That was a pretty odd episode of Osomatsu-san in any number of ways.  It continues the trend of being a very off-kilter take on the franchise, but isn’t in itself a bad thing.  But it makes this season a hard one to get a handle on.

• • One thing we can say for certain is that the supporting cast has been dramatically scarcer so far.  We’ve barely seen Iyami (which makes the ad campaign to make him the protagonist all the more ironic), and that doesn’t thrill me as I think he’s the strongest character of the lot.  He gets a nice cameo in the cold open, which has him acting as a tout for a hostess club where the talent is actually his fellow peanut gallery members.  This one is really dirty, even by Osomatsu-san standards (though it’s all language) but not for me actually all that funny.

• The first and longest chapter of the week is definitely the best, and not coincidentally it strongly focuses on the A.I..  They’ve taken to demanding head-pats (which is very cute actually) and of course are going out of their way to make the boys happy.
• This is interspersed with an Ichimatsu vignette, which has him wandering the city searching for cats.  Eventually the rice balls (who Totty keeps referring to as tools – or worse) follow him and sell him on their “Cat Expectation Values” system.  Ichimatsu and cats is pretty much a can’t-miss proposition, and of course this totally works.  But it gets sorta deep and philosophical too, as having the challenge of tracking down the felines taken away sucks all the fun out of actually finding them.
• As for the A.I., there’s definitely something weird going on here, if not irrefutably sinister.  Their obsession with making the sextuplets happy – and even more, with having them say they’re happy – is way too intense.  I love these two – their puzzlement with the illogical nature of human emotions is very well-portrayed – and I find myself hoping the real story here isn’t too terribly dark.
• The final chapter, the massage bit, didn’t do a thing for me.  It was weird and creepy and not good weird and creepy.  It’s interesting that the A.I. have basically decided to snub Osomatsu – but then, he definitely is the shittiest brother, as witness the way he toys with Jyuushimatsu.  Osomatsu hasn’t had much plot mileage this season either, but I can’t say I have a problem with that.