The Quintessential Quintuplets

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The Quintessential Quintuplets
The Quintessential Quintuplets volume 1 cover.jpg
Volume 1 tankōbon cover, featuring the Nakano quintuplets
五等分の花嫁
(Go-Tōbun no Hanayome)
Genre
Manga
Written byNegi Haruba
Published byKodansha
English publisher
MagazineWeekly Shōnen Magazine
DemographicShōnen
Original runAugust 9, 2017 – February 19, 2020
Volumes14 (List of volumes)
Anime television series
Directed bySatoshi Kuwabara
Written byKeiichirō Ōchi
Music by
  • Hanae Nakamura
  • Miki Sakurai
  • Natsumi Tabuchi
StudioTezuka Productions
Licensed by
Children's Playground Entertainment
Original networkTBS, SUN, BS-TBS
Original run January 9, 2019 – March 28, 2019
Episodes12 (List of episodes)
Anime television series
The Quintessential Quintuplets ∬
Directed byKaori
Written byKeiichirō Ōchi
Music by
  • Hanae Nakamura
  • Miki Sakurai
StudioBibury Animation Studios
Licensed by
  • Crunchyroll
  • Funimation
Children's Playground Entertainment
Original networkTBS, SUN, BS11
Original run January 8, 2021 – March 26, 2021
Episodes12 (List of episodes)
Anime film
Released2022 (2022)
Video games
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets: The Quintuplets Can’t Divide the Puzzle Into Five Equal Parts (2020)
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets ∬: Summer Memories Also Come in Five (2021)
Wikipe-tan face.svg Anime and manga portal

The Quintessential Quintuplets (Japanese: 五等分の花嫁, Hepburn: Go-Tōbun no Hanayome, lit. "Five Equal Bride(s)") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Negi Haruba. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from August 2017 to February 2020. The series follows the daily life of a high school student Futaro Uesugi, who is hired as a private tutor for a group of identical quintuplets: Ichika, Nino, Miku, Yotsuba, and Itsuki Nakano. At the very beginning of the story, it is indicated Futaro will marry one of the Nakano Quintuplets but the identity of the bride is unknown until near the end of the story.

The series is published in English by Kodansha USA under the Kodansha Comics imprint. The anime series is licensed in North America under a Crunchyroll–Funimation partnership. An anime television series adaptation produced by Tezuka Productions aired from January to March 2019 on TBS and other channels. A second season produced by Bibury Animation Studios aired from January to March 2021. The second season's sequel will be released as a film in 2022.

The series is a commercial success, being the 5th best-selling manga in 2019, and the 3rd best-selling manga in the first half of 2020 in Japan. In 2019, the manga won the award for the shōnen category at the 43rd annual Kodansha Manga Awards.

Synopsis[]

See also: List of The Quintessential Quintuplets characters

High school student Futaro Uesugi is an academically gifted student that leads a difficult life—his mother has died, he has no friends, and on top of all that, his father has incurred a large amount of debt.

An opportunity presents itself when the rich Nakano family transfers to his school. Futaro is promptly hired as a highly paid tutor. However, much to Futaro's dismay, he discovers that his five charges—identical quintuplet sisters of varied personalities—have no interest in studying at all and have abysmal grades. Some of the quintuplets are against having Futaro, whom they view as a stranger, in their apartment, but Futaro's diligent tenacity gradually convinces those girls to accept him and to improve their grades.

Throughout the series, Futaro develops special relationships with each of the quintuplets. Through a flashforward, it is revealed that he eventually marries one of them, but her true identity is only revealed near the end of the series.

Production[]

The idea of "a group of quintuplets falling in love with the same person" existed even before the serialization of Haruba's previous work, Karma of Purgatory (2014–2015), but was very simple at that time. The idea was denied by his editor-in-charge. A year after, after the end of Karma of Purgatory, he discussed with his editor-in-charge what to serialize next. Among the few ideas being come up with, the "quintuplets" idea was included again, which was accepted by the editor this time. After failures in two to three serialization committees, finally, it was decided to have a one-shot manga published first. The one-shot received positive reviews and therefore went on to serialization.[3]

Haruba finished drawing the last chapter on February 10, 2020.[4]

Characters[]

It was decided the protagonist should be quintuplets at the very beginning. When later the idea of quadruplets and sextuplets was raised, it was rejected very quickly, around 30 seconds. Haruba said it might be a reference to Super Sentai when he came up with this idea. Similar to Super Sentai, Ichika (yellow), Nino (purple), Miku (blue), Yotsuba (green), and Itsuki (red) are all represented by a color. The design of the quintuplets started from his favorite existing female characters from "some slice-of-life works only with girls", around 15 to 20 of them. The idea of adding numbers in their names was after the design was almost confirmed.[3]

The hair color of the Nakano quintuplets is different when being colored, which was suggested by Haruba himself, such that they are more distinguishable from each other. The hair color of the bride in the flashforward is, therefore, a color-in-between.[3]

Story[]

The flashforward that Futaro will eventually marry with only one of the Nakano quintuplets was for eliminating the possibility of marrying all five of them, which would be a lazy ending. It was also decided all quintuplets would anyway have negative feelings towards Futaro from the beginning because Haruba wanted to write how their relationship improved from hate to love in the story, except Yotsuba, who has to act as Futaro's guide for the development of the story.[3]

While it is normal for harem romantic comedy manga to have sexualized depictions of characters, Haruba tried to avoid this to some extent after Vol. 1. In his opinion, showing panties which are being worn, i.e. panchira, makes characters less mysterious and then less interesting to the readers. To keep the characters interesting, the sexy scenes were intended to be ambiguous but not straightforward, leading to readers' imagination. The swimsuit appearance of the Nakanos was finally revealed in Ep. 92 as Haruba thought an episode of swimming suits should exist before finishing the story.[3]

Media[]

Manga[]

See also: List of The Quintessential Quintuplets volumes

The Quintessential Quintuplets is written and illustrated by Negi Haruba. Before the serialization, a one-shot manga of the same name had been published in 2017 issue 8 of Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine on August 9, 2017, and received positive comments.[5] On December 4, 2019, Haruba announced that the series would end on its 14th tankōbon volume.[6] The series finished on February 19, 2020.[7]

The series has been published in English by Kodansha USA under their Kodansha Comics imprint digitally since June 28, 2018, with a line of physical releases beginning publication on January 1, 2019. By August 2020 and July 2021 respectively, all fourteen volumes have been published digitally and physically.[8][9]

The "all-color" version of the manga series began serialization in Kodansha's online manga platform MagaPoke (Magazine Pocket) on February 26, 2020.

Commercial[]

In October 2017, a television commercial for the manga was released where Ayane Sakura voiced all five girls.[2]

Anime[]

Main article: List of The Quintessential Quintuplets episodes

An anime television series adaptation was announced in the combined 36th and 37th issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine on August 8, 2018.[10] The series is directed by Satoshi Kuwabara and written by Keiichirō Ōchi, featuring animation by Tezuka Productions, character designs by Michinosuke Nakamura and Gagakuga, and music by Natsumi Tabuchi, Hanae Nakamura, and Miki Sakurai.[11] The series aired from January 10 to March 28, 2019 on the TBS, SUN, and BS-TBS channels.[12][13] The series ran for 12 episodes.[14] Crunchyroll streamed the series with Funimation providing the English dub as it airs.[15][16][17]

A second season was announced in a special event for the first season on May 5, 2019.[18] Kaori is replacing Satoshi Kuwabara as the director of the season, and Keiichirō Ōchi is returning to write the scripts. Bilbury Animation Studios produced this season. It was originally scheduled to premiere in October 2020,[19] but due to issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the anime aired from January 8 to March 26, 2021.[20][21]

After the second season finished airing, a sequel was announced.[22][23] On April 18, 2021, this sequel was revealed to be a film, which will be released in 2022.[24]

For the first season, Kana Hanazawa, Ayana Taketatsu, Miku Itō, Ayane Sakura, and Inori Minase performed the opening theme song "Quintuplet Feelings" (五等分の気持ち, Gotōbun no Kimochi) as the group The Nakano Family's Quintuplets (中野家の五つ子, Nakano-ke no Itsutsugo), while Aya Uchida performed the ending theme song "Sign".[13]

For the second season, The Nakano Family's Quintuplets performed the opening theme song "Gotōbun no Katachi" and the ending theme song "Hatsukoi".[25] Children's Playground Entertainment licensed the series in Southeast Asia and streamed it on Bilibili.[26]

Video games[]

Characters from the series appeared in a collaboration event in the mobile video game Venus 11 Vivid!! from May 25 to May 31, 2019.[27]

The first mobile video game based on the series The Quintessential Quintuplets: The Quintuplets Can’t Divide the Puzzle Into Five Equal Parts (五等分の花嫁 五つ子ちゃんはパズルを五等分できない。, Gotoubun no Hanayome: Itsutsu-ko-chan wa Puzzle wo Gotoubun Dekinai.) has been released in 2020.[28]

A visual novel titled The Quintessential Quintuplets ∬: Summer Memories Also Come in Five (五等分の花嫁∬～夏の思い出も五等分～, Gotoubun no Hanayome ∬: Natsu no Omoide mo Gotoubun) was developed by Mages for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch consoles. It features an original story in a deserted island setting, and was released on March 25, 2021 in Japan.[29]

Exhibitions[]

Multiple exhibitions were held across Japan starting from 2019, including Tokyo,[30] Osaka,[31] Niigata[32] and Nagoya.[33] Besides, an overseas exhibition was held in Taipei, Taiwan in July 2020.[34]

Reception[]

Sales[]

The manga series has 2 million volumes in print as of January 2019.[35] By February 2019, the manga series had over 3 million volumes in print.[36] As of April 2021 it had 15 million copies in circulation.[37]

In Japan, The Quintessential Quintuplets was the 5th best selling manga in 2019[38] and the 3rd best selling manga in the first half of 2020, coming after Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and One Piece.[39]

Critical response[]

The Quintessential Quintuplets received positive reviews, most notably for its romantic comedy and harem elements.[2] Paul Jensen of Anime News Network found the series enjoyable and rated a 4 out of 5 to the series, as he commented "The jokes are funny, the characters range from tolerable to likable, the fanservice doesn't go overboard, and there's no creepy or obnoxious plot point to spoil the party. There's nothing revolutionary about it, but it does a lot of basic things well without showing any major flaws, and that's enough to make this premiere good clean (well, clean-ish) fun."[1] Patrick Frye of Monsters And Critics noted that there was "little to no ecchi shenanigans or degrading fan service and the girls move beyond the initial stereotypes and become fleshed-out characters that create a fun dynamic with the main character, Futaro Uesugi. Audiences are tired of watching a lucky everyman stumble his way through unlikely scenarios. Instead, Futaro’s no-nonsense attitude wins the day."[40] Kyle Rogacion of Goomba Stomp praised the plot of the anime but criticized its art style and fanservice gags.[41] The series has a current score of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Crunchyroll as of November 2020.[42]

Awards and nominations[]

The series was nominated for the Next Manga Award 2018, organized by Niconico. It received 16,106 votes, eventually ranking eighth overall.[43] In May 2019, it won the award for Best Shōnen Manga at the 43rd annual Kodansha Manga Awards, alongside To Your Eternity.[44] On the award ceremony of the 43rd annual Kodansha Manga Awards, as one of the judges, Ken Akamatsu praised The Quintessential Quintuplets as "the ultimate complete version of harem bishōjo romantic comedy" with "very high quality of illustration".[45]

Year Award Category Recipient(s) Result
2018 "Next Manga Award" (次にくるマンガ大賞, Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Taishou) Manga The Quintessential Quintuplets 8th place
2019 Kodansha Manga Award Shōnen Manga The Quintessential Quintuplets Won

References[]

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External links[]

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