The Quintessential Quintuplets – 15 – Leaving the Nest

Nino insists Fuutarou take a shower to thoroughly wash off the river, but mostly wanted someone to talk to and break the monotony of her solitary hotel life…plus she felt bad that he looked so depressed! She gets Fuutarou to tell the full story of his encounter with Kyoto Mystery Girl…which lasted far longer than I had originally thought!

Sleep-deprived or not, there’s virtually no way “Rena” was a hallucination, yet remains an baffling enigma. She asks him to tell her about the students he’s tutoring as if she’s not one of them, but then why does she not only look just like one of them, but blushes when he describes them one by one with perfect accuracy?

Rena tells Fuutarou he seems like someone who is “needed” now, and takes her leave, returning his student ID but keeping the photo of them, because, as she says, “they’ll never meet again.” She tosses him a rolled fortune and tells him to open it when he’s learned to “accept” himself. When he tries to follow her, he falls out of the boat and into the river.

The story moves Nino to tears, and she assures him “at least one person on this planet” would fall for an “insensitive guy” like him. Right on cue, she notices he’s wearing nothing but a tiny towel and is scandalized…yet can’t help peer through her fingers! Fuu learns she taped his study packet back together and has been working on it.

She apologizes to Fuu for her behavior, but won’t go home and make up with Itsuki, who had never slapped her before. Itsuki, meanwhile, has become way too comfortable at the Uesugi residence for Fuu’s taste. The next day, Fuu shows up at Nino’s hotel again, and she tells him about how she feels like her four sisters flew away from their nest, leaving only her behind—it’s why she keeps her hair the same length it was five years ago.

Fuu tells Nino that you can’t change how people change, but have to accept that change and whatever it brings. One part of Nino’s past she isn’t ready to forget is her brief time with Fuu’s cousin “Kintarou,” so she changes gears by having Fuu arrange for them to meet again.

A classic sitcom scenario then plays out, with Fuu having to spend the day with Nino as Kintarou and answering her phone calls for advice about his “cousin”. He slips up more than once, calling Nino by her first name, letting slip he knows she’s a good cook, then finally telling her he doesn’t care about their exams, but just wants the five of them back together.

Nino doesn’t ever let on that she knows Kintarou is Fuu in disguise until he’s ready to confess. She claims to Fuu at the first-floor café that she thinks Kintarou was about to ask her out. She then holds out her hand to give him a handshake of gratitude, only to pull up his sleeve to reveal the bracelet she just returned to Kintarou.

Whether Nino thinks the previous Kintarou she met was the real one, or she knew Fuu was Kintarou all along isn’t 100% clear, but what is clear as day is her expression of hurt and disappointment, which is the last thing Fuu sees before succumbing to the drug she slipped in his iced coffee. While it was played for laughs when she drugged him in the first season, it hits different here, especially after the heart-to-hearts they’ve had since then.

It’s an abrupt end to the Nino storyline, as she ends up checking out of the hotel, leaving Fuu in the lurch. I do wish he had had the chance to make clear there never was any Kintarou and properly ask for forgiveness, but Nino seems to have made her own ruling on the matter, and so we move on to the other sisters.

After forcing Itsuki to wake up on time (she forgets where she is and thinks Nino is trying waking her), the two of them try to get a bead on Yotsuba’s situation with the track team. Her coach doesn’t care about exams, and is willing to use Yotsuba as long as she lets herself be used…which is always.

Fuu has to resort to running with Yotsuba while quizzing her, ultimately resulting in him tripping over his own feat and into Yotsuba’s caring arms. She uses that as an excuse to get him to stop running. Then we learn Ichika also wants to help her little sister, even going so far as to brush her teeth like she used to do when they were little.

Ichika makes it clear that as the eldest, she wants to be there for Yotsuba and the others, and furthermore, tells Yotsuba it’s okay to quit if she wants. Yotsuba seems to want to quit, but doesn’t think she can, because it would mean causing trouble for the team.

Little does Yotsuba know that Ichika has been on the phone with Fuu and Itsuki throughout their conversation. She tells them she’ll be meeting with the track coach tomorrow. Hopefully the three of them working together can help “free” Yotsuba from a prison of obligation.

As for Miku, she arrives at Nino’s new hotel, having worn Nino’s spare butterfly ribbons to pass as her sister. Fuu had his change to try to bring Nino back into the fold and only got her angry by pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Now it’s time for Miku to have a go!

Episode Three Quintuplet Ranking:

1. Nino: Not much of a contest here. Nino totally ruled the roost this week. We got Caring Nino, Sensitive Nino, Real-Talk-with-Fuu Nino, Crushing-on-Kintarou Nino, and, most controversially, the return of Criminal Nino. Don’t drug people! Total Points: 14 (1st)
2. Itsuki: Total Points: 12 (2nd) Not as much screentime as last week, but it’s clear she’s become a capable, productive surrogate member of the Uesugi family, yet is also capable of faces like this upon waking up:
3. Yotsuba: Nice to see number four again! Unfortunately, she’s pretty one-note, with her usual conflict of trying to please too many people. Total Points: 6 (Tied for 4th)
4. Ichika: That was the most, uh, interesting toothbrushing scene since Nisemonogatari. Glad to see Ichika actively trying to help Yotsuba rather than continuing to float above everything. Total Points: 7 (3rd)
5. Miku: Yout can’t score points if you don’t show up! Total Points: 6 (Tied for 4th)

Rena (Unranked): The show wants me to think she’s a sixth and separate person, but I still don’t know what to think. I was intrigued by the fact Nino is the only quint to retain her original hair length from five years ago. Could Rena be Nino in disguise, getting back at Fuu for his Kintarou deception? To be continued…

The Quintessential Quintuplets – 14 – Scattered to the Five Winds

While his family sleeps, Fuutarou is hard at work hand-writing comprehensive problem sets to ensure the quints pass the exam coming up in seven days. As usual, his burning of the candle at all five ends results in him collapsing into a “death-like” sleep before he can reach the door of their apartment.

Itsuki, frustrated that he’s late, finds him out in the hall, and her annoyance immediately shifts to genuine concern, then genuine gratitude to see how hard he worked for her and everyone’s sakes. It’s no surprise she’d react this way, considering she was the first to originally seek Fuu’s help…but it’s still lovely to see her smile behind his back.

Fuutarou is happy that all five sisters are present for the session, but things go off the rails shockingly fast due to the persistently butting of heads of Nino and Miku. First, it’s little things like Miku borrowing Nino’s eraser or Nino drinking out of Miku’s can (though joke’s on her, it’s matcha soda!) Fuu’s attempts to get them to get along fail miserably.

Then Nino, regarded as the most sensitive (as well as prickliest!) sister, gets fed up and heads to her room to study alone. When Fuu tries to stop her, she tells him to butt out of family business. When Miku hands her her copy of the problem set, she slaps it out of her hand. Then Itsuki gets involved, slapping Nino and ordering her to apologize, showing Nino how Fuu handwrote all those papers.

Nino is clearly contrite, but also doesn’t want to lose face (as she sees it). Above all else, she’s hurt, angry and disgusted that her four sisters have turned against her and fallen for all of Fuutarou’s “slick talk”. She then decides to double down on her stubbornness and move out.

When she accuses Itsuki of being a “domestic violence meat monster”, Itsuki decides to move out too. It’s a disaster! The next day (with only six days before the exam) Miku joins Fuutarou to search for her missing sisters; Ichika and Yotsuba are apparently busy with other stuff.

Then Miku asks a crowd if anyone’s seen someone who “looks like this” (referring to herself, not a photo), and they locate Nino at a luxury hotel, to which Miku is able to gain access by simply pretending to be Nino. Fuutarou pleads with Nino through the door to remember how she’s always been the one who cared the most about her sisters and their home, but that doesn’t work.

Any time Fuu, an “outsider” to Nino, tries to act like he knows them, it only makes her more resentful. However, she does notice the bracelet Fuu was wearing when she mistook him for “Rintarou” (and basically fell for him), and takes it off his wrist before slamming the door. As for Itsuki, well…as soon as Miku mentioned she ran out without her purse, I had a pretty good idea where she ended up: Fuutarou’s place!

She’s already having a second helping of Raiha’s curry when Fuu comes home, seems to borrow Fuu’s gym clothes to sleep in, and along with Fuu make an adorable Raiha futon sandwich at night. Basically every second of Itsuki at Fuu’s place is a gift, with her seiyu Minase Inori delivering a wonderfully warm and subtle performance. While on a moonlit walk, Fuu protests Itsuki continuing to crash at his place, saying a “well-off girl” won’t be able to survive.

Itsuki corrects him: only a few years ago (and likely around the time Fuu met Mystery Quint(s) in Kyoto), she and her sisters lived in poverty, due to her mother having to raise five kids all at once. When mom fell ill and passed, Itsuki took it upon herself to “guide the others” in her stead, which for Fuu explains why she slapped Nino. But Itsuki laments that she seems to have failed.

The next day, Fuu conronts Yotsuba, who has apparently joined the track team. She apparently couldn’t say no to the captain, and he’s unable to get her to quit. He tries to reason with Nino, but can’t get past hotel security. With all the quints separated, his prospects of helping them pass the next exam are in dire straits—especially with Nino saying she doesn’t care whether she passes.

With only four days until those exams, Fuutarou considers trying to drown himself in the river, thinking it might unite the girls, before immediately checking his suddenly dangerous thoughts. He then comes around to thinking Nino was right; he should have never come into his lives, which seemingly caused all this discord.

Of course, they came into each others‘ lives years ago, as the arrival of a grown-up version of the Mystery Quint appears before him, leading him to jump into the river after all. What the hell was that? A hallucination? Our boy’s been pretty sleep-deprived. Ichika in a wig, dressed for an acting gig? A sixth sister? (No, probably not that.) Who knows, but she’s gone when Fuu climbs out of the drink. I would think if she were actually there, she’d have expressed concern about him falling in!

That said, Yotsuba runs past the soaked Fuu but doesn’t stop, as she’s practicing for track (I alsonoted that her shoes match the one that snapped a twig while Fuu and Itsuki were on their walk. Not sure what to make of that except…is Yotsuba doing track to stay out of the way vis-a-vis Fuu and the other sisters? At any rate, dunking himself apparently washed away his discouragement, and he heads back to Nino’s hotel, where again he’s stopped by guards.

But when Nino spots him, part of her admires his dogged perseverance, part of her feels bad for how wet he is, and part of her doesn’t want the other hotel guests to be subjected to him, so she invites him up to her place. Maybe she’s cooled down enough to hear him out…or maybe she just wants to ask how he came to possess Rintarou’s bracelet!

Episode Two Quintuplet Ranking:

1. Itsuki: The classic and presumptive Best Quint on most lists, here she really earns that top spot with the lion’s share of screen time. She showed all the sides: the eager student, the strict mom, the freeloader, the clear-eyed reminiscer, the moonlit walk companion…just a very strong overall showing. Total Points: 8 (2nd)
   
2. Nino: Yes, she’s a huge pain in the ass, but also yes I love her very much and just want her to go home! Getting that super-expensive hotel suite is so Nino, who’d never. She’s also wonderfully dense about the Fuutarou-Rintarou connection. Total Points: 9 (1st)
   
3. Miku: Good to see her standing up to the seemingly stronger-willed yet also more sensitive Nino, and defending Fuu’s hard work beside Itsuki. Total Points: 5 (Tied for 3rd)
   
4. Yotsuba: Second straight ep where there’s just not much of her, to the point I’m wondering if she’s avoiding Fuu on purpose. Total Points: 3 (5th)
5. Ichika: Ichiwho? A near no-show this week, though like Yotsuba there may be a reason: despite being the eldest, Ichika tends to fade into the background when sister conflicts rage. Total Points: 5 (Tied for 3rd)