Well, that was profoundly disturbing…

Considering that Osomatsu-san’s first season was one of the biggest commercial hits in anime history (this one is a much more modest hit, though still successful) it might seem odd that it took as long as it did for the sequel to arrive.  But my suspicion is that it takes Matsubara Shuu and Fujita Yoichi an awfully long time to write an episode of this show, because they’re under a lot of pressure to keep topping themselves.  Every week they have to try and be more outrageous or more genre-bending or more surprising than the week before.  Writing comedy is never easy, but this must be a ridiculously hard comedy to write.

• For openers, another UMA cold open – this time featuring the “devil Yeti“.
• The bit about “saving” each other when one member falls asleep went on too long, but the payoff definitely clicked, Dayon.
• The “yakiniku” sketch worked for me, because the whole notion of karmic debt rings true even though intellectually I know it doesn’t hold water.
• When you’re as much of a loser as the Matsuno siblings, the notion of being punished for happiness (even something as basic as yakiniku) must seem very immediate indeed.  I feel you, Ichimatsu.
• My favorite part of this chapter was the “punishment” – because the ultimate punishment for Ichimatsu and Jyuushimatsu was to go to Shibuya and Harajuku, the epicenters of the trendy normie universe in Tokyo.  Having attended school every weekday for two years in Shibuya, I totally get this joke.
• Then we get to the meaty part of the episode, “The Inn”.  I thought we were headed for something broadly comedic, with the brothers in female form, but it sure didn’t turn out that way.
• We do seem to be trending towards a “serious” chapter every ep or two, but this was rather different – not so much sad (like the Kin-chan chapter) but downright disturbing.  Of course Zashiki Warashi and omnipresent in anime – they’re one of the most famous of all Japanese legends.  But was an… interesting twist.
• Very good work from Sakurai-san and Irino-san here.
• That ending…
• Finally, we had the extra – which was about as far off in tone from “The Inn” as it’s possible to be.  Choromatsu pulling his pants down to fap, then Karamatsu and Jyuushimatsu as Hansel and Gretel dropping dookie humor?  It’s as if Fujita and Matsubara wanted to make sure we didn’t forget what show we were watching.