The Quintessential Quintuplets Vol. 13

Title: The Quintessential Quintuplets Vol. 13
Author: Negi Haruba
Series: The Quintessential Quintuplets #13
First Published: January 16, 2020
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Pages: 190
Genre: Comedy Romance, Romance, Shonen
Format: Web
Source: Web
Rating:


Synopsis:

A juicy tutoring gig falls in the lap of poor high school second-year Futaro Uesugi... but it turns out his prospective pupils are his classmates?! And they're quintuplets?! All five are gorgeous, but they're problem students who hate to study and are on the verge of failing! Can Futaro help these idiosyncratic sisters make it to graduation?

Futaro Uesugi is hired as a tutor to help a set of beautiful quintuplet sisters who hate studying and are on the verge of flunking out successfully graduate. But now it's time for the final event of their high school careers: the school festival. These three days will have an enormous effect on the lives of Futaro and the quintuplets!

Review

For Miku’s chapter in this volume and in the last one, it was admirable to see her understanding that her crush on Futaro may never be anything more than that. It was wonderful seeing her grow and finally find the courage to speak up and ask for what she wants. For Yotsuba, who goes above and beyond to help everyone to make up for her feelings of inadequacy, she’s finally shown the fruits of her labor, coming full circle to her past.

Itsuki’s section was… Something. She isn’t in love with Futaro like the others, so there are no stakes. We got more of a resolution to the quint’s parentage, and it felt forced and really goofy and not in a good way. Yeah, it drives the point home about their stepfather, and it is good to see Itsuki tackling her insecurities and being reaffirmed in her choice of a future career, but her chapters felt like filler. The entire story could’ve existed without involving the quint’s biological father, and the story would’ve been just fine. It wasn’t funny, and not much was added.

A more fitting chapter would’ve been for Itsuki to question her platonic feelings (which she evidently does for a chapter in volume 14). Hear me out, the manga sets them up as the two focus characters at the start, and they have that two stubborn idiots arguing with each other chemistry that is common in romance manga. Itsuki almost would’ve seemed like she’d be in the running, but then it was later dropped, and Itsuki remained a supporting character and a friend. Each of these chapters detailed the quints coming to terms with their feelings, so why the author didn’t do this for Itsuki is a missed opportunity, again, because he ended up including this question later in volume 14.

In the final chapter, I loved the scene of the three guys talking to each other to give some perspective, which was good for building up Futaro’s decision. At this point in the series, although he is pretty dense when it comes to love, I wish more time had been given to him to sort out his feelings. Up to this point, it was shown occasionally, with him not being sure about love and taking time to read about how to handle first love, which was cute, but he never seems to lean toward any of the quints in particular. Who is the right pick for him and why is illustrated fantastically throughout the series as this character is developed. However, I would’ve liked it if Futaro was given the same time to develop as a character as the quints.

The final pages of this volume, even though I already had a good guess about the way it’d turn out, communicated so much in a short amount of panels without a word. Each of the girls was waiting in a different classroom, and the very concept of choosing one door and opening it was a really good metaphor. It was stunningly executed.

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