It's the 21st century, Tokyo. Emon 21 aspires to travel outside the galaxy and go on adventures exploring space. However, his plan to sneak away on a cargo ship fails. After learning his long running family hotel business "Tsudzureya" was struggling and under threat of being abolished by rival businesses, he decides to focus on keeping business alive.

However, keeping all the varying alien races satisfied is actually quite difficult and Emon's family finds themselves running into all sorts of issues as they try to revive the business. As he helps his family out, he continues to aspire of going on a space adventure finding various ways to achieve his dream.

This is a pre-Doraemon Fujio title but it didn't get an Anime adaptation until after Doraemon became a hit so you end up seeing plenty of references and cameos to Fujio's most popular work. Unlike Doraemon, it's not episodic. It's just one big story with the odd episode spanning more than one episode.

Emon's little family is quite fun to watch as Monga the little furry alien is introduced, clashing with the dense outspoken sweet potato loving robot Gonsuke. From everyday life helping out at the hotel to the grand adventures of his dreams with his friends, it can get quite exciting. Some episodes are quite dark including ones with themes of death.

There's no Doraemon to help Emon with gadgets but you do have little furry alien Monga who can help teleport him around. The concept is very similar to Fujio's other works. Emon gets in trouble, relies on Monga who has a special (3km limit) teleportation ability to help him. Meanwhile he has a kind love interest while there's another bully character. The female supporting character Luna is also quite different from Shizuka's demeanor as her wealthy father continously attempts to acquire Emon's family hotel.

Funnily enough episode 28 reminds me of a sci-fi movie called, Journey to the Far Side of The Sun which was screened on the same year the Manga began. There's event a gadget that resembles the stone hat that appears in Doraemon a lot.

It's quite interesting to see Fujio's vision of the future such as self-driving vehicles and paying attention to the needs of different alien species and intergalatic tourism takes place. Most of the scenarios are the misunderstandings between humans and the visiting aliens. A lot of them are still just talking animals much like in Doraemon.

Funnily enough you hear some Dragon Ball sound effects although I guess the studio is also owned by TV Asahi. Also interesting to see KyoAni was yet again involved with this show as they were with a lot of 80s Doraemon movies. And as with Doraemon there's a bit of nudity and accidental bath scenes which seems to be the norm even with children's shows in Japan.

It's an entertaining watch overall, kind of like a sci-fi slice-of-life. I think they could have ended it with the epic 2 episode scenario towards the end of the series but it wraps up with a very Fujio-like way. Not sure it would be for Doraemon fans though since it's on the leans heavily towards the sci-fi side.