(This review was originally written for MyAnimeList on March 28, 2018)

Osomatsu-san's second season is not offensively bad or even bad at all: I can't say it didn't manage to entertain whenever I sat down to watch it every monday. But with every new episode, it felt like something was lacking, like something from season one was lost.

To start with, the move from two or more "sketches" per episode to episode-length sketches feels like a misstep. With season one, sketches never became too tedious (outside of fan-least-favorites like F6) because of the fact that they were not the length of the entire episode. When a sketch ended, it felt like it was because the premise has been exhausted and the show can now move on to something else.

By having entire episodes dedicated to one sketch, some flaws that were in the writing previously become much more evident, and things become a lot more tedious. It wasn't until season 2 that I realized that whenever a joke was made about one Matsuno, a similar joke had to be made about every other brother before the show could move on. If this happened before season 2, it only became obvious now, and if I didn't think a joke was funny once, it certainly wouldn't become funny after hearing it five more times.

Even episodes with more than one sketch had a similar feeling of tediousness, that the joke was simply going on way longer than it needed to go. The sketch involving Choromatsu and Ichimatsu had a promising premise, but at some point the one joke of the sketch, that they are uncomfortable being alone around each other, was just being repeated over and over again by the end. Maybe this aspect of the show has always been here, but if that's the case then it only got worst.

Another complaint I have is that the show at times feels like it is resting on its laurels when it comes to episode scenarios compared to season one. It often relies on interaction between the brothers to be enough for a sketch, when season one offered a lot more than that. Season one utilized the side characters very well, especially Chibita, and in this season, while he still is a great character, side characters were relegated to being vehicles for more inter-Matsuno banter and one-liners. There was no "Iyami's Counterattack" this season, no "The Karamatsu Incident", no "Jyushimatsu Festival", all episodes with fun premises that took advantage of the show's unique qualities.

If there's one thing the show does right, is that it actually manages to provide some good characterization for the sextuplets. For one thing, Karamatsu has actually become more self-assured in terms of not becoming the punching bag for the other five, often being allowed to get in his own insults and comments. But we also see his insecurity towards needing to do everything for his brothers in order to feel validation. Osomatsu is also given some much needed depth in the second to last episode, an aspect of his character that has been hinted at before but never completely explored until then, and the episode right after doesn't immediately erase all of it! These characters are very easy to turn into vapid stereotypes of their actual personalities, and there are instances where that does feel like the case, but more often than not they are consistently written with care, or at least as much care an irreverent sketch comedy show could have.

That's what keeps the show watchable for me: it still cares. Episodes like "Iyami in the Wind" and the two final episodes show that despite how flippant, bitter, and absurd the show is at times, there is something very genuine at the center of it, keeping the tradition of the 1988 series alive (and perhaps the writing of the original manga as well, although I have not read any of it so I cannot say for sure). Maybe the writing quality has been worsening, but I can tell that no one has given up, which gives me hope that if there is a third season, perhaps the writing staff could fix their flaws and create something as good as what I remember season one being.