Mr. Osomatsu Season 2

Episode 5

Ah, summer: a time of festivals, fireworks, and the deafening sound of cicadas. From splitting watermelons to cuddling air conditioners, Mr. Osomatsu dedicates this week to the hot n' humid madness, melting brains and blowing up beaches on the way in ten thematically related segments, not counting the cold open. It would be a shame not to count that one though, as it's easily this episode's funniest vignette and my new favorite cold open out of all the 30 Osomatsu-san episodes.

While the school baseball team's practicing in the scorching heat (dramatic haze and all), Nanami declares her love for Takkun with a self-made good luck charm to the song of summer. It's all very anime-romantic, but Nanami and Takkun aren't important. What's important is that this summer song is even more deafening than regular cicadas. These noisy critters are of the extra annoying Matsu kind, and they will not watch others succeed where they have sucked. They will do their utmost to intrude on teenage love instead of providing the score to it. It's hilarious, especially when you think about how cicadas spend most of their life underground only to emerge for the very specific purpose of reproduction. Not the Matsu variety, though. They're content to take a literal dump on the reproduction efforts of others.

This highlight is followed by summery vignettes of various length and hilarity, from Jyushimatsu creating a tornado out of too much excitement for radio calisthenics, to Iyami and Chibita experiencing the ultimate joy – and cost – of Dekapan's latest VR technology. Totty's three interconnected segments are mostly funny not because of their build-up from fairly down-to-earth to nuts, but because we experience them from his (almost sickeningly innocent) perspective. Oh, Totty. Your brothers and audience know who you really are.

Compared to Karamatsu (or Summer Kamen), Totty still comes off as one of the saner and more heat-resistant Matsu brothers. Of course, Totoko takes the cake when her response to sun and sweat matches this reviewer's mental state if exposed to too much summer at one time. It's probably not a good sign that I find her most likable when she's blowing up a beach.

After all this escalating outrageousness, the episode's last segment takes us back to the brothers' reality, a world where ogling girls through Karamatsu's sunglasses collection is the closest they get to some actual summer action. And contrary to our reality, where these hapless and hopeless guys have become virtual favorites with the fujoshi crowd, being their useless sextuplet selves doesn't work out in attracting the attention of girls beyond initial curiosity.

As usual, the show's sound design, music, and timing go one step further to make sure jokes land where they should, whether that's in a shark's mouth or exiled on a raft. Still, Mr. Osomatsu's first season proved to be at its strongest when focusing on one or two segments per episode, and this trend is extending into season two.

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.