First off, to update: the DNS propagation seems to be mostly complete, and the new site seems to be loading. But you might need to clear your browser cache & cookies to ditch the error message. Thanks for your patience!

Now, on to Osomatsu-san 2.  And let me say, after a bit of a trough I think this show has really found its stride over the past few weeks.  It’s always been fearless and occasionally hilarious, but I’ve found over time that I like Osomatsu-san best when it’s sort of serious rather than just going for the biggest gross-out moments and pure absurdity possible.  This series is capable of some very strong character stuff, actually, even if it doesn’t go down that road all that often.  When it does the results have almost invariably been good – and this week’s effort was no exception.

We do start out with some more traditional Osomatsu-san humor – a vintage sci-fi anime parody featuring “Shaazar, the Space Pirate” (I wish I could place the voice, because I know I recognize it).  He becomes so bored (so much winning) that he decides to wipe his memory and change his appearance.  I think we all saw where this was going, roughly – though the Dayon denouement was clever.  Naturally it would be Hatabou of all people…  There’s also a short chapter where Matsuno-san decided to show Chibita a thing or two about oden, and goes to great lengths to do so – only to have nobody show up to taste it.

Oden aside, the real main dish here was the “Kin-chan” chapter, and it was one of my favorites of the season.  Kin-chan is Inuyama Kinkou (Itou Kanae) a cutie who moves in next door to the Matsuno house and promptly starts having her bras blow over onto their property.  This becomes a bit of a running gag (not so much as a joke, but between the characters themselves).  What’s really refreshing here is the genuine affection that develops between the boys and Kin-chan – she doesn’t demean or mock them, and genuinely seems to enjoy their company.

The fly in the ointment here is Totoko-chan, who doesn’t take kindly to the fact that her whipping boys have found another girl to lavish their praise on.  This comes to a head when they break a “date” to be her pack mules for a shopping trip to go on a real date with Kin-chan (and why the hell shouldn’t they?) , showing her around Tokyo.  This is a truly hilarious sequence, as Totoko (after pulling quite a neat trick with a cellphone) puts on an increasingly ludicrous series of disguises to tail them, culminating in her posing as a vending machine.

There’s something deeper going on here though, that’s for sure.  Turns out that Kin-chan is actually going back to the countryside – I guess the sextuplets having a happy ending was never in the cards – but there’s something quite sad about them having to bounce off Kin-chan and back to Totoko, who treats them like garbage and would never consider dating one of them in a million years.  Osomatsu-san does like to remind us at times that these guys are actually living a very sad, depressing existence – and it can pretty poignant when it does so.  I only wish it happened more often, but I suppose the fact that it’s so rare doubles down on the impact when it does.