5-toubun no Hanayome | Anime Review

And there you have it, another anime marked as complete. Each episode has been discussed, and now it’s time to give my final thoughts on the anime 5-toubun no Hanayome before I move onto its second season. I definitely think that going into the first season of 5-toubun no Hanayome with low expectations worked in favour of the show. I honestly didn’t expect much whenever you have an anime labelled as a: Harem, Comedy, Romance, School, and Shounen. You will always know that the “harem” is where the focus will be for the most part, which is true for this anime. Towards the end of the anime, you can tell definitively that “Ah yes, this is a harem.” I mean, when you have five sisters, all of which like the male protagonist, what more can you expect.

Fuutarou Uesugi is an ace high school student, but leads an otherwise tough life. His standoffish personality and reclusive nature have left him friendless, and his father is debt-ridden, forcing his family to scrape by.
One day during his lunch break, Uesugi argues with a female transfer student who has claimed “his seat,” leading both of them to dislike each other. That same day, he is presented with a golden opportunity to clear his family’s debt: a private tutoring gig for a wealthy family’s daughter, with a wage of five times the market price. He accepts the proposal, but is horrified to discover that the client, Itsuki Nakano, is the girl he confronted earlier!
After unsuccessfully trying to get back on Itsuki’s good side, Uesugi finds out that his problems don’t end there: Itsuki is actually a quintuplet, so in addition to her, he must also tutor her sisters—Miku, Yotsuba, Nino, and Ichika—who, despite the very real threat of flunking, want nothing to do with a tutor. However, his family’s livelihood is on the line so Uesugi pushes on, adamant in his resolve to rid the sisters of their detest for studying and successfully lead them to graduation.

Allow me to nitpick the synopsis just a little bit. While there is the whole ‘tutor to pay off family debt’ aspect, I would say a large portion of the anime did not have that element. As a matter of fact, we saw something else. We saw Uesugi having heart-to-heart moments with each of the five siblings, and I think that’s what made the show remotely entertaining. Yes, 5-toubun no Hanayome is a harem, but there have also been many feel-good moments. We see these five sisters resist Uesugi and refuse to acknowledge his presence; however, we see them slowly start to accept him throughout the episodes, which also slowly opens them up to him. That’s probably the part I liked the most because at the start of the anime, the five sisters feel very uptight, and by the end of the series, they’re far from it.

But I wouldn’t have gotten to enjoy that aspect of the series if it wasn’t for Fuutarou Uesugi‘s character. Uesugi is a very earnest character, never afraid to speak his mind and certainly is not scared to tell the truth. More importantly, he’s oblivious to his harem, and that’s the biggest plus about him. He doesn’t get flustered whenever any one of the five sisters approaches him. Uesugi sees it as them trying to get out of studying, which is what he’s there to do (To tutor the quintuplets). Uesugi is very much all business, and I like that very much so.

The five sisters, however, is a different story. In short, all of them being in a room together was something I really disliked. When you have all these different character types in one space together, it feels chaotic. Like it doesn’t feel controlled, nor is there any rhyme or reason to all of them being there. I’ve said this in one of my blogs, it’s like five people who hate each other being forced to live together. This is weird because none of them hate one another; it’s just the vibe I get. When are, say, two or three in a scene, then it’s definitely a lot more manageable and a lot more enjoyable. However, where the anime shines is when the five sisters are by themselves. As you’d expect, each sister has their own train of thought, their own emotions. Something you do not typically see in a typical “harem” anime. But you do not get to see that side of each sister if it wasn’t for the fact that their personalities clash. Weirdly enough, it’s because of this conflict that allows each sister to have their time in the spotlight because each one approaches Uesugi about it, and Uesugi being the straightforward person he is, tells them how it is.

Uesugi tells them what they do not want to hear but also tells them, “Hey, you’re okay.” As the episodes progressed, we saw each sister open up to him more and more to the point where Uesugi could tell what they were thinking and how they felt around one another. Uesugi was the best mediator between the sisters, and if it weren’t for him, the bond between the quintuplets would have been as strong as it is at the end of the anime.

Stepping away from the characters, my biggest dislike of 5-toubun no Hanayome was that the ending kind of sucked. The last four episodes were dedicated to the “Legend of Fate Day” arc, and I’m going, to be honest. That was probably the most unentertaining thing I’ve ever watched. Literally, nothing happened. We had four episodes where each sister discovered they all had feelings for Uesugi but didn’t know who to tell it to one another or if what they felt was something genuine. So each episode after that is each girl confirming that “Ah yes, I like him,” then each sister confirming to each other, “Ah yes, we like him.” What do you do when you all like him, but there can only be one victor? You proudly pronounce that you will be the one who wins him over. That is basically what happens in the final four episodes, and I really disliked it. In my opinion, anything other than that could have happened, and it would have been a better end to the anime. In terms of ending episodes, by far 5-toubun no Hanayome has the worst set of them.

In short, 5-toubun no Hanayome shined under the low expectations I had going into the first episode. Some parts were mildly entertaining. However, others were not so much. I will grade this anime a 7/0, maybe a B-.