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[00:14] Unrest (in Yang’s office)
[01:16] Emotion (Robby gives Yang candy)
[03:36] Isekandar (opening section)
[03:47] Galaxy space (showing the Galaxy Highway)
[04:26] Miserable (Ikku notices they are being followed)
[04:49] Visit (approaching Odawarla)
[05:39] Conversation (entering the city)
[06:44] Excite (in the restaurant)
[07:40] Allo & Gras (caught Odawarla-uo)
[08:40] Heart (Hatchi asks to work part-time to pay for the food)
[09:44] Up tempo (starting a new day at work)
[10:27] Love (Beautiful Nurse enters the room)
[11:38] Freedom (Yang gives Allo a comb)
[13:35] Freedom (Allo offers Gras something to eat)
[13:46] Beauty (Beautiful Nurse talks to Robby)
[14:16] Excite (Hatchi at work)
[15:10] Beauty (Beautiful Nurse tells Robby about the oarfish)
[15:28] Emotion (Gyo-Gyo talks about the oarfish)
[16:01] Good condition (Robby arrives with the fishing gear)
Robby: The ocean, the ocean! The ocean is on fire! Oh, and I don’t mean in the “hot girl” way, I mean in the “burning” way.
Ikku: If I know you, you’re planning to get busy with a girl on the beach. Robby: Of course I am. The ocean means beaches, and beaches mean girls while sipping cocktails.
Robby: [after a moment] Actually, there’s nothing but ocean here.
Robby: Ah, are you the type of person who thoroughly looks up restaurant popularity ratings before going to eat?
Hatchi: Huh? Ikku: Bullseye. Hatchi: Yeah, that’s right! Assuming a life of 80 years, some quick math shows that amounts to 87,600 meals eaten. I’ve already lived 18 years, so subtracting 19,710, that leaves 67,890 meals to go. I don’t want to have any crummy food for even one of those remaining meals! Robby: O-okay.
Hatchi: All right, let’s eat here. They have a 4.5-star rating.
Yang: Be a man and pay more attention to your appearance. Come with me. I’ll buy you something to eat.
Robby: Whew, that was a close one.
Hatchi: But we didn’t catch anything. Robby: What’s the use? Money, women, and that thrilling, heart-pounding sensation of being alive? Doesn’t mean a thing if you’re dead.
Ikku: He’s right, Hatchi. Just be glad you’re alive. Besides, the three of us are all going to Isekandar, right?
Planet Odawarla is called after Odawara, which was one of the stations of the Tōkaidō. Curiously, while the city is traditionally known for its production of kamaboko processed fish and stockfish, in modern Odawara commercial fishing plays a relatively minor role in the local economy.
The fish Hatchi caught (with Robby’s help) is called Odawarla-uo. Uo is Japanese for fish.
The restaurant owner lamenting about recent labour laws refers to the Work Style Reform Legislation, introduced in 2019.
Both Allo and Gras were shown with a mikan box. Mikan is a type of citrus. The same box is featured on the promo poster for the series.
Just like the elusive Odawarla oarfish that was caught, actual oarfish are also said to be rarely seen.
In a now-deleted Tweet, Shinji Takamatsu explained that Hizakuriger being unable to withstand water pressure resulted from a conversation he had with Tomino Yoshiyuki. Takamatsu asked if Quess (from Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack) would be okay when he plugged his ears and jumped out into space. Tomino replied, “The difference is only 1 atmosphere. It would be much larger at the bottom of the sea.” – as per a-aruke2.
Hizakurige has a section dedicated to Yaji and Kita visiting Odawara as well – though their adventures are of a different character, as the two were having issues with figuring out a specific bath type. In the end, Kita ended up breaking it. Curiously enough, Yaji also suffered from a food poisoning in Hizakurige, but unlike Robby, his case happened in Hirokōji.
Staff notes for the episode:
Opening: The heartwarming road trip anime RobiHachi, wandering down the Galaxy Highway. The planet Odawarla is a watery world.
Ending: Haccone, exit point of the galaxy. But you need a pass to go through? In order to get their passes, they have to find the don of Haccone!
