A friend that knows I love actually funny and/or horny romcoms with tomboys told me to watch this series. I will not be reviewing S1 or S2 because I binged those two seasons in one day and I can't tell them apart because I finished this by May 2 2024.
I was going to give the series a 7 out of 10 because it's fairly paint by numbers with pretty animation, great faces and almost perfect voice acting until the adopted father shows up as an actual character. Then I bumped it up to an 8.
In my review system, if the story is alright with some screwups, decent animation, decent voice acting and decent everything, it gets a 6. If it's got tropes that I like (good comedy, good tomboys, strong+smart+capable female characters, etc.) it gets a 7. If it surprised me, it gets a +1. If that anime does something better than anything else I've seen so far in a category that I care about (characterization, scenes, memes, etc.) it gets a +1. If it has an appropriate ending that I like AND I already gave it a +1 already, it gets another +1. This is how Lycoris Recoil and Interspecies Reviewers ended up with 10s from me.
So it's at an 8 already going in. And then the movie gives you backstory with the mom. I cry about once or twice a year and watch 20+ anime series, 5+ western live action shows and 10+ western movies a year. This was definitely one of those times for crying. It's at an 8.5 for me now.
And then they give you the backstory with Yotsuba and that's like 15+ minutes. By the end of it, I was like "Fine, Yotsuba deserves it, but that wasn't clear at ALL from S1+S2". That storytelling was good and unexpected. It's at a 9.
I really liked the interaction with the actual father showing up and the quintuplets rightfully deciding to stick together and ignore this random dude that literally showed up, ditched their mom, and decided to come back into their lives and insisted on being an asshole about it. I've seen it before IRL, and that is how it can go if you have emotionally strong children that know what is moral and justified that do not need random men showing up in their lives (mainly due to their finances being taken care by their adoptive father, but still). That was RIDICULOUSLY realistic and I felt good about it, and it definitely surprised me, but not enough to give it a 9.5.
I will ALWAYS be a Miku fan as best girl in the show, and I will die on that hill. I can't give a 10 because Miku didn't win. The dialogue+situations, for whatever reason, remind me of the Love Hina manga, but I don't exactly know why and I don't feel like rereading Love Hina for the 3rd+ time to find out. I am extremely biased and I don't care.
