If you're watching The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie (2022), is there any chance you don't already know The Quintessential Quintuplets? Negi Haruba's popular manga series (adapted into an equally popular anime) is a harem romance about five sisters who fall for their tutor; it's most succinctly described as comfort food for the undemanding otaku. More restrained (in both fanservice and tone) than most of its genre, it's undoubtedly silly but gets mileage from likable characters and cute mixture of romance and mystery. It's not Jane Austen, but as anime romcoms go, you could do a lot worse.
The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie continues the saga of Fuutaro Uesugi (JP: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka; EN: Jesse James Grelle), a stuck-up honors student who tutors the wealthy Nakano sisters for a paycheck, and wound up causing a romantic tussle. The quintuplets consist of oldest sister Ichika (JP: Kana Hanazawa; EN: Lindsay Seidel), an aspiring actress; Nino (JP: Ayana Taketatsu; EN: Jill Harris), the bratty, fashion-forward tsundere; Miku (JP: Miku Ito; EN: Felecia Angelle), the shy history buff; Yotsuba (JP: Ayane Sakura; EN: Bryn Apprill), the energetic athlete; and Itsuki (JP: Inora Minase; EN: Tia Ballard), who dreams of becoming a teacher. Fuutaro causes chaos by declaring that he's in love with one of the sisters, and plans to confess after the school festival concludes. Five vignettes explore Fuutaro's relationship with each of the sisters, and how the girls' own personalities and life paths have changed as a result of their interactions.
Quintuplets is very light on plot, making its 136 minute run time feel absurdly self-indulgent. Director Masato Jinbo compensates for the slender story with gorgeous animation; Quintuplets is certainly nice to look at (and not just the girls, who are introduced in a shameless swimsuit scene - anime, am I right?), with all the visual neatness you'd hope from a big screen anime adaptation. Jinbo makes great use of multi-colored skies reflecting the Nakano sisters' emotional turmoil, and a generally absorbing twilight color pallet, alternately bright and wistful as befits teens on the cusp of adulthood. The slice of life story precludes any Ghibli esque set pieces, but we get amusing bits like Nino being conscripted as an idol singer, Ichika ruthlessly teasing Fuutaro over his soft drink choice and Itsuki's hair-raising encounter with a mouse.
What elevates Quintuplets above other harem anime is that all five sisters have reasonably compelling character arcs; their growth is triggered by, but not exclusive to their feelings for Fuutaro, as each confronts their own shortcomings. Ichika slowly embraces her repressed feelings and ambition (with unfortunate results), while Nino deals with unresolved resentment towards their distant stepfather. Miku emerges from her shell, learns to cook and finds an identity apart from her sisters; Itsuki, seeking to emulate her mother, wrestles over her career path. Then there's Yotsuba, whose cheerful personality conceals a deeply insecure interior; she's compelled to help everyone around her, even to her own detriment. Meanwhile, Fuutaro becomes slightly less of a jerk, and that's not a given for males in this genre.
So Quintuplets goes for big emotions, as Fuutaro teases out his feelings for each sister and the Nakanos confront their own uncertain paths. Flashbacks show Yotsuba as desperate to break away from her sisters, leading her to bully the others before her own shortcomings crush her spirit; the "sisters war" forces her regret and self-blame to resurface. Itsuki gets the meatiest arc where she's confronted by the Quintuplets' biological father, who is revealed as a selfish jerk - and called out by their stepdad, who for all his shortcomings refused to abandon his wife's daughters. This will be more affecting if you're already invested in Quintuplets, but even a casual viewer can appreciate the care given to the Nakano' inner lives; unlike far too many anime girls, they seem like real people rather than objects of Fuutaro's lust.
Many fans weren't satisfied by Fuutaro's choice, which admittedly seems surprising at first glance (and is impossible to discuss without spoilers). Critics say that Yotsuba received little build-up compared to his relationships with Ichika, Nino and especially Miku, who actively pursued Fuutaro for much of the anime. But in hindsight, his choice makes sense: Yotsuba didn't hesitate to befriend him unlike her sisters, and it's understandable that he'd prefer her honest affection to her older sisters' mind games. On the other hand, Yotsuba received less overall development as well; focusing on her backstory seems like an eleventh hour correction that doesn't entirely land. But Yotsuba is such an endearing dork that, justified or not, it's hard not to be happy for her.
The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie is at least 20 minutes too long, with undeveloped subplots (Fuutaro's childhood crush randomly appears at the school festival, just to tease him) and a final act that drags on forever. It's hard to suggest this movie to newcomers who might recoil at the premise, and write it off as another silly anime. But the movie, at the very least, does a good job capturing what works best about the series: a coming of age portrait that treats its characters with respect and affection, for all the broad humor, comic misunderstandings and melodramatic twists they encounter.
