Hatabō

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Hatabō (ハタ坊)
Hatabō as he appears in the 2015 anime.
Gender	Male
1966 VA	Midori Kato
1988 VA	Mari Mashiba
2015 VA	Momoko Saitō
English VA	TBA

Hatabō (ハタ坊 Hatabou) is a recurring character in the series Osomatsu-kun. He is also the lead character in the Hatabō and Wanpei stories that ran in the Communist publication Red Flag Sunday.

He was one of the supporting characters created and added to the manga by Akatsuka's assistant Kenichiro Takai, when Akatsuka requested him to come up with more new cast members. His name was decided by a Shonen Sunday reader column, and means "flag boy".

An adult version of the character appears in the 2015-2016 spinoff Osomatsu-san.

Overview

Hatabō is a young boy that tends to be set as as much younger than the sextuplets and not yet in grade school, but is also at times portrayed as being in their very grade or even older (to the point of even being an adult in a story).

He is utilized for various bit parts in the series, but sometimes appears in a larger role and can be anything from heroic to a more criminal or anti-hero kind of depiction. Along with Iyami and Chibita, the 1988 anime gives more screentime to him and the other non-sextuplet characters.

Personality & Characteristics

Child (-kun)

Appearance

Hatabō is best recognized by the small Hinomaru flag that protrudes from the top of his skull, which can be removed if he pleases. His hair is a shaggy bowlcut, with the ends of his bangs often compared to that of a Kappa.

In the original manga, the Studio Zero anime, and the CR Osomatsu-kun pachinko game, he often can be seen wearing pants and a single-buttoned shirt that resembles the type worn by Chibita and other Akatsuka child characters.

But in the 1988 Pierrot anime, he is instead depicted wearing a white shirt and green overalls with a baby chick printed on the front. This is also utilized in his Pachislot Osomatsu-kun design.

He notably has a pair of vertical lines under his nose, representing a runny nose along with the whisker-like marks he bears on his cheeks indicating dried mucus. A single bucktooth protrudes from his mouth.

In different alternate universe or movie-inspired stories, the design of Hatabō's flag can be subject to change, with it appearing as the United States flag if he is set as an American, or a black flag with a skull and crossbones as the assassin Joe Hatabō. In Hatabō and Wanpei, he wears a solid red flag to represent the Communist party of Japan.

His two earliest appearances in the manga had him with the flag hanging out of his ears;; this would persist in some later appearances. The third and fourth appearances of the character showed some further indecision on how to draw him, depicting him with spiral blush marks on his cheeks, and either entirely lacking a flag or simply holding it in his hand.

Personality

In the early manga, Hatabō is often seen as simple-minded young boy that is not too intelligent, but free-spirited and going about things at his own pace. Because of his nature, other characters like to take advantage of him and bully him, including the sextuplets and Chibita.

But there are also scenes where he can boast of strength at being able to beat Chibita, and when cast in a less innocent kind of role, he is often immediately stronger and can use subordinates to his advantage.

In the Shonen King run, he is depicted much smarter than before and this intelligence carries over to his characterization in the 1988 series. Even so, Fujio Pro commonly still thinks of him as a "baka" (fool)-type character, and has him appear in interactive site materials for the Bakabon Bakada University section. His official profile also describes him as a boy who does not know anything, nor really think of anything, just that he's vaguely lively.

Speech

In both versions, Hatabō often ends his sentences in the tic "da jo" or simply a "jo". Early in the 1988 anime, he often simply introduces himself with the phrase "Hatabō da jo!"/"I'm Hatabō", with it being about the only thing he would say until his character had more to do in scripts.

History

"Osomatsu-kun Grows Up"

In this beer advertisement, a possible future scenario has Hatabō having become a famous comedic actor in his adulthood. He is very rich, and has a nose hair mustache growing out similar to that of Bakabon's Papa.

Dayōn is shown to be one of his fans, and has his mouth used by him as a large cooler to store his bottles of Sapporo Black in.

Foreign Names

Hatabō appears with these names in dubbing and translations of the franchise outside of Japan.

Language	Name	Origin
Cantonese (Hong Kong)	Shi Ban-yu (石斑鱼)	Chinese word for Grouper fish.
Castilian Spanish	Hatabo Metenabo	From metenabo, crude slang essentially meaning "dick jammer".
Galician	Hatabo Caranabo	caranabo= "penis face"
Korean	Gong Baeg-gi (공백기)	"Interregnum", a pause. The baeg-gi part means "white flag".

The Metenabo renaming in the "Cosas de Locos" dub even applies in episodes where his name is altered for the setting, such as Joe Hatabo becoming Joe Hatabo Metenabo. His catchphrase is also altered to be "Soy Hatabo Metenabo!", to fit.

The Korean renaming only applies to the -kun dub, "The Yuk Family's Sextuplets"; his name is retained in the dub of -san.

Portrayals

Voice Acting

The actress for this character was never given a credit in the 1966 series, with the exception of one episode where Kato was shown in the listing. Due to a mistake in the book "TV Anime Memories of 25 Years", it was believed he was voiced by Takako Sasuga. However, this is not the case.

In the 1988 series, he was voiced by Mari Mashiba, who took on Karamatsu as a secondary role as well.

In -san, his voice is provided by Momoko Saito who also takes on other bit parts in the series.

Gallery

Hatabō/Gallery

Episode Appearances

1966 Anime

Hatabo/1966 Anime Episode Appearances

1988 Anime

Hatabo/1988 Anime Episode Appearances

2015 Anime

Hatabo/Osomatsu-san Episode Appearances

Trivia

• The Romanization of his name is not the most consistent between official merchandise and subtitles. It has been written in English with or without its macron, and also as Hatabou, in an attempt to represent the long "o" vowel sound in Western alphabet.