Too shocking for TV? Well – this is Osomatsu-san, what did they expect?
So this is the legendary unaired episode of Osomatsu-san, the one that was apparently deemed too dangerous to air on television. To be h0nest I’m not entirely sure why – maybe it was the out-loud usage of the English word “fucking”, or the vaguely suggestive item being held by a certain virgin God. But in truth, considering where this batshit-crazy show went in a normal week, I struggle to see much of a difference. The subtleties of Japanese censorship continue to elude me.
As for the episode itself, I wouldn’t rank it as one of the best of the series by any means, but as usual with Osomatsu it has more than its share of good laughs. I’ve not a huge fan of the “F6” idol parody which takes up the A-part of the episode – I find the joke pretty one-note. I also thought the episode suffered from the absence of the superb supporting cast, as episodes where they don’t appear usually do. The reference to Choromatsu as a “Harvard professor” got a good laugh out of me, as did the anti-climactic ending of the “Top Man” bit. But in general this wasn’t the series’ best work.
The B-part was much better, featuring a tokusatsu parody with the brothers (apart from Choro) as “Cherry Boys” – a gang of pissy virgins out to exact revenge against the normies of the world. In this case it’s the gang of college students having a riverside barbecue across from the path where otaku Choromatsu is walking home from Akihabara. This is definitely where the edgier material slots in, but mostly it’s just the normal stupid-smart Osomatsu-san comedy – like the whole “Omega Stone” nonsense. My favorite bit here was when Totty betrayed the others by joining the normies, and then they turned out to be perfectly nice people who invited the cherries to join them too.
Some might consider it a surprise that we’re almost half a year out from the end of Osomatsu-san – which will go down as one of the ten best-selling TV anime of all time – and we’ve still not seen any announcement of a sequel or even an OVA series. Heck, I might consider it a mild surprise myself. I do think Osomatsu-san will return as a TV series sooner or later, because it’s simply too monumental a cross-platform success and there’s too much money to be made. But I could see where putting this show together would be a lot of work – every episode has to be crafted from scratch, and the level of inspired lunacy and outrageousness that viewers have come to expect is astronomical at this point. That’s a lot of pressure – but this is going to happen, most likely. It’s a question of when, not if.
Kuro_Ari
August 9, 2016 at 11:11 pmThis isn’t the “infamous” episode 3 of Osomatsu-san, but an extra from the BD, put as a gift in exchange for have edited the original ep 3 on the BD version, (and thus/as well as have had eliminated the original 3 from the legal online servers and have replaced it with its BD version) xD.
The so-called “despicable” ep 3 is that Anpan-Dekapanman parody, since it was a very beloved series for most of the japanese, and also like with ep 1 due to the copyright related japanes laws issues (where even obvious satires infringes copyright… yeah, is as if the word satire lost its own meaning..) with both Anpanman and Saw (the later was changed into Oso in a wordplay that referenced the original pronunciation), if I recall well the main colours were changed in the Dekapanman’s case , scenes were cutted and the obvious sexual references were less suggestive; if you don’t have a problem with watching via unlegal online site then you can watch both ep 1 & 3 in its original Tv version. Since I do not know much about enlgish speaking online servers I can’t recommend you a specific one or put a direct link of the chapters, sorry.
Finally, to tell you the truth it wasn’t as shocking as they suggested, it was just black comedy and black comedy as far ar I know can touch anything as long as it isn’t cruel or disrepectful ( in a common sense way), for me at least itwas much fuss for nothing and an inmature response as if they didn’t comprehend the meaning of satire at all (c´mon! it was an adult oriented series so it obviously would have some dirty jokes here and there, right?, it even was scheduled very late at night to avoid childen’s watching so there shouldn’t be any problem)… But well, I guess is one of many cultural shocks xD…
You can also check that japanese clausule about satires, that indeed really surprised me that even those count as copyright infractions, if I do remember well there was a lil’ article about that chapters that included a brief part of that clausule while explaining why those episode had to be retired… So, as the Matsu’s explained once, doing comedy is very difficult and pretty harder that we think xD.
P.D. I didn’t expect they’d aired that episode at Crunchyroll since it was a BD only one, but I was delighted they added it and finally being able to see the original “Ichigelge” reference.
Also, sorry for my bad english and the long essay xP. And did you know? currently there’s a Osomatsu expo there in Japan all this month.
Guardian Enzo
August 10, 2016 at 7:42 amMy mistake – I didn’t realize that we’d gotten the banned episode over here in the first place (and if I did, I forgot).
On balance I’d say the original was funnier, but it’s nice to get a bonus episode anyway while we wait for another season. The Osomatsu phenomenon shows few signs of slowing down.
elianthos
August 10, 2016 at 4:04 pm*A wild hot spot appeared hence commenting from my otherwise internetless current location*
This episode had been fansubbed months ago already – I think it fell through the cracks during the blog transition – but it’s nice to see the official translation is out… great excuse for rewatching on top of a chance to see a post about it.
The Cherry Bros is one of my favourite segments from the series… Bonus points for IchiSlug ( and related merch! ) and his ascent to godhood.