Quintessential Quintuplets [Manga]

Good analysis, and welcome to the thread! Honestly, I'm still holding out hope that things will work out well. Haruba clearly has a plan, and has clearly been working toward that plan since the beginning; it takes an insane amount of guts to include flashforwards if you're writing by the seat of your pants, so I very much doubt that's what's happening.

The ending, whatever it is, will have been planned from the start. Whether we like it or not, I have faith it'll make sense when all is said and done. And honestly, so long as it's handled well, I could see any of the girls working with Futaro, even now. What we've seen of the flash-forwards suggests that they're all getting along, they're all together, and there's no hard feelings - which is the biggest thing I was worried about with bumps like Nino's flight and Ichika's current devilry. So long as we don't have to worry about that, then I think I could accept any of them as the bride.

or all of them

That's basically why I'm convinced Itsuki's not the bride. Her set up has generally been towards going her own path and building a friendly relationship with Fuutarou. The first two volumes kind of play with the idea that she's attracted to him deep down, but nothing comes of it and the other girls get far more compelling set ups as romantic interests.

I think that, while it's easy to get lost in the weeds of fake clues, the story still points towards an ending where a girl other than Itsuki is the bride. Again, it's Nino, in my opinion, but 1-3 all have compelling set-ups and development while Yotsuba has been the constant supporter and generally lovable all along.

I just don't want to trow all of that out for a cheap First Girl Wins (aka Itsuki) ending, just 'cause it's how these stories are "supposed" to go or whatever. I wouldn't mind having Itsuki win, but I think the remainder of the story we're supposed to have left (if he wants to end it this year) is too little time to properly develop it. If this was going on for 100 more chapters, it would be a different story. I don't dislike her. I just question the timing and structuring of the plot so far if she's the one.

This story makes me feel like I should get back to fiction writing, but my Ph D studies mean most of my work is nonfiction.

I am not convinced she is trying stop fights per se. I mean she tried flaunt by Rena from moment Fuutarou told her Nino and Ichika are interested in him, which was before she actually saw any fights in person.

I wonder what she is really after...

Edited by Tenzen12 on Mar 25th 2019 at 7:10:56 PM

I don't know what her endgame with the reintroduction of Rena is, but it didn't strike me that it had to be romantic like people elsewhere are claiming. It could be, but we need more information.

I'm not quite sure how it fits into the idea of her trying to stop the fights, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was at least part of her goal. I'm not sure how that gets worked into her plan, though.

I do think it's part of her plan to make peace with the past on her end. It looks like Fuutarou has already done it for himself. That might be what sets up her entry into the Fuutarou Bowl, or Negi could keep it away from that. I hope it's the latter regardless of what happens. Itsuki's character works better in my mind as a friend and deuteragonist type, based on how she's been set up thus far.

At nay rate, we don't have enough information to know for sure yet.

Yeah I don't think it's good explanation either. I just hope better explanation exist.

I also can't see Itsuki as Futarou love interest too. Their interaction is more like friend then someone who like the other person, in fact, she and Yotsuba are the one the Futarou interact most normal with, not at first but later on. Honestly, i like Itsuka to remain a close friend with Futarou than become his love interest.

So...two questions to everyone saying "An Itsuki end would be bad"

1) Why is it that her being the bride is out of the question, but someone like Yotsuba is viable despite having even less development?

2) Nobody ever really considered that, maybe the reason Itsuki hasn't fallen for Fuutarou yet is because it's the other way around?

Everyone seems to always forget Fuutarou is not a blank self insert to project your feelings into. He's as much of a developed character as the others so I think it's doing him a disservice to ignore his own feelings.

Fuutarou having feelings for Itsuki is bad, because there is no development leading to it. That's why Negi having Fuutarou randomly fall for her would be disservice to his character.

Yotsuba is in pretty similar situation as Itsuki and I do think she has no chance, but her working so hard to have everyone get along could potentially get noticed by Fuutarou. Again I doubt it will happen though.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:19:49 PM

I wouldn't say that there's no development. Itsuki taking a slow approach could actually work in her favor; she's getting to interact with Futaro a lot more naturally than the others, especially Miku and Nino, who have unfortunately kind of flattened since their confessions. We've already seen that Futaro is feeling less comfortable around those two because he doesn't know how to handle their confessions right now, but he's comfortable enough with Itsuki to open up about his worries regarding her own sisters.

There's no development for Fuutarou falling for anyone right now, so why is Itsuki lower than any of the others?

And before you bring up how the others are more romantically inclined, just be aware that its completely one-sided on their part. Even Nino being as straightforward as she is hasn't done much to sway him.

By your logic, Itsuki working hard for her dream is just as valid as Yotsuba working hard. So I see no reason to disqualify Itsuki based on that.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 26th 2019 at 8:39:09 AM

I'd say Yotsuba and Itsuki are actually equally low Yotsuba meta wise even less because she is mostly comedic relief with some serious moments

Yotsuba being so Out of Focus is odd. Like, there's always one girl in a harem with decidedly less focus than the others but jeez.

I get it, the story can only split so much focus between our six main characters, but it still kind of sucks she's getting the short end of the stick.

There is enough development that could eventually lead to actual romance in case of Nino, Miku and Ichika (even if last one screwed herself badly with yandere theatrics so she is most likely done).

As for Itsuki dream, for now we just have her word for that and anyone can talk.

Yes, could, but that also applies to the rest as well.

I also want bring up a certain detail; there are 8 volumes out at this time, and the 9th one will be out soon.

This is important because we can gauge how many more chapters we have left; there are 9 chapters per volume and 9 more months of the year.

Assuming there very little breaks in that time, there should approximately be 35 more chapters left based on the Author's word that he wants to finish the series this year.

I know you want it to be case, but we don't always get what we want.

Huh, did he say that? That does match up, I think... that gives us about four more volumes, which is enough to finish up the sisters-in-wedding-dresses cover series plus one.

....what are you talking about? I'm not talking about what I want.

Yea, it's just as well too. There's not much else to cover and we're returning to the point when Fuutarou met one of them as a child. I'm pretty sure this arc is building to the climax, whatever it may be.

We probably have, including the present volume we've just begun, 3-4 volumes left if Negi wants to finish this later this year or early next year. That's probably 30-35 chapters worth of material, so I'm approaching my issues with Itsuki being the bride with that in mind. Prepare yourselves, I've got a lot to say.

So having her be the bride raises the following questions:

1. Why bother dedicating yourself to writing a series that plays with and defies so many tropes, conventions, and formulas only to give it the most tropetastic, conventional, and formulaic end with a First Girl Win? Frankly, in my mind, this series fits the description given for Last Girl Wins to a tee. Who is the last girl he has his first encounter/interaction with in chapter 1? Nino. On a related note, emphasizing ambiguity only to go with the most obvious and common choice in the end makes the whole focus on ambiguity feel like a waste. The other girls, even Yotsuba, who has been there to support Fuutarou all along, have more compelling cases for romantic feelings and being his bride in the end.

2. It's going to require a crapload of explanation for why the bulk her development, as far as feelings for Fuutarou are concerned, for basically the first 76 chapters was so dang ambiguous and quite often suggestive of friendship. It's lazy to pin it purely on her hiding her emotions. It also raises questions as to why she seemed content to pursue her own path independent of Fuutarou like assisting the cram school teacher, development that as been foreshadowed since her "I'll do things my own way" statement in chapter 2.

3. We have 78 or so chapters of extremely ambiguous development and even nondevelopment for Itsuki as far as romantic feelings go (although her character has been developed in other ways). With probably less than 40 chapters left, we're supposed to have tons of satisfying romantic development for her, closure for the other 4, and Fuutarou helping them figure out their plans, resolve the issues with Maruo accepting him (or have the winning quint go ahead without his approval), graduation, and presumably a little bit of an epilogue or lead up to the wedding. I don't see how a properly planned out series would do that in the amount of space we have left, and I can't really say I trust Negi to figure that out. This also includes devising a plausible explanation for why she's the kisser, including why her reactions towards the disclosure of Miku's feelings, various Nino developments during that arc, or Fuutarou's statements about Nino and Ichika being interesting in him elicited responses from her that didn't jump off the page as suggestive of romantic feelings or why the kiss was actually a red herring despite the description given in the narrative if she wasn't the kisser and is still the bride. She does have to be yelling, "I love you!" from the rooftops, but it's hard to square longtime hidden romantic feelings with the development we've seen of her this far.

4. The easiest two spots to figure represent the halfway point (Negi referred to it in the past tense during the Scrambled Eggs arc) are Seven Goodbyes and the 2nd Year Final Exams, bot of which concluded with critical development of Nino's feelings for Fuutarou. Why structure it like that if Itsuki's the winner. Miku, Ichika, or Yotsuba make varying levels of sense given how they've been developed, but that might be a topic for a different or follow up post.

5. I still think Negi wants us chasing after this First Girl path while he's doing something different right in front of our eyes and daring us to actually believe it. Reading what the story has given us in as straightforward a manner as possible suggests to me that Nino is the best fit for the bride. I don't think the story he is actually trying to tell is all that complicated or convoluted, but he wants you to think it is through misdirection. What better way than to have a first girl, that most common of romantic tropes, be a no competitor in the quest to win the main guy's heart? Even the plot twists are easily seen in retrospect. When Ichika sabotages Miku, one can understand how that came about given her statement about having fun in chapter 1, her interest in putting her own desires and career first over being with her family for the fireworks, and her issues in general struggling with playing the role of caring onee-san vs what she really wants—fitting for an actress.

And so on. In my mind, the development Nino has gotten would scream main girl if Itsuki had gotten it or if the first girl in a different series had received basically the same kind of development.

But that's just my take. I could say a lot more, but I've written enough for now.

Everything you listed can literally apply in reverse you know. Why give Itsuki all of that background development if it wasn't going to go anywhere?

Not saying you aren't right, but I feel like everyone's inherent bias against "first girl wins" is clouding their judgment a bit and ignoring some rather blatant plot points.

The entire point of all of the ambiguity is to keep the reader guessing no matter who ends up winning. Even if Itsuki wins, it wouldn't be pointless because you still had to guess. It's only pointless if you wanted someone else to win.

I want to reiterate that I do not care who the bride is, so much that I care how well written it is. The arcs for this series aren't very long, the longest being 12 chapters. I'm sure the author can try to make it work.

^^Here's a for you. Wear it with pride.

I think one of the strengths of the series is the ambiguity, really, but it being ambiguous doesn't mean that all of them are equally likely, and I think you've laid out some solid points there. At this point I'm willing to count Yotsuba out entirely except as a good friend (and that's perfectly fine; I'd argue it fits her better, and more series could use close male-female friend relationships). I can't see Ichika winning after the stunt she pulled, because that would feel like rewarding her for it even if her sisters end up with no hard feelings. I think Miku is settling too far into the hopelessly-in-love category; she's on the back foot now and is being developed around by her sisters, not doing anything herself, and that's not a good position for the lead heroine to be in.

I could see Itsuki come in for the steal if it ends up being something like 'let's date in X years once I've fulfilled my promise and become a teacher' sort of thing near the very end, since that would let Haruba bring the goalposts closer for Itsuki than for the others (to confessing rather than to actually being accepted by Futaro) and would fit in with their status as equals rather than as Futaro being chased by Nino and Miku.

I'm still pulling for Nino because I think I like her the most, and I'm hoping she hasn't blown all her character development fuel and is just going to coast until the end. If she gets too much more focus, though, that'll basically clinch it just by sheer volume.

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 26th 2019 at 1:55:24 PM

Nino definitely has the most going for her after Itsuki as she's had the most direct and active role on the story this far; first being as an antagonistic force and then her confession indirectly causes Miku and Ichika to be more aggressive in their approach, as well as cause Fuutarou to confront his own feelings.

For better or worst, she's the primary source of conflict and I can see why that entices people as conflict drives the story.

The fact that she's being so aggressive is causing alarm though.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 26th 2019 at 2:27:13 PM

But if you apply it reverse it will not work. Everything Itsuki done until now didn't lead anywhere at this point and it's too late to catch up. I don't know why it didn't lead anywhere, ask Negi if whether planned sideline her from beginning or if he changed mind in middle. Either way she got sidelined.

I don't really care about first girls. There is plenty I either like or more often I at least accept, but sometimes girl who happen to be first doesn't have what it takes to be winner. That's all to it.

I will leave at that.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Mar 26th 2019 at 7:33:02 PM

That...wasn't in response to you. In any case, you seem pretty adamant on shutting me up, so I don't see any reason to respond.

Wooooow there's been a lot of activity in the past couple days.

I don't really have much to add… just that I'm very happy that Fuutarou is taking back some of his agency by telling one of the sisters to knock it off with their little games already. What he says to "Rena" is basically "if you have something to say, look at me in the eyes and fucking say it, with no acting or disguise." And that's a very important development.

As for Itsuki's intentions, I'm not sure but those eyes◊ aren't usually good news. The fact she has them while saying "I'm sure things can return to how they were before" makes me think she might have some kind of regret or guilt about their first meeting in Kyoto…

PS: That makes me think… How is the anime gonna handle Rena without her voice giving her away? They can't exactly use the voiceless trick like in the flash forward…

Edited by Lyendith on Mar 26th 2019 at 12:26:39 PM

Because the internet has too much time on its hands, someone made a chart of how many panels each quint has in the series (and Takeda) as well as how many each quint (and Takeda) has with Fuutarou specifically.

https://imgur.com/a/ZGaHJ0n

Itsuki is down in Yotsuba territory. Miku was in the lead for most of the first 40 chapters, but then Nino seized control and hasn't let up for both specific categories measured. Takeda, meanwhile, is already out of it, poor guy.

This is current to chapter 76.

The working theory, of course, is that the girl (or Takeda) with the most panels will win. It doesn't measure how important each of those panels is, but it's hard to have important panels if you're not having many panels to begin with. It's like what they say in sports, "Your best ability is availability." You might not win just because you showed up, but you do have to show up.

At any rate, Nino and Miku have had this thing under control for a while now. Itsuki started strong and petered out about halfway through.

I'm not 100% sure that the bride is Nino, but I am pretty sure Itsuki is a decoy. The way this series has been set up so far gives me the impression that Negi spent the first 2-4 volumes setting her up as a contender initially and intentionally only to move on to the actual contenders not long after that. But if I had to guess, I think the Bride is Nino, it's always been Nino, and the only thing that's going to really change is that it's going to become more obvious it's Nino.

—-

And yes, one of the strengths of the series is its ambiguity. That's kind of how most harems work, but in most other harems, you still get the feeling that a certain girl will win very early on (usually in the first chapter or two). This series, though, doesn't establish an early frontrunner unless you go the obvious first girl route of Itsuki, since he's the first quintuplet he meets in chapter 1 (I mean, we're first shown the Bride, but we don't exactly know who she is, certainly not at that point). The insistence on ambiguity and not having an obvious frontrunner, aside from depending on tropes and conventions like "First Girl" doesn't make a huge amount of sense if you're just going to have the same girl win that always does—the first girl he meets in chapter 1.

Having the Bride be nameless at the start sort of circumvents or plays with this. Obviously, the first girl we meet is going to be the eventual winner, but that's a flash forward and she is kept anonymous.

I have to say, though, that while I was reading volume one, I had Itsuki and Miku's development on my mind for most of it, but there were a few things in the final panels involving Nino that still jumped out to me. The towel scene is obvious, but shortly before that while he and Miku are washing dishes Fuutarou takes specific mental note of Nino's feelings—"ill will"—towards him and wonders how he can win her over. He knows they all hate him (except Yotsuba, but he doesn't point that out), but by the end of volume one, he makes specific note of Nino in particular. Miku says that, if he approaches her in good faith, she'll come around, but leaves that up to him to figure out exactly how to accomplish that. As far as I can tell, that's the first quint he expresses specific concern over regarding her feelings for him...long before romance seriously entered the picture for either of them.

It shows up again during the festival arc. Fuutarou wonders aloud why Nino is so enthusiastic about seeing the fireworks, which prompts Miku's explanation and Fuutarou having some deeper thoughts to himself on the matter. And it was Nino who he led to the rooftop, and it was after seeing her worry that he decided to go find Ichika and the others to bring up there. He wasn't doing to please Nino specifically, but she provided the necessary set up. The end result gets him his first grudging thanks from Nino. Even in an arc devoted to fleshing out Ichika and with Itsuki still getting so much focus, Negi's way of characterizing Fuutarou and Nino's relationship at that point still stood out to me as being of a slightly different nature from the approach taken with the others. That might be me thinking too much, but I'm good at that.

—-

A final note: Reading back over the latest chapter, where Rena gets BTFO'd, Itsuki's decisions and reactions in the chapter still didn't say to me that they were necessarily romantic, but I'll need more development to be sure.

Is it next week yet? Sorry for the long post again.

Edited by Outinthecold on Mar 26th 2019 at 12:18:49 PM