Isekandar

Spoiler Warning: Spoilers for RobiHachi may follow.

Isekandar as seen from space.

Isekandar is a planet at the end of the Isekandar Highway in the Andromeda Galaxy and is currently the most advertised tourist spot to be visited. Its commercial with Isekangaroos dancing to catchy music is widely played across the universe, but apart from it, not much is known about it attractions – even TripSunvisor doesn’t provide many details. To be allowed to visit it, travellers must first clear the customs.
Criminals, debtors and other blacklisted individuals are not allowed to pass and upon trying are arrested by the Galaxy Police. However, interestingly enough, saying that one is on a pilgrimage to Isekandar allows any traveller to clear the Haccone Checkpoint without any travel permit. After passing the final checkpoint, the Isekandar Tourism Organisation will contact the visitors and invite them to participate in a quiz about the places visited during their pilgrimage – those who manage to get all the answers right will be allegedly rewarded with a full-day tour with Isekandar’s mascot, Mr. Isekangaroo or Miss Isekangaroo.

A view on Isekandar’s surface.

Currently, Isekandar is Dontsu Inc.’s main enterprise. Before being turned into a top tourist spot, native Isekan people used to pilgrimage to a relatively small Akafucrystal in a dedicated shrine erected in the forest. However, after Dontsu decided to make the planet more marketable, the authentic Akafucrystal was deemed not impressive enough and a gigantic fake one was made of polymer resin instead. It was placed in the Isekandar Shrine at Mount Akafuji.

Fake Akafucrystal shining its light on temple visitors.

Just like the “sacred” gigantic Akafucrystal is a fake one, the whole planet is a big show put on for the tourists in order to get them to spend more money. The periodic blessings given by priestess Spacia at Isekandar Shrine are set up with hired actors enacting apparent miracles to convince the public, there is a special machinery lighting up the fake Akafucrystal, sacred bird Akafu jack – which is said to prolong one’s life by 100 days upon praying to it – is actually just a drone, and the Isekangaroos which were turned into the planet’s mascot are not even local fauna but were brought in from another planet. Even the Akafucrystals given to the visitors in return for offerings to the shrine are fake – they are mass-produced from the same polymer resin as the gigantic one (though it’s still possible to encounter authentic crystals in the rough, away from the tourist spots – just like Robby did by tripping over one on complete accident).

Shrine with an authentic Akafucrystal.

Isekandar offers various services heavily themed around shrine culture – like priestess cafés (though the servers are just dressed up, not actual priestesses) and a cabaret club officially advertised as a place to exorcise evil spirits in private rooms. All the revenue at Okage Street and in Oharaitown is monitored live by Dontsu’s representatives who take action in order to boost sales when needed.
Dontsu seems to have been relatively successful with this project – there are so many visitors from Earth that direction signs are also written in Earth’s language, and the planet is surrounded by what appears to be planetary rings but are in fact rings made of holographic advertisements of numerous companies. This, however, is likely to change, as Yang’s attempt at stealing the giant Akafucrystal revealed it was a fake one in front of a whole crowd, who will surely share the news further.
Isekandar was visited in episode 11 and briefly shown at the beginning of episode 12.

Trivia

Isekandar’s name is a reference to Iskandar – the destination planet of the space battleship Yamato during its first voyage (in Space Battleship Yamato). The first part of Iskandar’s name was changed from Is- to Ise- in reference to the Ise Shrine, the original destination of the travel depicted in Hizakurige. Even in modern times, the Ise Shrine is still a very popular tourist destination both for the Japanese and foreign tourists.

It’s possible people from Dontsu, apart from running promotional campaigns, manipulate the public opinion online – Isekan manju buns apparently don’t taste well despite having great reviews on TripSunvisor. Though this could be also attributed to Hatchi’s personal tastes as well and is not a definite argument, the lack of any clear information on any attractions is a bit more telling.