Just what does selling 100K discs do to your self-awareness??

There’s a kind of wild abandon building in Osomatsu-san right now – a sense that the staff knows that they can do pretty much anything they want at this point.  They’re playing with house money – all our base are belong to them, and they know it.  That could go either way with a series, but for right now it’s totally working with Osomatsu-san – what was already fearless has become downright unhinged, and the degree of experimentation seems to be rising exponentially.

The series’ tinkering with format continues unabated this week, starting with a brief callback to last week’s episode with “Shonosuke Hijirisawa-san”.  While a series about heptadecuplets (what is that – 17?) sounds kind of interesting, this is a fake-out – with the creators begging off that they couldn’t think of anything else to do with Shonosuke Hijirisawa-san – segueing quickly into “Period Drama Osomatsu-san”.

I was actually a bit disappointed this didn’t last the entire episode like “Jyuushimatsu Matsuri” did, but what we got certainly had moments of genius.  Everyone’s comic tastes being unique favorite moments will vary, but for me that Dayon-Haiku sketch just had me absolutely on the floor.  So simple yet so genius – a “Dayon!” at the end of the poem throwing off the syllable count, and then Dekapan’s response…  The other highlight for me was “Todo-giku“, though this was mainly due to Miyu-Miyu’s voice work here – he’s really spectacular in this scene.

I could wax on, in fact, about how great Miyu is in this episode, and how he’s got by far the most range of any of the sextuplet seiyuu and this ep proves it – but you know my feelings on that, so I’ll leave it off.  In fact this episode is generally a showcase for the actors and their characters least caught up in the wave of Ikebukuro-Comiket fanaticism over Osomatsu-san – Tottymatsu, Fappymatsu and Osomatsu.  Miyu, Kamiya and Sakurai get all the big sextuplet moments this week, and they’re all up to the challenge.

Choromatsu especially seems to have been underrepresented in the comedy for most of the series, and it almost felt like Fujita and Matsubara were aware of that and trying to make up for it.  Choro gets a very funny turn in the “Fappymatsu Ninja” sketch, and then stars (though I’d argue it’s Totty who gets the best comic moments – “Probably dead”) in the “Self-awareness” chapter (by the way, “Free Hugs” is actually a thing in Tokyo), which is Osomatsu-san at its most conceptual.  I love it when this series really goes dark and intellectual, taking the comedy to the extreme edge of discomfort.  You have to watch this skit a few times to really pick up on all the subtleties of it, but it’s just insanely smart and ruthless.

I see Iyami’s name in the preview, and that makes me very happy – and so does the focus on the “other” Matsu brothers.  It’s not just because I think the rest of the cast is equally funny to Ichimatsu, Karamatsu and Jyuushimatsu, but because it’s a sign that Osomatsu-san isn’t getting caught up in the fan-driven hysteria over the show to the point where it’s exclusively catering to it.  With six-figure sales this is a very big boat, and there’s plenty of room in it for all of us – not just the Animate! crowd, but those of us who just love great comedy.