A Tale of Two Futaros.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The school campout is in full swing, with Futaro and Yotsuba running the “test of courage” in the woods later that night. Things go pretty smoothly at first, with the two of them jumping out of the bushes to scare passing students, up until Miku and Ichika show up with a bit of awkwardness. Itsuki and Nino arrive soon after with a more expected result as Nino runs into the night screaming. Nino ends up getting lost looking for, which then requires Futaro to come save her as well. But he comes in wearing his blond clown wig, making Nino think he’s Futaro’s “relative” Kintaro from the photo, which he’s quick to clear up…until he realizes she’ll just use it against him. So next comes the “be as unattractive as possible” plan, but acting like a bad boy only makes her like “him” more.

Their walk back eventually leads them to a cliff edge which Nino almost falls off, but is saved by a bracelet Raiha gave Futaro, which he gives her. Before he leaves, Nino asks if he’ll come back for the dance, but Itsuki finally shows up and gives him cover to escape. But this puts him in a tough spot, having already promised to dance with Ichika but now having an alter ego kinda-sorta-not-really promising to dance with Nino. AND THE DANCE IS TOMORROW! Plus he can’t help but feel that all five of the sisters seem to be more annoyed with him than usual lately for various reasons. Still, he does go help Yotsuba move the logs for the bonfire…only to then find Ichika there as well. This gives him an opportunity to possibly get out of dancing with her so he can just worry about Nino.

But once he brings it up, she starts to cry, which is especially confusing for her after she just pushed Miku to take her place in the dance. In a panic, they end up dropping the log they’re holding and hiding from other students. They then notice they’ve been locked in the storage house for the night. Whoops.

OUR TAKE

After all the chances the sisters have gotten to play around with their disguises of each other, it’s now Futaro’s turn to switch places with a relative…a relative who doesn’t exist and who he didn’t even know he was impersonating! But still, it was an interesting twist on what we’ve seen so far. Not that the quints switching places has ever really been that convincing, even to him, but now we get to see what it’s like one of THEM is fooled by a disguise for once. In this case, Nino thinking she’s meeting the bad boy from the photo that was actually Futaro, meaning he has to actually deal with a girl who he is aware is into him (or at least a version of him), which he handles surprisingly well. Makes me kind of wonder what this show would be like in reverse with five Uesugi Quintuplets and one Nakano.

Still, while I understand this is high school and everything, I think this might be an instance of the awkward romantic drama getting pushed just a bit more than makes sense. It’s not like Futaro promised anything, even verbally, but he’s still going out of his way to not let down Nino because…why? Heck, with the haunted legends going on, all he would really need to say to resolve this is tell her “oh, Kintaro? He died years ago.” That’s admittedly me just being a sadist, but it WOULD be pretty funny. Plus, it’s not like Nino’s ever going to form a crush on the real him anyway, right?

We also get close to DRAMA CRITICAL MASS as the slowly solidifying love triangle between Miku and Ichika inches closer to emergence. The two are both conflicted over their own feelings and their sense that the other also likes Futaro as well and don’t want to hurt THEIR feelings. Miku’s still not entirely sure how she feels despite it being blindingly obvious to Ichika, but then we have the mask of Ichika’s calmness finally starting to break as she starts realizing her desires are overpowering her duties as the big sister. AND now she has the perfect opportunity to…(ahem) explore that with Futaro since they’ll be trapped in this shack. A love shack, if you will. A little ol place where they can get together. With only two episodes left in the season, will we find out once and for all who the winner is? Most certainly not, but perhaps there’s still some cute stuff to observe until then.

Score 8/10