English Dub Review: The Quintessential Quintuplets “The Last Exam”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Maruo has declared that the girls must pass their final exams or else they will move back into the house, so Futaro dedicates to teaching them enough to do so. Of course, unknown to him, some of the girls have other plans. Miku is focused on making him chocolate to give him on Valentine’s Day, Nino and Ichika are wrestling with pushing down their feelings for Futaro, Yotsuba is worried that she’ll drag everyone down like she apparently did with a similar exam years ago, and Itsuki is visiting their mother’s grave, running into one of her old students. With some sudden inspiration from Yotsuba, Futaro uses all of the sisters’ advantages in each subject to teach all of them in the subjects that they lack. In the end, everyone passes, with Ichika getting the highest score. They plan a celebration at Futaro’s other job, but Nino has apparently disappeared to give their father a talking to, so Futaro goes to get her.

OUR TAKE
For being about a crucial exam, that really doesn’t factor as much into the episode’s plot as all the emotions swirling around. Like last episode, we have Miku being open about her effort’s to win Futaro’s heart while Nino and Ichika twiddle their thumbs at not really knowing what they want. Ichika is at least conscious of her feelings but doesn’t want to step on Miku’s toes…but then that makes her beating Miku in the exam scores a little suspect, especially after knowing that Miku would have confessed had she gotten the highest score. And this sort of behavior will become more prevalent very soon, though of course not without in-character reasons. Likewise, Nino kind of knows she likes Futaro but is still denying it to herself, though without giving too much away, next episode will very much see the end of that denial. There is very much a storm brewing between the elder three Nakano sisters, with Futaro not being much the wiser despite being at the center.

That just leaves Yotsuba and Itsuki to talk about, though really just Itsuki. Yotsuba continues to pretty much just be in the background aside from a couple important contributions, in this case being one that she didn’t even mean to contribute to. She’s by no means a bad character, it’s just weird looking at this series with hindsight and seeing how little she really played a part in key events. Meanwhile, Itsuki gets a pretty major moment of character development that you could also argue didn’t do much for anyone but her, but it was certainly a major step forward for her character, even if it was pretty much separate from everyone else. We get a better idea of their mother, who apparently was a teacher and a pretty good one at that, if one of her students (who apparently has shark teeth?) remembering her fondly is any indication. Itsuki gaining the dream of becoming a teacher like her mother kinda makes it seem like she’ll become a sleeper contender for Futaro, although she doesn’t seem to have shown much interest in him alone. But the season is only half over, and plenty of twists and turns are left for us to see unfold. As hinted, next time sees some major shifts to the group dynamic, as one player barges into the race, which will only push everyone else to rethink their own priorities as well.