The Quintessential Quintuplets

Review (S1 & 2):

Found through the appearance of Miku in some instagram posts. 

Awesome romance anime, best character development I've seen. I'm still waiting for the movie in 2022 so I can get an ending. overall there weren't many things i disliked. exceeded my expectations. I used to dislike high school romance anime, but this one was great.

Review (S1 & 2 Rewatch): 

Rewatched this as a refresher for the movie. 

Damn that was way better than I remember. I put in my original review "best character development i've seen", and honestly when I originally reread that I thought it was a stretch. However, after rewatching, I can say for certain that this is unrionically still some of the best character development I've seen in a slice of life. 

The Quintuplets actually transcends a slice of life, especially in season 2. It definitely has boring moments, but there is a very active and ongoing plot. It's so prominent that I actually wanted to change the genre from slice of life to comedy, but it just didn't fit. If there was some genre that was "slice of life with story depth" I would put it there. The actual story in season 2 surprised me so much. I always felt weird with quintuplets being this high on the list. It used to combat toradora when they were next to eachother. Ever since last year, I struggled with its placement because it felt way too overrated. I mean, it literally says "slice of life". But now I get it. It's barely even a slice of life. It has almost as much depth as toradora, not even joking. 

I am stoked for the movie to wrap everything up. I've been comparing this show to other romances on this list, especially ones that are supposedly "better" than this one in most people's eyes. People always say that Kaguya-sama: Love is War is amazing, but I think this show diffs it by a mile. There is so much emotion, charcter development, and twists compared to that mid fucking snoozefest. This show is also rather consistent, especially in season 2. It has all of the credit in the world, and I think by the time the movie review is done, this will be above Overlord S1-3 (bc s2 and 3 kinda suck, idk ab s4 we'll see). The bg music was kinda shitty in season 1 but I appreciate the EDs and the music got more emotional as did the story. 

The visuals also got changed with the studio shift, but I don't really dislike it at all. My friend Boldz complained about it, but during my first watch I didn't even notice things like Futaro and Raiha's eye colors being different. I think the visual quality still held up. Anyways, I love this anime. I now know why I put it so high. Can't wait for the ending finally after waiting over a year.

Review (Movie): 

Watched this with Tuunber in call.

Wow that was good. Better than I expected honestly. I will say that the movie's pacing was pretty slow up until the Yotsuba arc. Another complaint I have is the classic aNimE DiffErEnt ThAn MaNGa!!! it fucks up the foreshadowing and storyline of the fucking anime. The screentime and backstory of Yotsuba was severely underdevloped in the anime compared to the manga. That unfortunately makes the reveal very sudden and random. Logically, it still makes sense, but there was little to no setup. 

Other than that, the visuals, music, story, twists, and emotion of the movie was perfect. It answered every question, even if it confused me at times. I was very impressed with this movie's ability to surprise me with twists and turns in the plot. Yotsuba was always my favorite, and that's because of how much of an airhead she was and how she kind of held the sisters together with her almost unimportance. However, that changed during the movie honestly. Her backstory was really really interesting and I really wish we got to see more of her prior to the wedding. Fun fact, Yotsuba was the first one to confess, but she just played it off as a joke. 

This EASILY transcends a slice of life and is up there with Toradora's ending. I feel like this pushes the Quintuplets over Overlord S1-3, and I think it'll stay as one of my favorite romances in anime forever. The ending really made up for all of the boring bits of the show, and it overall impressed me on so many levels. It was the perfect ending. It's the type of ending that leaves you wanting more, not more of the story, but just more of the show. You miss the show. I rarely feel this, I can say for sure I felt this the most with Dragon Maid, PSG, and Toradora. This show has the same quality. Worth the wait for sure. 

Review (The Quintessential Quintuplets~):

I was debating whether or not to even place this and give it a review, and after the first episode I decided not to. However, by the end of the 2nd episode, the Yotsuba stuff really stuck out to me as important to the context of her feelings and the overall justification of her being the one for Futaro to marry.

The first episode was super slice-of-life, and didn't have anything special going on, however the 2nd one really made me appreciate Yotsuba even more than I did (she was my favorite character from the very start), and overall added more depth to the ending. I really would've wished the Yotsuba stuff we're getting now was put in the movie. I don't think we needed a filler OVA and a half + Yotsuba backstory as it's own airing period. Why not just put the context right after the reveal in the movie?

Anyways, I have to commend Tezuka for finally coming up to par with Bibury's visuals. It took them long enough, but I think even though the art style is different, the smoothness and drawing style that was done in these OVAs was great. I think the visuals are toe to toe with the visuals in S1, which are clearly superior to the ones in S2 and even the movie (I guess they had more budget for some OVAs than a movie lol?).

Overall, these OVAs may seem redundant, but I feel like they are really important to understanding Yotsuba's feelings throughout the story. There isn't THAT much filler, as it's only 2 OVAs. I think they are definitely worth a watch and contribute enough to the story where I will place it and rate it.