English Dub Review: The Quintessential Quintuplets “Seven Goodbyes Part 1”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Futaro tries rallying the Quints to study up for incoming final exams, but everything is once again disrupted by Nino’s bratiness. This time, however, both Miku and Itsuki defend Futaro, leading to a brief slap fight and both Nino and Itsuki threatening to move out. But to Futaro’s surprise, Itsuki ends up moving in with him and his family. While there, he learns about how all five of them used to live with their mother in near poverty, as it was very difficult to raise five children. Futaro tries to convince Nino to just focus on studying and make up with her sisters, but she refuses. At the end of his rope, Futaro gets a surprise visit from the girl he met with five years ago, who inspires him to try reaching out to Nino again, only he ends up falling in a lake. This somehow gets Nino’s sympathy though, so that’s a start.

OUR TAKE

The beginning of this three parter gets us back on a more familiar track with where things were for most of the first season, in particular that the quintuplets are still adjusting to having Futaro in their lives, even if he is becoming a clear help to most of them. Even though most of the sisters have taken a major liking to him, in more ways than one, Nino seems to be the biggest hold out, which seems mainly due to her not wanting to accept an outsider into this tightly knit group she and her sisters have made. They’ve been together for the longest time by themselves, so who is this stranger who keeps trying to come to their house every day and make them do homework? And now all of her sisters are siding with HIM over HER? This is madness of the highest order, surely. Well, I hate to break it to Nino, but this is a harem anime, so whatever mind parasite has infected the rest of her sisters is bound to dive into her brain next. It’s really only a matter of time, and will probably happen around the end of this story arc.

But this story isn’t just about bringing Nino into the harem fold, but also about examining the individual relationship between her and Itsuki. This is one of the things I have quite enjoyed and admired about this series in particular: it knows that each of the love interest characters all have an inherent connection to each other as well as to the main guy. This is especially true in the case of them all being sisters, which means that they all know each other’s personalities inside and out and have things about them that piss the other off, much like siblings would. It’s also interesting for me because Nino and Itsuki don’t seem to be a very well developed pair like Miku and Ichika or Miku and Itsuki, so it’s good that we’re fleshing out the relationships between each of the five sisters. I don’t know how much of that we’ll get before things just turn into a free for all for trying to nab Futaro, but it’s good that we’re getting to it here. And there’s plenty of this particular story left to go, as we dive into the remaining two parts of the Seven Goodbyes Arc in the next few weeks.