Chapter 88 of The Quintessential Quintuplets continued on with the flashback arc.
This chapter, unlike last week’s, had some deeper content to dig into. This chapter continued on with Yotsuba (Rena) and Fuutarou’s first encounter in Kyoto before present events.
This chapter began innocently enough until it actually became very real. We first got to see them make the promise to study harder to help the people they love. This was a moment brought up many times, and now we get to see the event for ourselves and how and why it happened, so that was cool.
It continued to get even more real after that when Ichika began talking to Fuutarou. This is undoubtedly what lead to the them playing cards together event Ichika brought up a bit ago. But this event spurred on more than just them playing cards. It also caused Yotsuba to spiral into a state that is unlike anything we’ve seen from her now.
She got mad about Ichika taking attention from Fuutarou and mistaking Ichika for her and wanted to be different from the other quintuplets. So that’s why she put a ribbon in her hair. Itsuki followed suit by putting stars in her hair. Both looks have stuck.
We also got to see that the quintuplets mom died and the guy we now know as the Nakano dad taking them in (even though he’s not related to any of them). We also got to see Yotsuba think, when they were in middle school, that the quintuplets can’t be together anymore.
Besides that, we also got to see the origin story for the name “Fuu-kun.” Nino coined it back then when Yotsuba couldn’t remember Fuutarou’s full name when telling Nino about him. So she didn’t just create it randomly.
But this chapter was interesting to see more of Yotsuba’s story and get a lot more answers to pressing questions that help us understand the present story. And I’m kind of excited to see more.
It appears as though Yotsuba was going through a rough patch there for awhile that she obviously got out of since we know how she is in the present. I’m intrigued to see what the turning point was for her to make her how she is. Up until now, she was total randomness. This is building her character motivations well, which is good to see. A lot more about her is beginning to make sense and even more will continue to make sense as we go along with this arc.
This arc is a total mystery as to what will happen next since a flashback arc can time skip to anywhere. With this last chapter ending with them in middle school, I’d assume they pick up there and show more of Yotsuba’s fall and despair to set up the later turning point down the road.
