Mr. Osomatsu Season 2

Episode 4

In yet another Cavematsu-san opening, our NEETs still haven't developed human speech (I'd love to be a fly on the studio wall when they record these segments!) before falling to their deaths. It won't be the last time that happens this week, but it's the only instance where the culprit isn't Matsu stupidity, but some giant megafauna bird. It could also be a pterosaur – given that Karamatsu rides a bike carved out of stone complete with engine sounds, I don't think historical or mechanical accuracy is a major concern here.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to a single segment, enabling emotional punches to be planned more long-term. Our boys are reduced to supporting character status, although their ability to provide anything resembling support remains to be seen. Titled Matsuzō and Matsuyo, the episode is mostly about the former. Papa Matsu is badly hurting from a midlife crisis and the loss of passion between him and Mama Matsu, after more than two decades of married life sharing a badly soundproofed home with six 20-year old NEETs who have the maturity of grade-schoolers. The parents have gotten very little screen time until now beyond scolding their sons, so I was curious to see where an episode named after them would take us.

The possibility that something might be troubling their dad is scary – not just because, in the eyes of emotional 12-year olds, parents aren't allowed to have human worries and physical desires, but because he's the one enabling them to stay 12 forever. When they do get to the bottom of his troubles, reactions expectedly range from grossed out to indifferent. And, as always when their lazy lifestyle is threatened, the Matsu brothers can show surprising dedication. I was always wondering how a seemingly normal couple would end up with these six fine specimens for sons, but when Papa Matsu delights entirely too much in his sons' virginal existence, a pattern emerges.

It's down to some father-sons bathhouse time to come up with a plan to save them all, just so we can enjoy some pixelated underwater crotch shots. The episode's funniest moment arrives with Osomatsu and brothers lecturing their father about taking their mother for granted. I want their level of nerve. Determining the problem to be Papa Matsu's lack of virginity (a subject they actually have considerable knowledge of), it's time for the sons to teach the father about virgin five-step conjugations and the correct way to buy dirty magazines. But it's too late for daddy to get back what his sons so desperately want to lose, so it's time for the obvious option number two: something out of Dekapan's pants.

Matsuzō's quest for the magical flower takes him far beyond the sea into the lands of rolling boulders, blasting loudspeakers and not so noble savages, with his hilariously useless but impressively dedicated sons in tow. On their warped Indiana Jones adventure, Karamatsu will let his father fall to a temporary death to adjust his sunglasses, while Choromatsu and Ichimatsu are too busy continuing last week's polite awkwardness to save the rest of their family from boiling alive. It's a fast-paced, brilliantly edited montage of awesomeness that ends with the Matsus' attempt to create a human bridge across a gorge. That goes as well as expected, forcing dad to drag their sorry corpses through the blazing desert heat, a morbid echo of their relationship in life. I'm not entirely sure if Dekapan designed his flying saucer to look like Dayōn or if he actually turned his buddy into the thing out of convenience. Both seem like legit possibilities.

The final act is surprisingly heartfelt, sending Matsuzō on a nighly walk down memory lane under oil-painterly starry street lights to soft jazz music, as he ultimately decides against drugging his wife – who still vividly remembers his confession to her. Even though the scene doesn't reach for the emotional heights of such first season segments like Jyushimatsu Falls in Love, it's still astonishing how this show can juggle its mean and crazy sides with some truly honest awww the way it does. Of course, that's not a note Mr. Osomatsu would end on, so Papa Matsu inadvertently ends up infecting the whole town with uncontrollable lust. If there were a moral to the story, it would be along the lines of being grateful for your blessings before you start making outlandish wishes. And never trust anything that comes out of Dekapan's pants

Rating: B+

Mr.Osomatsu Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Anne is a translator and fiction addict who writes about anime at Floating Words and on Twitter.