Ranking EVERY James Bond Henchman From Worst To Best
45. Mr Osato (You Only Live Twice, 1967)
Fond of healthy chests, Osato is a SPECTRE associate who places far too much trust in underling Helga Brandt, and pays the ultimate price for such lack of judgement.
The powerful head of Osato Chemicals, Osato encounters Bond while 007 is masquerading as Mr Fisher, a representative of Empire Chemicals. Thanks to his handy x-ray screens, Osato is able to quickly ascertain that Mr Fisher is carrying a weapon, and duly orders his assistant Brandt to murder him. That’s his first mistake.
The second is not recognising that Mr Fisher’s specific possession of a Walther PPK strongly indicates that he is in fact James Bond, SPECTRE’s hated nemesis. Blofeld later makes the dubious claim that Bond is the only man they know to use such a gun (surely they’re standard MI6 issue?), which, if true, Osato should’ve known sooner.
If he had, he might’ve been more urgent in seeing that Bond’s execution was immediately carried out, instead of leaving him in Brandt’s incompetent hands. Despite this lesson, Osato takes little initiative in trying to locate Bond to rectify his mistake, and by the time they cross paths again, Osato’s failures have already been well-established. It’s little surprise when he’s shot dead by Blofeld as a final punishment.