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Mr. Osomatsu Season 2
Episode 24

by Anne Lauenroth,

How would you rate episode 24 of
Mr. Osomatsu (TV 2) ?
Community score: 3.9

It's cherry blossom season in Japan, the perfect time of year to remind us about the sad and beautiful transience of everything, including eternal NEET adolescence. Or so it seems, as Mr. Osomatsu delivers an unusually serious episode – a strange choice as we're closing in on the finale. But we've been here before. In the penultimate episode of season one, everyone moved out to get a job, only to return for the finale with a giant you-didn't-really-think-we'd-let-it-end-that-way sneer, taking the zaniness up to eleven.

Even if no continuation is planned this time around, having the sextuplets graduate from their man-children status quo would seem rather final. Of course, this could all be another build-up to a finale that will laugh in our faces yet again. At this point, I'm thinking the bigger troll move would be not to reprise the joke and actually have them grow up against expectations.

Also, something is different this time around. Last season, Osomatsu refused to join his brothers in their short-lived attempt to get jobs and become independent. Despite his enormous flaws, he's their leader (and the son his parents would most likely send to a NEET reeducation camp for the same reason). With him not on board, his brothers would've had an easy excuse not to try harder. But now he's actually the first one to say out loud what everyone had been hoping they wouldn't have to face. It's time they stopped mooching off their dad's money and their mother's patience. Maybe they need to start contributing. So everyone – including Osomatsu – gets a part-time job, except for Karamatsu, whose version of growing up is less productive and more in character, joining a gang where he can stay true to his lovable pathetic self.

What results from the mutual agreement to become proper is something surprisingly somber, featuring lots of carefully crafted melancholic images supported by a sound design that emphasizes Osomatsu's loneliness There's not a single note of music from 14.5 minutes into the episode. No one's there to greet Osomatsu after a long day at work. The only sounds filling the eerie silence at the Matsu family home is the shuffling of Osomatsu's clothes, the sliding doors, and his footsteps on the floor. Everyone's suddenly busy with things other then lounging around – too busy even to go cherry blossom viewing. So Osomatsu ends up sitting alone under the trees at the riverside where they decided to become proper just a few weeks ago.

Since they're used to constant company (and spend most of it being annoyed at each other), their identities are so dependent on being one of six that Osomatsu suffers an oddly touching identity crisis. From walking past the empty playground (where Jyushimatsu said goodbye to his childhood earlier) in the long shadows of the evening sun, to sitting in the rain, drops falling on his pants and running down his cheek like tears, he's lonely and confused. It's up to Totoko of all people to cheer him up by being a surprisingly good listener – one selfish idiot to another.

So where do we go from here? Will the Matsus really grow up and out of the ways that entertained us for two seasons? And what if they don't? Iyami's treasure hunt (that feels incredibly out of place now that Osomatsu has joined regular society and no longer has the time for such escapades) seems like the obvious route to take. That map we briefly glimpsed looks way too promising not to follow up on that premise. And I admit, I do kinda want to be treated to the over-the-top madness that only events like intergalactic baseball games can deliver – one last time. But I also don't want to be made fun of for emotionally investing in this episode, and playing the same joke twice would make me feel stupid for caring.

We end with an almost ominous zoom on Fujio Akatsuka's portrait in the Matsuno living room. Will his heirs have something in store that can manage to unite zaniness with at least a whiff of sincerity?

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.


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