[This review contains mild spoilers]
Even in my friend circle there are some who will run away if they hear the name "Harem". There are a lot of shows which had a great premise and were going to bang but completely fell apart just because of this particular genre. Well some of them managed to somehow cumulate the story and deliver a bland outcome. So a lot of people consider it as a cursed genre BUT quintessential may prove wrong what I just said. So let's skip the boring talk.
Storyline
Yeah, it's that typical rom-com plot. Futaro Uesugi is a studious guy who doesn't care about anything else but studying. But upon meeting his love interests his philosophy about life changed. Except his love interests don't pop up after the 100th chapter, no childhood friend, no neighborhood friend, no foreign friend, no "We are just friends" friend. All five sisters were introduced in the first ep. So their father is rich af but couldn't find a tutor in the entire Japanese empire. So he asked Futaro, the top student in their grade to tutor them (trust me its so original). But you just wouldn't sit tight when your father put a barricade on your freedom, would you? Thus begins the tom and jerry chase between futaro and the quintuplets just to find out how deeply they got tangled in each other's life.
To be completely honest, throughout the journey I often forgot I was skimming through a harem manga. It just emphasizes the family and their growth too much while also sprinkling such wholesome romance moments from time to time. From hating each other to becoming your special someone, it felt neither rushed nor slow. Not like your typical school romcom shows where they just waste the first 10 eps and then there’s already a winner before you can even connect the dots. Its not like those shows where the main girl falls for the boy because he is kind, because he once said hundreds of years ago "You can do it. Believe in yourself. Never give up. I am always by your side" because its graduation time and duh you can't graduate without a girlfriend so just pick the girl from vol 1 cover, because its a romance show so you have to choose someone doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not. He takes his sweet time with every single girl. Tho every sister didn't get the same amount of screen time and development but every single of those sweet and bitter memories made this journey so heartwarming. You won't see any useless fan service, nothing unrelated to the actual story. I will probably spoil things if I add any more detail.
Characters
Imo this is the best part of QQ. What makes this so delicate is that they are not classmates or besto friendos. They are sisters(well you can already see that in the title lol). From chasing each other to kissing, futaro's character develops as steadily as it could be. By confronting both absurd and harsh situations with the quintuplets, he was sometimes taught that life isn't so relaxing as it seems, he sometimes burst into anger, laughter and sadness, and sometimes the quintuplets were taught that life won't always go the same, the precious bond the quintuplets share might fall apart in the future. Futaro Uesugi on the other hand is not your everyday romcom mc. Instead of wasting time by thinking like"Oh no is she in love with me? What if she confesses to me?" he actually studied like a freak, prepared notes for the quintuplets, thought about how to respond to their feelings and came to the best possible answer.
The character's personalities will be all over the place at the beginning but as the story continues you will experience the depth of their characteristics. The oldest and the most mature sister isn't the ideal sis you think she is, the hot-tempered and strict sis is actually really adorable, the introvert and the smart one really have it rough, the always loud, stupid and energetic type sister has the best behind the scenes build up and last but not the least our big eater is someone you will definitely love. They were complimentary to each other. Even if you remove one of them from just a single arc, I bet the story will fall apart. Throughout the story, you might feel hatred towards some sisters but you will certainly not be able to overlook their contribution to the story. And what amuses me the most is that regardless of the character they will always end up teaching you something valuable, even the side characters. Surely not like those shows where you won't even notice some characters until they confess. And then when the main girl runs away and those girls say "follow your heart, she went that way(you traitor)" and then start crying.
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So that's it. If this review has helped to pique your interest in the quint just a bit then please do check it out. Lastly, this is my first time writing a review. So I might have just discouraged a poor soul who wanted to read the quint. What I did was just summarize my thoughts about this show. Just like Miku started with her cooking even though she had 0 confidence and now she is a master chef. I also challenged myself today. Let's see if I can reach where Miku is already waiting. If you didn't like it. The dislike button is always here. Hit it really hard.
And Thank you very much for reading it so far though you might have just skipped the review and come to see the scores lol.