Quintessential Quintuplets [Manga]

My mother once taught twins who had different astrological signs due to something like this. They were only ten minutes apart, I think.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Apr 17th 2020 at 10:06:53 AM

...The fact that you seem to think two hours is a long time kinda makes me sad for the state of worldwide sex ed... Average labor time for a first, singlet kid is 8-18 hrs.

Yup, it took my mom 13 hours for me and 18 hours for my little brother.

So Mamakano...probably had it a bit rough.

Edited by dRoy on Apr 17th 2020 at 11:10:02 PM

Before modern medicine, having anything more than triplets would outright kill you. Even now it's so dangerous that doctors will suggest reducing the pregnancy to two fetuses.

My twin sister and I were almost born on different days. If she had been delivered an hour earlier, she would have come in just before midnight and I'd be in the next day.

Nino as a nun strains credibility but as a chanteuse… oof. <3 And well, Nino has the best costumes overall. The witch one is sweet too.

Now in how many countries will Itsuki's Tokyo Revengers cosplay be banned I wonder?

Haruba is planning a new series. It’ll also have five color-coded protagonists, but in a… slightly different context.

It's an interesting change. Better than sticking to a single genre.

IIRC, this manga sold over 10 million copies, actually making it one of the best selling romance comedy mangas of all time. Damn impressive for a debut work.

I wonder if this success will afford Haruba to take things easier or will put more pressure on him to replicate that success.

That’s probably why he’ll take on a completely different genre this time. It’s less likely to be compared with Toubun this way.

Watch it be a bait and switch and it's also a harem romance.

The pink one is the protagonist and its an otome with the other four men of the group.

Well given we're approaching the one year anniversary since this series ended, I felt like I should give a small retrospective on it, especially since the Anime is airing right now.

Overall, I still enjoyed the series, and say it was good. I would say it became the victim of its own premise however, in that in trying so hard to subvert people's expectations, the series shot itself in the foot in the process.

This series honestly made me sympathize with a lot harem authors, because writing a story like this is so stressful as fuck. You either have to make a never-ending narrative of constantly baiting readers, or you make a decision and the fanbases of the other haremettes complain about things didn't go, it's quite honestly a shit show. No matter what the ending is, its never going to satisfy anyone just because of the premise of the story.

And beyond that, the pacing just took a massive hit near the end by the festival, possibly as a way to mitigate the blow of the "Winner", but it also made reading each week a pain in the ass. Its much better on a re-read, but it doesn't make the pacing any better. And ironically, it still ends up feeling rushed in some areas like the whole situation with the Quint's Biological dad, who literally only appears in two chapters and is gone, never to be mentioned again

I'm fine with who was chosen, but I also understand the complaints against it as well. But as I said, I feel like the ending would still be controversial no matter who was chosen, and I said this earlier in the thread, that there are pros and cons for each choice that anyone could have argued.

And I think on some level, Negi knew this and just got burnt out from it all and just wanted it to end. What started off as a fun project for him probably became a chore near the end of it, and knew his ending wouldn't be well liked, so he just...stopped caring as much. Sad to see really. Writing is hard.

So yea, I'd say its still a good series, with a more developed cast than the norm, but the premise is flawed due to the nature of the genre, and the author likely experiencing burnout near the end, which affected the the ending.

I'd agree with that for sure, yeah. Still a good series overall.

I think it might be why the genre seems to be getting less popular in recent years, can't really think of any series outside of this one that really took off.

Yeah, this was a fun ride, even if the ending was headtilting to a degree.

And I have to give it points for making the final choice logical in retrospect, at least from the POV of the protagonist.

What bugs me about the ending isn’t so much the "winner", but the fact that the choice felt completely inconsequential… Even after Fuuts and Yotsuba became a couple, they didn’t act like one. It’s as if the author himself wasn’t really convinced.

Well that's kind of a harem genre problem in general isn't it. A loooooot of series end just when the couple is formed without anything further between them being seen except maybe marriage or babies in the last chap. Or volume omake.

Well that's because Yotsuba is Out of Focus for a majority of the series, and her character arc is at the backend of the series. So by the time she's chosen, there's just no time left to focus on the couple.

And this goes back to what I said; had Yotsuba been more developed, then it would have spoiled her being the winner, and ruined the entire point of the mystery.

That's why I said the premise is flawed; because since the identity of the bride has to be a mystery, you can't make it make it obvious who the bride is, but because of that it means that the inevitable relationship wouldn't be all that developed.

If the winner was say Miku, then it would have been obvious since her first arc she would be chosen, but then you'd have to literally wait the entire series for a result you guessed at the beginning of the series.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Feb 12th 2021 at 7:21:51 AM

Yeah, agree that this is a good series overall.

There is a reason why this is one of the most successful harem manga series of all time.

Aside from that, we also had the opposite happen in Nisekoi, which had the winner go through Character Development across the story with the twist being that she's not the promised girl of the framing premise of the plot while the promised girl went through little if no Character Development, not to mention that the ending was kind of spiteful to said girl in hindsight.

I'm gonna be nice and say the point of Nisekoi is that "destiny is bullshit" and that love can blossom from anywhere.

But it doesn't really change the fact that everyone and their mother had guessed Raku was going to choose Chitoge; the premise itself revolves around them, and Chitoge and Raku the most fleshed out relationship of all.

So it makes it feel like spending so much time on the other girls such a pointless endeavor, particularly Onedera who the series swears has a chance but never bothers to flesh her or her relationship with Raku out at all.

She had lower stamped on her head from the get-go.

It doesn’t help that Onodera seemingly had a shotgun permanently pointed at her own foot, that would automatically fire every time she was alone with Raku.

Or just in his general vicinity.

This is why I appreciate Kaguya; no harem bullshit, the main couple is established from the beginning. The only obstacles are their own insecurities and stubbornness, and the series continues well past the point of them getting together and actually exploring the relationship.

And it makes expert use of secondary characters by giving them their own character arcs that parallel the main couple's.

Edit: It even points out how absurd having a harem actually is with a chapter that parodies the subject at how implausible it is for so many girls to like one guy and how flimsy the reasons are.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Feb 12th 2021 at 8:46:14 AM