[!]THIS REVIEW TALKS ABOUT THE WHOLE SERIES AND NOT JUST A STANDALONE INSTALLMENT[!]
Over the years, I’ve been watching harem anime that end up being either vacant and boring or severely infuriating, two sides of the sheer negativity a harem has for the most part. The Quintessential Quintuplets (from here on out shortened to 5toubun) is the biggest offender of both sides—a series that doesn’t care about its story, its characters, pretty much its goddamn everything at this point. Not even good voice acting could save this car crash. Yes, I know you came here when I answered this question “What is the worst harem anime of all time?” But yes, I do believe this is possibly the worst harem anime of all time.
Before we get to me reviewing the series, let’s recap the disclaimers again:
All of these are 100% opinion-based. What you’ll see is very subjective and therefore, shouldn’t be taken seriously.
I have no problems with anyone liking the series. If you’re a fan of the series, feel free to share why you think it’s better than what I said.
Alright, let’s get to it.
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What is the idea of 5toubun? Well, 5toubun is a harem series where a poor high school second-year named ‘Fuutarou Uesugi’ has a part-time job where he tutors 5 girls who happen to be quintuplets of each other. Each quintuplet has a distinct personality to each other and all of them equally hate studying. As a concept, I find this to be quite ‘eh’. It’s not too bad. It’s actually better than a lot of other premises in other harem anime. I just think that it feels a bit too dry and doesn’t feel any more engaging. But don’t worry. I’m pretty sure the show itself would make solid or even decent use of it, right? …he he …RIGHT? To which I would add, NO. Not even close to that. Now this is where the series drops really hard.
What makes this series such a big fail is the scriptwriting. The dialogue is downright atrocious. It’s either dry and monotone or chaotic and out of place, and I don’t mean the latter in ways that would make the show mindlessly enjoyable. You got interactions between Fuutarou and any of the quints with discussions that aren’t very special. They’re just topics that feel very shallow. Hell, the characters aren’t even the best at tackling them. They just talk back and forth to each other about random things randomly. It gets old really quickly to be honest. Another massive issue is how there are a lot (not all but a lot) of tropes around. I don’t necessarily mind seeing a handful of tropes in any show but the series is completely littered with stale harem tropes to the point where it doesn’t feel realistic in the slightest. You also got the so-called “comedy”. As mentioned, it’s not even funny on the surface. It’s a massive headache to sit through. It’s all over the place.
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If the scriptwriting is dog water then so is the cast of characters. What we have here is Ichika, the teasing actress, Nino, the tsundere, Miku, the quiet girl, Yotsuba, the energetic girl, and lastly, the serious and gluttonous Itsuki. Are they distinct from each other in terms of character basics? Yes. Are they anything to write home about as actual characters? I’m afraid not. Literally far from that. I don’t know if I could call them “characters”. They don’t even have ‘some’ moments that made them stand out one bit. The “female cast” of 5toubun is a bunch of annoying and boring goblins who would overblow their character quirks instead of having any decent development whatsoever. Though for the annoying part, Miku is an exception because she’s a little more of a quiet girl, as the series states that out. She’s not really annoying to sit through. But even she’s a living archetype for the whole series. It’s just that she stood out from the other quints a little bit just because she doesn’t show as many expressions as the others.
The others can suffer from whip spanking. Itsuki is a crybaby, and I don’t mean a good crybaby, an insufferable one. She straight up takes almost everything too seriously and it gets head-scratching. Yotsuba is just the happy-to-go-lucky girl who hypes herself every time she’s on screen. Nino is a classic annoying tsundere who’s abusive for little-to-no reason regardless of conflicts and relations. But no one, NO ONE is as punchable as Ichika. She’s not only extremely annoying, but she’s also unreasonably manipulative. Nino is also manipulative but the manipulativeness from Ichika is a lot worse. How she “teases” Fuutarou isn’t enjoyable or cute. It’s incredibly toxic. That’s like punching a kid over a LEGO figure and calling it “teasing” for a living. So yeah, those are the quints. They are living mannequins with quirks that don’t even help their characterization at all.
Oh, wait! We can’t (or perhaps we can) forget the protagonist of the series, Fuutarou, the man who tutors all 5 girls. He is undoubtedly the most boring organism ever. Kirito and Tanjiro are well-written and inspiring characters compared to that milkless pawn. Now you would think that he would carry the series since the girls are a pile of nothingness, right? No, he’s literally just there. Hell, I forgot what his sole purpose of the show was. What does he do again? Oh, that’s right. To tutor the 5 girls. How interesting is this? As far as how the show presents, as interesting as toilet paper. Besides that gimmick, there’s just nothing special about him. Most of the time, his interactions with the quints are just boring and forgettable. It’s like reading a bunch of chores to deal with in an essay format. If you are as boring, if not more boring than Fuutarou then I am deeply sorry that happens…
Btw, if you’re wondering what my ranking on the quints is, here’s what it looks like:
Miku > Itsuki > Yotsuba > Nino > Ichika
All of them suck-ass either way.
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Okay! Enough of the shitshow of the story and characters. Let’s move on to the miscellaneous elements. Artstyle is okay but is rather generic. Didn’t like the music in the series whatsoever. I guess the opening is fine-ish, but I don’t know, I couldn’t listen to any of the tracks one bit outside of watching the show. The Japanese voice acting is good. Not a fan of the English voice acting but Nino’s dub voice is kinda spot-on personally.
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And that does it. So how do you make a good harem? By at least making character growth and interactions more intriguing while not going too hard on any of them. 5toubun can’t achieve any of that. It just makes the goddamn everything force. Now I actually don’t mind the first few episodes. They’re not special or anything but they’re not offensive to the series either. But by the time the show progresses, the whole presentation turns into a dry and outdated sponge. It’s not interesting and it’s not even entertaining. It’s just a massive chore to sit through. Despite my negative feelings towards this show, again, I have zero problems with anyone liking/enjoying the series. The girls do look admittedly cute. Thanks for reading. 
