The Quintessential Quintuplets II is the second season, and is once again 12 episodes long. It follows Futaro, a poor high school student. He got lucky and was hired as a tutor to quintuplets, who are from a seemingly rich family. Unfortunately for him, the sisters have terrible grades and don’t have the motivation to work hard and improve them. The story follows direction after the first season, where Futaro got sick at the end of the school camp and how he was visited by all five of the quintuplets.
By the end of the last season, it was apparent that all five of the sisters harbours some feeling for Futaro, no matter how small, in one way or another. This is at its core a romantic comedy, and we know that Futaro ends up marrying one of them in the future. This already had a focus last season but is even more so here. Futaro had already met one of the sisters five years ago in Kyoto, and it left a strong impression on him. Now, based on his interactions with the sisters, he strongly suspects that the one he met in Kyoto is one of the sisters.
Playing it straight, you can probably narrow down the one that Futaro met to one or two of the quintuplets, although naturally, this won’t be explicitly confirmed any time soon. It can be slightly annoying that so much focus goes into this aspect, but it’s a big part of Futaro’s current existential crisis. The anime gives quite a number of hints at who will be the one with Futaro, unfortunately, these hints can either relate to any one of the quintuplets, or it plays into the identical aspect so you don’t actually know who was the one that showed in the scene.
In addition to Futaro agonising over his first crush, he must deal with the sisters arguing with each other. Yes, they are close, but as with all siblings, there are things that they don’t see eye to eye with, and they will have arguments. It’s not the best arc the series has had thus far, but it tries to put an emotional and heart-warming spin to it when it shows that yes, the sisters really do care about each other and they aren’t as mean or cruel as they try to portray themselves to be.
The season plays a lot more into the humor between quintuplets. One of the best things is how they are all identical. It’s easy for the viewers to tell them apart given their different hairstyles, different hair color, and different voice actors, but in-universe, they are hard to tell apart. It’s very easy to for other people to confuse one sister for another, and they will frequently play into that aspect, and every time, it can be funny, or at the very least, amusing.
The season double downs on the relationship of the sisters and with Futaro, and it’s done well. Each of the sisters have their strengths and flaws on their own, but together, they complement each other. The first plot arc is a heavy hitting emotional one that leverages this aspect. The next arc ups the stakes, and dives that much bit deeper into the sisters’ family situation. Although it felt brief and quickly resolved, making it seem like it wasn’t a big issue in the first place, especially with the setup of the sisters’ poor grades.
The second half of the season starts to get messy. It was already becoming complicated with each of the sisters having varying amounts of romantic interest in Futaro, but it is all starting to come into the light. At least some are honest and open about their feelings and desires, but this is where the competitiveness and manipulation start to come into play. It’s not too serious, yet, as it remains just lighthearted enough for their plans to mostly fail and some laughs to be had, but you can see that it has a huge potential to get tricky and nasty.
The drama continues to the season finale, where it will be resolved. Of course, it will be a good ending, given the nature of the anime, but it highlights the close bond of the sisters, and how they’re all good people. There were several big moments and revelations, so that each sister has a fair chance of being the one for Futaro. Just like the first season, the ending here reinforces the fact that Futaro will marry one of them and shows off several more moments on the pivotal moments that furthered their feelings for each other.
Overall, there is a marked shift in the direction of the anime, now focusing much more on the quintuplets realizing their emotions and vying for Futaro’s attention. They become more competitive, and while some of them are manipulative (or attempt to be), their goodhearted nature comes out on top so that it doesn’t drag down the anime with it. There’s been some good progress during the season, and Futaro at least isn’t as clueless as your typical harem protagonist.
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