5-toubun no Hanayome (The Quintessential Quintuplets) is picking up right from where the first season left off, and it is already shaping up to be quite the ride! We have previously investigated protagonist Uesugi Fuutarou’s inability to tell his 5 students, the Nakano Quintuplets, apart. The quintuplets are impossible for any of the characters in the show to tell apart; however, as the audience, we have access to obvious features like the differences in their hairstyles, lengths, and colours.
Despite sharing the same genetic material, the sheer differences in the siblings’ personalities are apparent to us, the viewers, but somehow none of the other characters can tell them apart. Nino has confirmed for us in this second season that the difference in their hairstyles and length are obvious to the sisters themselves, so we know for a fact that it is a physical fact of the Quintessential Quintuplets universe that the Nakano sisters have different hairstyles and lengths. What does this mean for the mystery regarding Rena, the girl from Fuutarou’s past? Let’s discuss!
New Hair, Who Dis?
Before we get into any analysis, we must talk about the recent developments regarding Nino’s hair! Nino is the only Nakano sister to retain the lengthy straight-back hairstyle from their childhoods. It is revealed that despite her sharp tongue and prickly attitude, Nino is the most sensitive of the quintuplets. Lately, Nino has felt threatened by all the change at home and ran away after a heated disagreement with Itsuki.
Her inability to readily accept change is symbolized by her hairstyle, holding onto the past when the five of them were more than just identical in appearance, but personality as well. Nino releases her grip on the way things used to be with her sisters when she cuts her hair, pretends to be Yotsuba to quit from the Track and Field Club on her behalf. Now with hair as short as Yotsuba’s, Nino begins to embrace her own and her sisters’ divergence from the quintuplet mold she had been holding onto all this time.
Yotsuba had been struggling to keep up with her club commitments and maintain her studies, which made her sisters worry about her immensely. Since she was not informed of their plan to pretend to be her, Yotsuba was shocked to see Nino tell off her seniors while looking exactly like her, hilariously exclaiming that her dopplegänger had come to kill her like in the legends!
Bobbin’, Weavin’
With her hair cut into a short bob like Yotsuba’s, Nino gains a different kind of confidence as she no longer feels as alienated from her sisters as she did. Cutting hair is often symbolic of change and if you’re a seasoned anime fan, or even just a Naruto fan, you may have seen parallels between Haruno Sakura cutting her own hair in combat and Nino cutting her hair for Yotsuba’s sake – both characters came to an important decision in their own right and the act of cutting their hair became a moment of growth for both characters. The “Track and Field Doppelgänger Incident”, as we will call it, confirms one thing: Quintessential Quintuplets characters can clearly see the differences in hair length between the Nakano sisters, but not hair colour. This explains why a short-haired Nino confused Yotsuba’s seniors in the Track and Field Club, but Itsuki in a green bow could not.
Final Thoughts
Quintessential Quintuplets is not letting up in the second season, which has been plenty eventful thus far! It’s clear that Nino’s aesthetic change is just the beginning, and with the various developments surrounding the mysterious Rena making things all the more spicy! Nino’s hair change has made it clear just how far the quintuplets’ similarity can go and perhaps this is setting us up for quite the exciting reveal later on in the season! What’s in a hairstyle? A lot more than we thought! Enjoying 5-toubun no Hanayome ∬ (The Quintessential Quintuplets 2) so far? Drop a comment below and tell us your thoughts!
Author: Hoshi-kun
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