5 Weddings and a Funeral
- Episodes : 12
- Genre : Harem, Comedy, School
- Airing Date : January 2019 - March 2019
- Producers : Tezuka Productions
Contains Spoilers
Gotoubun no Hanayome Introduction and Story (Spoilers)
Uesugi Fuutarou is a brilliant yet poor high school student who has just been assigned a part-time job as a tutor. He has an unfortunate encounter with a beautiful girl at the school cafeteria, and they don’t get along one bit. Unfortunately for Uesugi, she is one of his five new students that he will be tutoring, and her four identical sisters don’t quite trust him either.
What We Liked About Gotoubun no Hanayome
Gotoubun no Hanayome is a harem comedy about one strict, by-the-numbers tutor who puts his best efforts to teach five unruly girls. While they appear to be identical, they couldn’t be more different personality-wise. The dynamic in this series is very enjoyable and much different than you would find in a typical harem comedy.
Discussion Time
We could argue that we have never seen a harem with this much distinction between its characters, and the irony is that all the heroines are, at times, indistinguishable! But is this series worth your time? Keep reading to find out!
1. There Are 5 Best Girls
Everyone loves to root for the best girl, but in Gotoubun no Hanayome, trying to find her can be difficult at times. Sure, everyone prefers the perky Yotsuba over the prickly Nino at first, but each of the girls has their fair amount of charm. In harem shows, there’s usually the lean petite main heroine that is front and center, but all the quintuplets have the same curvy build. Just bucking the trend of character design stereotypes is a big plus in our book.
2. A Harem MC to Aspire to
Fuutarou isn’t your typical spineless MC. While he is dense at times, he’s also devoted and earnest. He supports his family with his tutoring job so he’s motivated to get the girls to trust him, but even beyond that, he gives his best efforts to teach them in a way they can learn. Through their interactions, it’s easy to see why the girls would grow in affection towards him without just liking him because he’s the typical MC.
3. A Pretty Grounded Romance
If you compare this to the likes of Nisekoi, this is probably the most realistic premise for a harem comedy as you’re going to find in all of anime. A poor student attempting to teach beautiful and rich airheads doesn’t seem like a premise too far out there, if you ignore their being quintuplets. There isn’t too much that happens in the series that you couldn’t see happening in everyday life. Compared to the genre as a whole, it’s a plausible setup that develops in the most grounded way you could expect from an anime, and it’s not any more boring because of it.
1. It Is a Harem
While Gotoubun no Hanayome definitely flips the genre on its head, it does rely on many of the same harem tropes we’ve already seen for years. If you absolutely hate romances with multiple heroines, this will more than likely frustrate you all the same. At the beginning, the series reveals that Fuutarou eventually marries one of the five sisters, but the identity is a mystery for the entire series. If the idea of your absolute favorite girl not getting her happy ending is a dealbreaker for you, this probably won’t satisfy you.
2. The Anime Seems Rushed
We were rather surprised that a manga series barely a year old got an anime so fast, and it seems to have been put into production very quickly. The voice cast is superb, but the animation doesn’t really do the show justice, which, unfortunately, is a trend with recent shows. That said, this isn’t an action series, so dialogue-heavy scenes aren’t really affected by the quality. It’s just a minor complaint that is noticeable enough for us to mention.
Final Thoughts
We really enjoyed Gotoubun no Hanayome’s approach to harem comedy. Spoiler alert, we were already big fans of the ongoing manga series that it’s based on so we weren’t surprised. Sorry, though, we don’t know who Fuutarou marries in the end either. Maybe we’ll find out in season 2 (if it happens)! What did you think of the show? Let us know in the comments!
Author: Hercule SSJ
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