Watching The Quintessential Quintuplets∽ (2023)

I am not sure if The Quintessential Quintuplets∽ actually counts as a movie, since it is only 49 minutes long, but it got a run in the cinemas in Japan starting from 14 July 2023. This will be followed by airing on Japanese TV. For those who watch it in the cinemas, there is an additional 12 minutes of footage at the end, where the voice actors (Futaro and the five sisters) talk about their thoughts after hearing that this short movie will be made and other related topics.

The Boy and the Heron opened in Japan on the same day, but I decided to watch this instead.

This short movie is actually a collection of episodes that were not adapted in the TV series and the finale movie. For example, the part when Futaro went to the beach with Raiha and then invited the quintuplets to go spend time at the swimming pool. Also, when Futaro and Nino went to visit the store owner at the hospital. There was also the part when they took care of Ichika's boss's daughter. As well as Yotsuba recollecting her relationship with Futaro.

They are all snippets, and I felt there were kind of forcefully strung together. So for anyone looking for some consistent story, nope, there isn't any. You need to have watched the series itself for this short movie to make sense. It is basically a collection of episodes that fans love but had not been adapted previously. In a way, fan service.

The cinema was actually quite packed, a surprise since it was a Friday and the first show in the morning. I guess we must not underestimate the fans of this series.

I came back with this. Two booklets about the movie were on sale, plus a small "door gift" handed to those who came to watch the movie. It comes in five designs featuring each of the sisters, randomly handed out. I happened to end up with the one sporting a design with Ichika.

I guess this concludes this franchise. The manga has ended, the anime adaptation has gotten as far as the end of the manga, and even the "missing" episodes have now been adapted. It is nice to see the effort to conclude the series, since many anime series are left hanging and fans end up having to read the original manga or light novel to find out the conclusion.