In order to repair the damaged Hizakuriger, Robby, Hatchi and Ikku stop at the next stage station planet, Yokkamarché. It turns out both Hizakuriger and the Nagaya Voyager were built by the Yokkamarchése aliens.
The group arrives safely and immediately requests repairs, but why was Hizakuriger built on such a distant planet in the first place? Robby learns a shocking truth from the local anime nerds...
This episode opens with a scene showing Apollo 11 entering the lunar orbit. However, a singular rocket beats them to landing by crashing into the surface and a lone Japanese astronaut ends up being the first man to land on the Moon on 18 July 1969. There, he has an unexpected encounter with an alien – this event marks the first contact between humanity and aliens. All of this is shown during the opening sequence with Tensai no Playlist playing in the background.
Ikku demanding that they need to land in order to repair Hizakuriger.
As Nagaya Voyager prepares to descend to Yokkamarché, Hatchi sadly comments the planet is not known for anything, which prompts Robby to wonder if it’s necessary to stop there. However, Ikku demands that they do, as Hizakuriger is damaged after fighting on Mulberry 8. It can be repaired by Armeni, a Yokkamarchése, who built both the robot and Nagaya Voyager. Ikku himself also comes from this planet.
Armeni’s hangar is seemingly empty – he arrives after a bit, surprised to have visitors in person as everything on the planet is automated. At first he confuses Robby with Rouche, his father. When he sees Hizakuriger’s state, he scolds Robby and Hatchi that’s it just a full-sized figurine which shouldn’t be used for fighting – but he agrees to repair it. He doesn’t want money, however, rather than Earth’s anime cels, drawings, recording scripts and so on. This is how he traded in the past with Rouche, when he went on a pilgrimage to Earth. Rouche provided many valuable materials related to Hizakuriger, which is very popular on Yokkamarché, and in return Armeni gave him all his spending money, Nagaya Voyager and the full-sized Hizakuriger robot figurine.
Robby manages to find some leftover cels at Nagaya Voyager – they turn out to be of a main character of the first show directed by Yuma Yarge, Robby’s grandfather. It comes as a surprise to both men that Robby is Yuma’s grandson – Robby didn’t know his grandpa was an anime director, as the man passed when he was only five and Rouche never talked about him, and Armeni didn’t realise Rouche was Yuma’s son when they met.
Robby and Hatchi during their tour round Yokkamarché.
As Armeni performs a scan of the damaged Hizakuriger, Robby and Hatchi go on a quick sightseeing trip of Yokkamarché – the planet is thoroughly covered by highly automated factories, which generated the locals such wealth that now they live healthily for a long time. They have so much free time they have nothing to live their lives for except for their hobbies – a prevalent one seems to be anime. However, as the Yokkamarchése could only watch re-runs as they were broadcast into space network, the most popular series on the planet are from before Robby was even born and are considered way beyond nostalgia. Hizakuriger in particular has its own store with goods.
Back in Armeni’s hangar, Hatchi decides to watch the fully-automated process of repairing Hizakuriger, while Robby is invited to join a meeting at Hizakuriger Archive with a fanclub of the series.
Allo and Gras reading the poster of the Hizakuriger Archive.Yang, certain he figured out where to find Robby.
Meanwhile, Yang and his crew land on the planet and are similarly confused by the old anime seen everywhere. Allo and Gras spot Hizakuriger on a poster – they learn the robot comes from a TV series and a group of its fans will have a special screening on that day. Yang deduces this is where Robby will be.
In the Archive, a club of five members – including Armeni – watches Hizakuriger’s opening before starting a discussion. The fans are excited to have Robby there, even though he says he remembers very little, and ask him about the show. Not really knowing what to answer, he deflects the question, which prompts a long discussion between the club members and reveals multiple facts about the anime and its production issues.
In particular, they lament that episode 12 was excluded from the re-runs, so they had no way to watch it. They have only theories about its potential contents. Presented with one such theory – that Saturnians were developing a new nuclear weapon and Hizakuriger barely managed to save the day – Robby suddenly remembers something and says the theory is completely wrong: the whole episode was actually a flashback of the main characters’ past. He knows this as his grandfather would show him the episodes often when he was a child. When the club learns the master tape owned by director Yarge was buried with him so it’s not possible to access episode 12 from it, one member distracts Robby with her cleavage while Armeni zaps him unconscious.
When Robby wakes up, he’s tied to a chair inside a machine of sorts. He is told the mechanism is used for extracting memories – the Yokkamarchése have been using it in the past to collect lost videos of their favourite anime. The downside is that it completely wipes all memories of the one subjected to extraction. Robby calls for help, but both Hatchi and Ikku are busy still watching the repairs in the hangar.
Instead, Yang barges into the room, followed by Allo and Gras wielding baseball bats. He fights the club members, enraged that they were trying to do something to Robby – he manages to stop the machine and undo the ties, but then one of the club members tries to zap him. He manages to resist and pushes away her weapon. Redirected beam destroys the archive. Robby flees in the commotion, runs into the hangar and demands that they leave the planet immediately.
Still in the archive, Yang rips Armeni’s shirt only to find out below there is a t-shirt of Yang’s favourite anime – Binan Shonen Love-Love. As this show also seems to be lost media, he decides to extract his favourite 4th episode from Armeni’s memory to watch it again.
The episode ends with Robby remembering the missing 12th episode of Hizakuriger – Yuma and Rock, lying under a starry sky, talk about what they want to do when they grow up. Rock wants to be an astronaut, and Yuma – to make manga films. They decide to go on a space adventure together in the future.
In some online spaces, the episodes are available with no addition, in others: with a short animation at the beginning indicating that Funimation was the show’s original licensor. The animation lasts for 7 seconds and ends with a purple screen with “Funimation” written on it.
For checking the timestamps for used music tracks, please select the tab that reflects the presence or lack of this short intro animation.
[01:30] Galaxy space (Japanese astronaut and alien shake hands)
Armeni: Huh?! What did you do?! Robby: Fight. Armeni: This is just a full-sized figurine in the shape of Hizakuriger, so you shouldn’t be fighting with it. Robby: We know that very well.
Armeni: Aw, what the hell.
Robby: So my Grandpa was an anime director. Grandpa passed away when I was five, so I don’t remember a lot about him. My only vague memory of him is him cuddling me.
Hatchi: Your father never told you much about him, huh? Robby: Ah! Far from that, he concealed Grandpa’s identity and sold off his keepsakes to get money! What a damn lousy father!
Ikku: Ha, both father and son turned out to be lowlife scum.
Yokkamarchése anime fans: Never underestimate the Yokkamarchése desire to collect! Yang: Never… sell short… an Earthling’s lust!
Yang:Binan Shonen Love-Love was an anime from when I was in grade school. The PTA took issue with its content, and it was cancelled.
The Japanese astronaut landed on the Moon on 18th July 1969. The real Moon landing of Apollo 11 took place two days later, on the 20th of July.
The alien who is sick with chronic cramps is a narrative device used in rakugo, in which a traveller, frequently a woman, falls down due to cramps and has to be rescued by someone passing, thus initiating their encounter.
The episode’s sidebar denotes G.C. 0051 as the first year of the Reiwa era. It’s the current era of Japan’s official calendar, started in 2019.
Yokkamarché is named after Yokkaichi, also a station of the original Tōkaidō. Modern Yokkaichi is a manufacturing centre – one of its area of specialty includes computer parts. A tourist attraction offered there are nighttime rides during which visitors can see the factory lights. Similarly, Robby, Hatchi and Ikku went on a tour and saw Yokkamarchése factories on their way. The street full of anime-related shops resembles Akihabara in Tokyo, said to be the homeland of anime culture.
Armeni’s design resembles director of RobiHachi, Shinji Takamatsu.
Armeni: The 12th episode content is disputed, and it's regarded as the lost episode.
There is an actual show which had its 12th episode banned – Ultraseven. The episode was banned as it was referring to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Several old anime shows are referenced in passing when both groups find themselves confused in the anime zone of Yokkamarché:
Hizakuriger Specialty Shop resembles in principle The Gundam Base.
Yang’s favourite show, Binan Shonen Love-Love, is a parody by another Umatani anime: Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! (Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu LOVE!) A poster of the original show can be seen when Robby and Hatchi explore Yokkamarché, too – next to the Hizakuriger Speciality Shop.
Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! is also potentially referenced in the shown scene from Hizakuriger’s episode 12: Yuma and Rock talking under a starry sky resemble very closely in their poses and general situation a similar situation happening between Atsushi Kinugawa and Kinshirou Kusatsu from LOVE!.
This episode doesn’t have an eye-catch in the middle which would divide it into two parts as all the others do.
Yaji and Kita visited Yokkaichi during their travels in Hizakurige, too. One noteworthy thing about this was them complaining about the conditions at the inn being notably worse than in the other places they’ve stopped at – which could potentially link with how Robby’s experiences on Yokkamarché are anything but pleasant.
Staff notes for the episode:
Opening: 50 years after first contact in 1969, G.C. 0051, is the first year of Reiwa. Because of its glory, the fate of an anime was sealed.
Ending: A huge fight erupts between Robby and Hatchi. What will become of the trip to Isekandar? Doesn’t really matter what becomes of it, right? It says ‘never get involved’, right? (heh)
