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Okay, so I took a looooong while to give 5-toubun no Hanayome a shot. As a lot of people my age, I grew up on Love Hina, To Love-Ru, and a plethora of haren manga. I am way too old for this crap, for real. So when a friend of mine told me that there were this real amazing new manga with quintuplets falling for their teacher, the firs thing that came to mind was a shitload of fanservice, disastrous pacing, at least another five girls, and... Well, you get the point. And well, I was really wrong.

The Quintessential Quintuplets is an amazing manga ... with really interesting characters with surprisingly good development and a nice story to be told. I swear to God, the story has ACTUALLY solid motif to get going, every single character (from Uesugi to the quintuplets, at least, there are a few problems with the supporting cast) makes sense in that world, and grows with the events of their lives.
The only thing that stands out to me as negative is pacing (surprisingly enough, contrary to the stigmas of the genre, in my opinion he rushes a few plot points) and a few decisions the author took.

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I really think this story would be absurdly benefited if it had another 30 chapters, because the last 30 chapters felt absurdly rushed.

I get, character wise, why Itsuki would fall for Uesugi, but damn, do I feel like the story lacks a few more moments with just the two of us. A lot of the things that were left unsaid between the two of us would be better if were spoken to a certain degree, because sometimes it really feels like the story just needed her to like the same guy as her sisters. I shipped them from the start, for me she won best girl (until Yotsuba's arc, but I'll save it for later), so it really bothers me.

All the stuff with their father NEEDED participation of all the sisters. Felt extremely awkward that none of them gave a shit for the biological father showing up. I don't necesserily think in should be much longer, though. But everyone should have been involved, for Christ sake.

And at last, let's talk of Yotsuba.
Din't expected, didn't loved it at first, but re-reading, holy mother of God, it is amazing. As I said before, I started on team Itsuki, but in retrospect, fuck everything, Yotsuba wins best girl and I'm gonna defend this ending with all I have.

It has a somewhat interesting trope. The whole "I love you game" is a cool idea, but excessively overused (often when there's a more direct dialog between the MCs is going on, you can see what's going to happen from a mile away);
But it's the kind of thing I personally can easily get along with. What's often a big red flag are the copious amount of problematic relationship dynamics that develop between our main heroes. This guy is just a creepy possessive boyfriend. And the manga never acknowledges this at any point. More than that, it very frequently reinforces it. Some very, very mild spoilers ... follow in the next paragraph. In a few instances, the girl is doing somethin absolutely normal, like talking to a friend or something. MC totally freaks out, talks to her after the incident and asks her not to talk to other guys. There are quite a few romance mangas that depict situations like this - for example, the brilliant Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, in which the prototipic Incel falls in love with the dream girl and realizes that he himself is the reason for his insecurities. Aishiteru Gemu Wo Owarasetai, on the other hand, completely normalizes this pattern of behavior. Instead of showing the MC's development, how he deals with his insecurities, etc, it just shows the girl bluntly saying "Oh, MC-kun must really like me if he pays so much attention to other guys around me, I guess I should really back off and do as he says". Bro, come on, that's just wrong, there's a chapter where the girl literally has her sleeves rolled up during the sports festival and the guy freaks out and unrolls it so she shows less skin, it's awful.

With all that said, it's a lovely manga with lots of cute moments, pannels that make you melt away, and a heartwarming relationship between two people who don't have the emotional background to deal with their own adolescent feelings. However, it must be said that the manga suffers greatly, greatly from not addressing and capitalising on the theme of possessive relationship. Since the manga isn't over yet, all of these elements could very well be a setup from the author for future plot development - and if that's the case, it gets a strong 8 to a light 9 from me. Right now, it's a strong 6.

This anime is weird. I believe everyone who stumbles upon a show with a name like this one automatically prepares for the shitstorm that's inevitably hitting the vent (or at least is what I'd hope) . Saw the first 15 seconds of episode one and, as soon as the title pop up, I dropped it. I'm too old for this type of crap. A few days went by and someone on Twitter said I really should give it a try. I swallowed my self-love and pride and did it. There are OBVIOUSLY going to be lots of anatomically inaccurate poses for the sake of pantie ... shots,a vast amount of blushing, sexual jokes, parents trying to make their kids do it ,etc. There HAS to be a bland bitch protagonist way too horny and inadequate to live in society and a tsundere whose existence is solely for the sake of her new found love for her brother, there is no other way for something like this show. Right?

Bro, I was wrong. This thing is good, I promise.

This is probably the unique case of finding a masterpiece that I'm not willing to recommend to anyone. The story is justified through the opus of Baudelaire, and yet, specially in the (in)famous (as most reviews seems to indicate) first couple of volumes, it strongly resembles Dostoievski's Crime and Punishment.

I'll repeat myself: it is one of the top mangas I wouldn't recommend to anyone. But in case you're looking for something unique, disturbing, with deep characters, that's havily emotional and probably gonna leave a mark on you (specially if you have scars of your own), give Les Fluers du Mal a try, if ... you dare.