The wait is over. The Quints are back, and while production has moved from Tezuka to Bibury, this first episode looks absolutely fantastic, both in the crispness, quality, and subtlety of the sisters’ movements and expressions and the Hergé-like precision of the rooms they inhabit. There’s one major change I didn’t initially notice until looking back at season one stills: Fuutarou’s eyes are now amber instead of blue.
Anywho, Fuutarou is recovering from the ski trip flu in a swanky private hospital room provided by the Nakano sisters’ father. Nino is the first to visit him, but quickly hides when Ichika, Miku, and Yotsuba stop by. Ichika gives Fuu the week’s printouts, indicating she didn’t quit school like she was considering; it’s heavily implied she stayed because she’s fallen for him.
Both before and after the Quints visit, Fuutarou dreams of that magical day he met a mystery dream girl in Kyoto, and to his shock, finds that same pink-haired, blue-eyed girl sitting by his bed when he awakes again. It’s actually just Itsuki, who like Nino doesn’t like needles (the sisters are ostensibly there for vaccinations).
Fuutarou seems to confide different things to different sisters, and to Itsuki he opens up a bit about why he studies as hard as he does, which he does by telling her the story of his trip to Kyoto with his four friends. He had a crush on one of those friends, but she liked a different boy, and rather than hang out and watch that unfold, he split off from the others.
It’s apparent from the flashback that behind his brash attitude, bleached hair and earring, Fuutarou was concealing some self-esteem and self-value issues, calling himself “useless junk”. But when he’s falsely accused of taking sneak photos of a cosplayer, he’s bailed out by the mystery dream girl, who follows him the rest of the day.
The girl’s reasoning is simple: they’re both “alone and lonely” and thus need each other. Back in the present, Itsuki says much the same thing, dropping her tsuntsun side and saying they (as in she and her sisters) need Fuu to help them change for the better. Then Itsuki whips out a good luck charm she got from Kyoto five years ago…the same kind the mystery girl bought five of when hanging out with Lil’ Fuu.
The next day, Fuutarou arrives at the sisters’ home an encounters one of them nothing but a towel, having come out of the shower. He tries to determine who it was by having them all let their hair down. It’s at this point when we have to remember that while the five Quints are extremely distinctive to us due to their hair color/style and voices, Fuu can’t tell them apart at all if they’re not wearing their usual hairstyles.
That’s always been an odd disconnect between our visual perspective and Fuu’s, but it is what it is. The sister in the towel dropped five quizzes with “0” scores, so he has all five take another test so he can examine their handwriting. Ichika, the one who was in the towel, realizes this and tries to change hers, but the way she writes her “b’s” tips Fuutarou off, proving that while he can’t tell them apart, it’s not because he “doesn’t pay enough attention to girls”, as Ichika asserts.
As for Itsuki, she realizes who the towel girl wasn’t of consequence to Fuutarou so much as who that mystery girl in Kyoto was. She knows he thinks it was one of the five of them, but is fine with keeping it a secret for now. As for the quizzes, all five sisters scored “0”, which means they all need more of Fuu’s tutoring.
QQ is never not a ton of fun, both due to how great it looks, how unique and engaging the five sisters are, and how they all bounce off Fuutarou, and he them. Last season revealed that all five of them like or love him in one way or another (and with various levels of awareness).
It will be still more fun to watch what moves each of them make to get a little closer to him (I mean, someone’s gonna marry him!), and whether he makes any progress with his investigation into the mystery girl. But even if none of them date him and he makes no progress, I’m still looking forward to the journey, which is off to a solid start.
Episode One Quintuplet Ranking:
- Nino: There’s something particularly adorable about how the mom of the group is so scared of needles. Also, she saw Fuu first!
- Ichika: For that shot of her at Fuu’s bedside…and that giant sweater!
- Itsuki: Probably spent the most alone time with Fuu, and is aware he thinks he met one of them (possibly her) years ago.
- Miku: Says Fuu is welcome to see her mole…
- Yotsuba: Seemed like the odd sister out…didn’t do much this week.
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