GO-TOUBUN NO HANAYOME

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyGo-toubun no Hanayome
ANIME ComedyGo-toubun no Hanayome ∬
ONA Slice of LifeChiyuki no Fashion Check

REVIEWS

• 

  superp2222

  91/100
  The Pinnacle of the Harem Genre

  When it comes to harem anime, reviews like these are often taken with a huge helping of salt because of the nature of these animes. However, Gotoubun no Hanayome is, dare I say, the pinnacle of harem anime, featuring the most rounded cast to have ever graced this genre, a sufficiently detailed and well-established storyline, and, surprisingly, not a lot of ecchi, which is definitely refreshing at that.

  Story
  The overall story isn't that outlandish, a financially struggling straight-A high school student gets offered a job to teach 5 wealthy quintuplets, from there, one by one, the quintuplets fall to the high school student's charm and eventually all compete for his love. It's not something we haven't seen before, and BokuBen used this style earlier this year. However, where BokuBen slows down, this anime speeds up. We are given a Nisekoi-Esque promise from 5 years ago to help solidify the protagonist's relationship with the 5 girls and each girl's individual arcs puts her on a shining spotlight in a unique way, allowing for equal development in both her strengths and her weaknesses. While other anime tend to cloud these developments with the girl's innate desire to fall in love with the protagonists, this anime uses that motivation, or in Nino's case, the lack of that desire to develop their personality. The result is a very diverse cast that almost feel real, so real in fact, that I feel a much stronger connection to these girls than any of the other anime I mentioned before.

  Art and Sound
  The art featured in this anime is varied, to say the least. It decreases in quality when it needs to and increases whenever possible. I find that this is shown most in a simple comparison between the quintuplets' penthouse and Uesugi's room, one comparison shows so many subtle details the artists added in to heighten the girls' development even more. Don't even get me started on the festival arc. Not only is the lighting and art at every individual firework spot-on, the way the lighting interacts with each girl to set certain moods is effective as well.
  Regarding sound, the OST makes a good job of highlighting each girl's personality in their own respective arcs, as well as easily set and maintain moods during arcs such as the Summer Camp Arc and the Festival Arc. The OP and second ED are great too, with each quintuplet's VA pulling their weight to the max to deliver this upbeat OP and soothing ED that I can't help but listen too, even after finishing the show.

  Characters
  As I mentioned before, I think the cast of Gotoubun is the most rounded I've ever seen in a harem anime. For once, our protagonist Uesugi isn't as dense as a neutron star, and can actually notice and understand each girl's feelings as the anime progresses. It doesn't mean he's completely out of the park yet, as he is still hilariously dumb when the anime needs him to be, but at least he's not a complete idiot either.
  Regarding the quintuplets, each of them embodies a commonly seen trope in anime girls, and uses that basis to develop them into well-rounded characters.
  Ichika is your typical onee-san, a bit lewd here and there, but overall the most protective and caring for her sisters, to such a degree that she often keeps many secrets from them just so that she can maintain the quality of their lives. Nino is your typical hard-headed softboiled idiot, she loves her family, but hates outsiders. Like the membrane of a cell she just doesn't let up until you prove to her that you're friendly. While the anime didn't cover the chapter that converted a good portion of the fanbase, Nino still saw enough screentime for us to glimpse at her inner feelings and feel hype for her inevitable development in Season 2.
  Miku is my personal favorite. Shy, booksmart, and from her family's standpoint, the smartest of the bunch. The anime immediately capitalizes on her at the start of the series, solidifying her as a force to be reckoned with for the remainder of the series and well into the manga. She's the first to show her soft side to Uesugi, and by doing so establishes such high of a character to place her firmly as my favorite best girl.
  Yotsuba is your muscle-brained nice girl. So nice that she goes out of her way to help. While the anime (or the manga, for that matter) didn't cover much for her development, she's made it clear that ultimately, she exists to support people, which is why she goes out of her way to help places like the sports teams in the anime. She wants her sisters to be happy, and by doing so she sacrifices her own happiness for them. A kindhearted soul at that.
  Itsuki, in my opinion, received the least attention, she's established herself as a semi-tsundere food lover at the start, and that's it. She didn't receive much development after that. But whatever development she did get did solidify her enough so that she can stand on her own. Hoping to see more development for her in Season 2.

  Overall, Gotoubun gave me a stunning example that not all harem anime has to be super ecchi and devoid of character development. Each character felt stunningly real and well-developed, and I'm definitely curious to see what the next season could bring for them

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• 

  moyaiking

  84/100
  Miku > Ichika > Yotsuba > Itsuki > Nino

  “A dream of the unbelievable day that brought us together.” Uesugi Futaro to his bride. (This review will contain spoilers for episode 1 and 2.)

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  Harem anime. Oftentimes, they’ll have female leads with a great personality, unlike the incel protagonist who has barely any redeemable qualities with the “character trait” of accidentally groping women. Yet, just after one line and action from our boring incel protagonist, all the girls fall for him. It’s rare to find a good harem with a great protagonist, and it’s difficult to find one you can moderately enjoy. They lack foundation with the main character and simply have them be a tool to move the story, and nothing more. However, Quintessential Quintuplets is both a good show with a great protagonist who grows.

  Written by Negi Haruba and adapted into an anime on January 11th, 2019 by Tezuka Productions, who worked alongside Mappa on Dororo, Quintessential Quintuplets follows a genius, poor, focused, and to himself student known as Futaro Uesugi. He’s hired as a private tutor and he finds out that he’s a tutor to five girls, the Nakano’s, his classmates. Despite the girls desperately needing better grades, none of them want Futaro as a tutor. And so, Futaro has to gain the trust of each girl and show them that he’s not just some guy with perfect grades.

  

  ---

  At first glance, the art and animation of the show is..fine, following the generic style of other harems, but there are times during important scenes where the art is absolutely stunning.

  

  ---

  Obviously though, this isn’t the meat of the review, and I’ll be moving onto the best part of the show, the characters.

  The characters are rich with personality and never overreact to everything, including our protagonist, Futaro Uesugi, but I’ll get to him at the end of this, because it's time to talk about:
  The waifus.
  Itsuki is the first girl we meet and is a respectful hard worker. Although she doesn’t want Futaro to be her and the other girl’s tutor, she understands Futaro’s family situation and allows him to come over.

  

  Ichika acts like the eldest sibling of the girls and doesn’t really mind Futaro being around, but still doesn’t want to study, having her own girls to work towards while also smiling to keep her sisters happy.

  

  Miku is the best girl of the five and for good reason. She’s to herself and has little to no confidence, not wanting to talk to her sister’s about her interests. Despite this, she’s pure-hearted and will stand up when other people are in the wrong.

  

  Nino is the least developed out of five, which doesn’t really make her a bad character. She’s the most hostile to our main lead and has tsundere traits, while not being one entirely. She acts like the mother of the girls and clearly states her mind and isn’t afraid to do dangerous things as long as she gets her way, even if that does mean drugging a cookie to make Futaro pass out.

  

  Yotsuba is the most energetic of the 5, with the result of being blind to current situations. She’s great at anything physical, but mentally isn’t the best, getting the lowest score of the first exam out of the five girls. Nonetheless, she supports what Futaro does and is the most friendly with him.

  ---

  At a first glance if I told you only the things above, you would think that this show is just another bland harem, but, Futaro Uesugi proves otherwise.
  Sure, he’s a studyholic, but he learns to understand why the girls do certains things, act a certain way, and uses what he learnt in order to help him. This provides insight and interesting conversations with him and the girls. He makes mistakes with the girls sometimes, yet he learns why the mistake happened and what he can do to fix them.
  There’s a scene in the second episode where he’s talking to Miku about the other girls, and Miku states that sure, she might’ve gotten the highest score of the 5, but each sister is still different from each other with their own skills. Futaro says that just because one sister can do something, doesn’t mean the other can’t. He shows Miku the last exam result, and she realises that none of them got the same answers right. They’re all different, but they can still achieve the same thing because of that. Without Futaro, this show would simply be another generic harem.

  

  The opening for the show, Gotoubun no Kimochi (Quintuplet’s Feelings) is sung by the five girls. There’s no outstanding visuals or anything in it, but it showcases important events in the show and how the girls view Futaro.

  The ED, Sign, sung by Aya Uchida, showcases the girls in wedding outfits for Futaro’s wedding.

  The OST has a unique, gentle, and calming feeling which makes certain moments in the show stronger.

  Seeing Futaro’s interactions with the girls, with the world, with everything around him is without a doubt the strongest part of the show. What does love really mean? What type of person do you want to be for others to look up to? How do you be honest with your feelings? Although the art and animation might not be the most jaw dropping experience, if you have time for 12 episodes and are looking for a wholesome harem with a great main character, this is it.

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• 

  fatalgraves

  90/100
  A harem worth a watch.

  We all have parts of ourselves that are lacking in some departments compared to others, that only means we have to allow other's strengths to shine a light in those fields of lack in us to help build us up. And vice versa.

  This is a series I've heard a bunch about, but have been putting off watching/reading for no reason other than time and motivation. I roughly glanced over a few reviews across the internet of the show/manga to see if it was really worth a try and if it held any real depth in it anyways the pretty character designs; and a reoccurring theme was talking about how you will probably care about more the sisters than the romance. This is what really pushed me into giving it a try sooner than later. Those opinions were mostly correct too.

  As stated above, the romantic harem part of this series wasn't the reason I'd went into it, I was very curious about the sisters themselves. You truly do grow an interest in learning more about each of them throughout the show and watching how their bonds with each other work, and the bonds with Futarou develop. The sisters are all fairly complex characters also, I felt that none of them were super one-dimensional or were only playing off of one singular painfully boxed in trope/stereotype.

  At first, I did find it bothersome and jarring when I found out that they changed the girls' original hair color and gave them all different ones for a long run animation format. After a short while though, I can understand the choice and see some meaning in it. Seeing the sisters in this way gives the viewer more contrast between them, helping us see them as they would see each other VS how the outside world sees them. This helps to frame the story more around them as a bunch and how we are going about it learning more about them. This POV shift will make going and reading the manga with a lack of color more interesting I think, as you'd be getting more of the actual world's perspective of the girls. Or vice versa points if you read the manga first, watch the anime second.

  Futarou himself at the start is an insufferable, arrogant protagonist; it's this attitude that lands him quickly in hot water with one of the sisters. As the show goes on though, he is shown to have some sort of depth to him and given more of a character background outside of "naïve harem protag who is a loner" trope. More and more care for the sisters slips into his time spent with them all, confusing himself with why he's putting so much of his emotional energy into them when this was only meant to be a tutoring gig for money, nothing else.

  Watching this progression and each of his connections with the girls is wholesome in it's own way. Sure, it's implied the sisters all gain some sort of romantic feelings for Futarou, but it was mainly just nice seeing them all bloom out and learn to let another person in, romantic or otherwise. The development of how the sisters feel they can improve themselves through their growing feelings for Futarou makes for some decent character development that keeps the story from being too stale or repetitive.

  The sisters, their growing dynamic with Futarou and learning about them through the good and bad moments really is the best thing about this series and makes it 100% worth the watch. If you're into things that dive into family dynamics and the bonds they have with each other, along with the trials that can come with any new relationships; this is one to put on your list to watch.

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