Anime Impressions: Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan

Uramichi Omota is a broken and empty man who only seems to be socially functional thanks to his two-sided nature. At a glimpse, he appears to be a cheerful TV personality from the educational program Together with Maman. However, pay attention to him long enough, and you’ll notice this mask slip several times to reveal a lonesome, pessimistic, and broken interior.

Uramichi The Broken

Much like many other adults, Uramichi is a man who’s been beaten down by society as his ambitions, hopes, and dreams have seemingly been stripped away from him. He goes from being a celebrated gymnast to living his now unsatisfying life stuck parading for children’s television. His dissatisfaction is made very blatant in the anime as he frequently pushes his unhappiness down the throats of the very same children he’s meant to be a role model to.

The other characters and stars of Together with Maman are not unlike Uramichi. Like him, they never found much success in life. Be they a failed singer or athlete, each character has their own reasons for being unhappy. This is also displayed in their interactions with each other at first, as it stems more from shared misery than actual companionship. However, in episode two this slowly changes as each of them begin to relate the way normal colleagues do.

Laughing at Misfortune

As for the anime’s humor, I understand it’s advertised as a comedy anime, but I really fail to see it as such. Even as someone with a morbid sense of humor, I didn’t really find much of the episode humorous aside from the one chuckle I gave during the introductory scene of episode one. This is mainly because the anime feels much too real to be humorous, and I find myself being drawn to it for that fact alone.

The anime’s humor is less funny and more in your face as Uramichi constantly displays his dissolution to the kids not by traumatizing them but by giving them somewhat inappropriate advice based on his own sad life, so much so that they’ve become accustomed to it. For example, the scenes where Uramichi tell the kids to learn to get used to the endless monotony of everyday work, and that sometimes adults have to act out even when they know they’ll get nothing out of it were more depressing yet factual statements (of which he probably shouldn’t be telling kids, because they’re kids) rather than comedic moments. These moments only succeed in showing us how broken the lead truly is, as his actions are clearly a cry for help.

Actually, the only parts of the anime I found somewhat funny so far were watching the camera crew’s bewildered expressions while they watch and do nothing as Uramichi teaches his “life lessons” to the kids. Aside from that, the episode felt drab and flat overall but in a surprisingly intriguing way. Basically what I’m saying is you probably won’t be watching the anime for its side-splitting jokes.

Final Thoughts

Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan is an anime that covers subjects you typically don’t see much in anime or at least subjects that are usually not the main focus. The anime answers the question of what would happen if you put a broken, emotionally unstable, formerly ambitious person in the spotlight. The result of which so far is a bit intriguing, not in an exploitative way per se, but rather in an educative way.

While we’ve learned much about Uramichi, I still feel the episode wasn’t enough to get to the core of its themes as we’re only shown the sad aspects of these characters and not their past, or how their lives ended up this way. Nevertheless, Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan is an anime I still find very interesting, and one I’m interested in seeing progress.

Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan is available to stream now on Funimation

Have you seen Life Lessons with Uramichi-Oniisan? What do you think of our impressions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.