I count it a good anime season if we get a comedy that's actually
funny. Not a lot of Japanese gags translate very well, and it's hard
enough to write new gags and/or reinvent old ones that I'd estimate
the majority of shows worldwide don't even try. Osomatsu-san
tries, and it translates pretty well, but it's a weird enough show
that I thought I'd analyze its success a little.
The current show is a continuation of sorts of Osomatsu-kun,
a 57-episode show from way, way back in 1966, remade in 1988 as a
86-episode show, based on a simple gag manga. Sounds like a surefire
recipe for success already, right? Luckily, right from episode one
it's clear that Osomatsu-san knows what it's doing.
Fittingly enough, the show opens with the characters themselves
exclaiming, “Holy shit! We got another season!?” The
black-and-white cast then enacts a few obviously old-time gags before
acknowledging, “Okay, those didn't age well. This isn't going to
work.” The rest of the episode shows the cast attempting to be
popular by mimicking (read: making fun of) what's popular today,
from Attack on Titan to Yowamushi Pedal.
This irreverence, I think, is one of the keys to making a solid
comedy. Nothing is sacred, least of all the show itself, and it
earns a lot of goodwill by inviting us to laugh at that fact.
Osomatsu-san then turns the joke around by showing us that
what's “cool” right now is just as predictable and stupid. I
like comedies which push boundaries rather than stay safely inside
them, and Osomatsu-san certainly fits the bill; turns out its
previous incarnations were decried by PTA groups as being unsuitable
for children. Toilet humor and jokes relying on sadism abound, as
well as the lampooning of cultural stories and icons. Just checkout the fallout when they took on Anpanman.
Not that Osomatsu-san is exclusively about parody. Most
times it just does . . . whatever the hell it wants, which brings us
to tits second major strength: the characters.
These are simple characters, each one bearing maybe one or two
distinguishing traits. You can tell which sibling's which after a
few episodes by how they act; Karamatsu is always trying to be cool,
Jyushimstau is excessively hyperactive and stupid, Ichimatsu is a
quiet yet moody loner, etc (it also helps that each is color-coded).
They have simple wants, and probably the best comedy comes in not
giving them what they want. One skit, for instance, sees Todomatsu
win big at Pachinko, only to realize that he must now find a way to
hide this from his five brothers, who will no doubt eat away at the
jackpot until there's nothing left. We watch the two sides fight it
out until, inevitably, Todomatsu loses. Side characters follow these
same rules, such as Iyami, who carries one of my favorite gags.
Throughout the show this snob idolizes France as the pinnacle of
culture even though he's never been there. He discovers a certain
wonder-mineral one episode that lands him fame and fortune,
culminating with France's offer to grant him full citizenship in
exchange for it. The mineral then gets snatched by a hawk and
dropped into a volcano. Iyami desperately hides this fact, and
succeeds . . . until he's disembarking the airplane with one foot
poised above French soil. Only then is his ruse uncovered, and Iyami
shoved back on the plane without ever touching his beloved France.
Too bad!
Actually, that segues into another strength I touched a bit on
before: how over-the-top it is. We've seen the above gag before
where some important item is comedically lost, but not many shows
have said item thrown into a volcano. Likewise, the joke where an
acquaintance or family member goes to their friend/relative's
workplace and tries to make them look bad is nothing new. What is
new is one of the brothers attempting to shit on a cafe patron's
plate in order to accomplish this. People don't get smacked with a
paper fan much in Osomatsu-san, they get blown up with rocket
launchers, kicked off cliffs, or shot in the head. There's blood.
That's why their comedy makes me laugh when so many others don't;
it's not afraid to offend, so I'm always watching to see how far
it'll go.
Comedy is such a weird genre that, naturally, there's no guarantee
everyone will laugh at this show. But considering its dated origins,
did anyone expect to laugh at Osomatsu-san? I sure
didn't. It seems some concepts age pretty darn gracefully with a
little polish and care, and that's really something to smile about.
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