5-toubun no Hanayome
The Quintessential Quintuplets

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Waifus.

We all know them, we all love them. If youre specifically looking for a harem manga chances are youre looking for them, and if you dont pay attention you might be just satisfied after your read. Which is good but I find it rather unfortunate

While this manga does provide beautiful and unique waifus who actually have their own personalities and act somewhat more realistic compared to other harem mangas (like the ones the unpopular guy does a single act of kindness to the extremely popular and good-looking heroine and she falls in love with him. Do you know how many favors attractive women get in ... a single day?) Before the romance kickstarts, there are bad impressions, events that actually happen, and steps our MC has to take. Its romance is quite immersive

My teenage self was first introduced to the medium of mangas through this work, and it has a rather important place for me. As such I will admit that I am biased but I will also mention that I started to really appreciate it only after my rereads. Like how many people were introduced to some animes I also learned it through some Waifu Compilations, and the moment I saw Miku, I opened a new tab to try and watch it, so keep this part in mind when reading below

The girls are well-written, I re-read it more than 3 times, and every time I finished it again, my perception towards them changed so I can say you can probably find something in every one of them, yet it would be dishonest of me to say the Miku and Nino basically has fandom by the nose. They are not basic, they are likable and watching their development was fun. I watched and read shit ton of harems, played visual novels and I can say this had one of the best casts of heroines.

Yet, to me this work transcendence the limits of being a manga and becomes an experience only because of Fuutarou. If you want to turn your brain off and just watch a manga with waifus (understandable, I too like to partake in it) you might miss it. I know because I did.

Watching his journey, the steps he took and the changes he underwent were beautiful. At certain points, the author subtly dropped some details, and there were really important moments that you could miss. He is bigger than a harem MC, he wasnt kind to others for no fucking reason, he wasnt the "pervert" type where the cast somehow tolerated him for some reason nor did he ever stopped changing. It is my belief that a character does not need to be slaying monters with a sword like Guts or to be Ayanokoji to be thought of as a "good MC". Mind you, Guts is one of my favorites and I too had my "Im literally Ayanokoji frfr" phase.

His motive was his family, and his ability to move forward with the plot were caused by his backstory and his personality. There wasnt a single moment where it felt he was the device for plot to move forward, but rather the plot followed as he went on.

It is rather hard to continue on with this without any spoilers and I can keep go on and on about Fuutarou but I will have to stop here. I already have several paragraphs of analysis about him on the subreddit and at l can at least be assured that it is not just me who is trying to find meaning in things even the author thought of (kid named finger)

I want to close it of with this. Call me egoistical but if youre reading it I believe you having gone through my profile is more likely than somehow finding this from other approximately 100 reviews, and I will be repeating myself so you can close it. If you havent read my other reviews I will also mention it here that I think it is a shame how much a character has to do in order to be appreciated. There isnt anything that affects me personally, but if I was the author of this manga I would have given up on making the MC interesting and just put that effort on drawing hot waifus as for some reason they are more well recieved.

What? Did you say that its almost like real life, where a normal guy has to be actually interesting to have a chance to be noticed, while a woman just has to look good? How dare you, you misognystic incel!!

TL:DR
Great writing and charming characters but it can't quite live up to the premise of five equal love interests and suffers from a very rushed ending. Mixed Recommendation

Story: 6/10
Well paced for the first ~80%. There's a long section at the start where there's little to no romcom shenanigans and I wish more manga slowed down at the start to give us a chance to get to know the characters outside of a romantic context.

The author gave themselves herculean task trying to develop six distinct main characters (the sisters + Uesugi) and, for the most part, they manage to pull it off. They manage to portion ... it out so that this development is never too quick and that ensures the reader feels it was narratively earned. It's also well balanced so no one character is ever the focus for too long. inter-character relationships (and not just the romance) are also fleshed out too and change with time. However, not all six get the same amount of attention and some are characters are plain worse than others (more on this in the characters section of this review).

The romance too is evenly spaced so each character gets their shot and it doesn't feel like they all fall in love with him at once, it feels natural (at least as natural as five girls all falling in love with one guy can be). The quintuplets all deepen their relationship with the protagonist in several intertwined plot threads so it never feels like the manga is pausing to push one relationship in isolation but always keeping the other characters and their actions and reactions in mind.

As for the other 20% of the manga, the pacing accelerates to light speed and we're barely given room to breath. Frankly, the manga is simply too short and, I can't believe I'm saying this of a romcom manga, it should have been stretched out over more chapters. There is too much drama cramped into too few chapters that feels forced and is never resolved in a satisfying way. Some quints are introduced into the romantic rivalry too late into the manga and are left critically undeveloped (yes, I will get to the controversial ending shortly). The manga needed an extra volume or two just to fully flesh out the plot points it introduces near the very end.

The author tries to maintain the illusion that all five twins are in the running for the protagonist's love but they clearly have favourites and some characters get far more time to shine while the rest are relegated to more supporting roles. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, some characters are just more interesting than others and they don't need to be completely equal.

There are no real recurring support characters in the manga and it's a little suffocating that every single character is a romantical rival. Usually the protagonist has a friend or two to speak to or for comedy in between the drama but here it's all quintuplets all the time. The author seems to have recognised this and the protagonist makes some friends but they show up maybe two or three times afterwards and don't have any impact on the manga. The rest of the support cast have extremely minor roles or are mere plot devices.

Finally, we get to the most controversial part of the manga: the ending. Now, only one character can “win” here so people were inevitably going to be upset when their favourite waifu didn't win, there's no getting around that. Most people understand this and would still enjoy the ending IF it was well-written. Unfortunately, the character the protagonist ultimately ends up with is the least developed and introduced to the rivalry last. This essentially means that the most boring character wins and that will be controversial no matter how the manga ends. Now, I didn't hate it as much as many seem to have, I think the choice makes sense but it absolutely needed more build up and the character needed development. As it stands, the ending came out nowhere in an unsatisfying way and it's very disappointing when looking at the potential this manga had and the great writing the author is clearly capable of. It's like the author tried to subvert the readers expectations without understanding why this works in other media.

Character: 7/10
The male protagonist has some development, changing from academic focused anti-social hermit to someone with more perspective on what's important in life. I particularly like that he isn't as dense as most harem protagonists and has at least some emotional intelligence.

Nino and Ichika are the two most interesting quints and by far the most developed characters. They receive the most attention in the manga and really steal the show. There arcs are well-written and they continue to grow as characters almost until the very last chapter.

Itsuki is a good character in her own right and receives her fair share of the spotlight. She has her own arc and, while it was shorter than the two discussed previously, it was enjoyable and well-written. Unfortunately she falls by the wayside near the climax and is largely forgotten.

Miku is interesting because she is one of the more prominent characters and gets nearly as much attention as Nino and Ichika do, yet she feels like a slightly worse version of each. I think some more work could have been done to make her more distinct from the rest of the cast. I also think her character arc just sort of peters out with out a satisfying end. This is clear in the final chapter where Miku helps a different character in their dream, because the author forgot to give her one.

Yotsuba is the worst character. I liked her personality and something interesting could be done with her but she never changes in anyway. She has one flaw that she's scolded for the entire manga but she never resolves it and has no actual character arc. We barely get anything more out of her character than what we knew at the beginning.

I will reiterate that the non-romantic support characters need better characterisation. They have their own mini-arcs but most don't have any actual impact on the plot. The only one that does is the quintuplets father, he does affect the plot but he rarely shows up and feels more like a plot device than an actual person.

Art
Top notch art, every character has a distinct, meaningful designs that say something about their character.

Great panelling that's easy to follow and is overall a pleasure to read.

The manga also has a digital colour edition available and it's really elevates the manga to have it in full colour, though they did have to give the quintuplets different fantasy hair colours to help differentiate them.

Nothing else to report here - it's just very good art.

Overall: 6/10
Mixed Recommendation - despite enjoying this manga quite a bit, the ending was simply too out-of-nowhere to be satisfying and it doesn't feel great to have all these very likable characters only for the least developed, least interesting one to win completely unearned. I would avoid the manga if a bad ending can ruin it for you, otherwise it may be worth reading just for how good the rest is.

Any of the other four girls—Nino, Ichika (my favorite), Miku, or even Yotsuba—would have been a far better choice. Or better yet, the author could have given each girl a separate ending, allowing fans to enjoy their preferred outcome. And if they really wanted to please everyone, a proper harem ending would have been the most fitting.

But no. Instead, they went with the least interesting girl and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, threw in a last-minute, forced backstory just to "subvert expectations." It wasn’t clever—it was lazy, rushed, and completely unearned. The buildup throughout the series was tossed aside in favor of an ending ... that felt more like a bad joke than a satisfying conclusion.

If I had known it would end like this, I wouldn’t have wasted my time. What a complete letdown—yet another great romcom ruined by an utterly disappointing and poorly executed finale.