Uramichi Oniisan – 04

「エンドレス猛暑」 (Endoresu Mousho)
“Long Hot Summer”

There might be some envy in the audience as Uramichi Oniisan’s fourth episode explores how the main cast contends with the beginning of a nice chilly winter season. But for the cast of “Together with Maman”, being forced to shoot a music video capturing a summer beach party while enduring the blistering winter weather is far from the best way to kick off the new season.

With this episode focusing more on the comedy, each section is a hilarious exercise in “trial-and-error” for Uramichi and his co-workers. With the director’s stunt of filming a beach party music video during winter to be prepared in advance for next summer, it’s surprising there wasn’t an outright revolt.

Each new scene would be yet another test for the actors such as having Uramichi play Suikawari with a winter gourd, the costumed actors trying their hardest not to spray Iketeru and Uramichi with a water gun, and pretend to be excited about fireworks that will be added later in post-production. It would’ve been difficult not to want to wring the director’s neck when he only decided to take CG into consideration to avoid having to pay for fireworks and not when his actors were freezing enough to get ill afterward.

The remainder of the episode would focus on the humor that comes from two of the actors getting sick throughout the winter season. It was neat to see more glimpses of Iketeru’s home life, but one main highlight of this particular section is how Utano sets the precedence for urging everyone to continue the show even if they have to give the kids the raw news that some of their actors were sick along the way.

While it gives Uramichi a platform to talk about not being like the Bacterian by chasing after an obsession, this would end up making the final section all the more hilarious when Mitsuo falls ill. This episode had several funny moments where Usahara is singled out and punished by Uramichi, but the most hilarious had to be how he tried to fill in for Mitsuo as he struggled with a cold. The kids being able to tell that Mitsuo isn’t the person behind his costume and have a grasp of the unsettling aura Usahara lets off was a knee-slapper.

There might’ve been more humor to examine this time around, but it helps that the constant barrage of mistakes the cast makes defines Uramichi Oniisan’s brand of comedy. For all of the cynicism and mean-spirited jokes that fly throughout these past few episodes, you still get a sense that the cast of “Together with Maman” act as a big dysfunctional family who are surviving the trenches of young adulthood even if they have to make it through a number of reckless decisions to get there. Aside from Usahara having a big mouth, they all have a mutual understanding of how everyone’s doing, try their hardest to uplift one another whenever necessary, and are genuinely concerned about each others’ well-being.