Considering that I’ve never read the manga Uramichi Oniisan is based on (indeed, had never heard of it before the anime was announced), it’s interesting that its premiere delivered exactly what I expected.  Once you see the premise here it’s pretty obvious what the joke is going to be, which really leaves you with two questions that matter.  First, how well is that joke going to be executed?  And second, is there anything to the series beyond said joke?

The first episode will obviously speak to the first question a lot more than the second.  On that score, I would say something like “pretty well”.  Basically you have a deeply disturbed single dude in his early 30s who does the exercise routines with a bunch of kids on a “MHK” TV show called “Together With Maman”.  As such he has to put on a ridiculously fake smile and genki personality, occasionally breaking character and saying something totally inappropriate to the kids.  On-air, apparently, as there’s no evidence any of it gets edited out.

This may be a case of the viewer either finding that gag funny or not, though for me I think it’s more a matter of for how long I’ll find it funny.  In a strange sort of way it kind of bugs me that Uramichi Oniisan seems to think it’s totally hilarious when it isn’t – though that may just be projection on my part.  I mean, it is funny often enough but it’s not that funny.  This is Kamiya Hiroshi doing his stock gag comedy persona that I’ve never been all that fond of, though he is surrounded by an all-star cast who are rather better at comedy – Mamoru Miyano, Sugita Tomokazu, Ono Daisuke, Nana Mizuki, Nakamura Yuuichi…  And the list goes on and on.  This truly is a murderer’s row of anime comedy seiyuu.

The whole schtick about being 30-ish, single, and feeling like a loser is certainly a fertile field for comedy.  Especially when you surround those saps with a bunch of 5 and 6-year olds who have no filter.  I’m sure this series speaks to a particular sort of angst that’s more prevalent in Japan than most places, but I’m not so far removed from it that the humor is lost on me (in my time as a teacher I was asked a lot of these sorts of questions by kids, over and over).  I just worry that the gag is going to grow repetitive pretty quickly, which is why that matter of whether Uramichi Oniisan has more to it than that is probably going to determine whether it has legs.  We’ll see.