As a nation that tends to push
the envelope, Japan has been a world leader in innovation. However, the same distinctive culture, attitudes,
environment, and ethos that stimulate efficiency and improvement are also what precipitate
some pretty weird creations and institutions.
Hence, as it is with anime, Japanese products and services range from
the imaginative to the novel to the bizarre.
One of the industries that can
only be established and thrive in a place like Japan is the “professional
stand-in service”, in which clients can hire actors to serve as their platonic
companions during a certain period of time, pretending to be their friends,
family members, or even lovers. Rent-A-Girlriend is the first anime I’ve
ever encountered that use this real-life trade as premise. And that’s the main reason why I checked it
out in the first place.
Rent-A-Girlriend is a harem romantic comedy anime that revolves
around 20-year-old college student Kazuya Kinoshita. After getting dumped by his first ever girlfriend,
he turns to an online app to procure the services of a rental girlfriend,
Chizuru Mizuhara. She proves to be an utter bombshell and is quite a professional, and thus, Kazuya has a great time during
their pretend date. It’s supposed to be
just a one-off thing, but his childish and selfish impulsiveness gets the
better of him, and this leads to a series of events in which they are forced to
continue pretending to be in a relationship indefinitely. It becomes more awkward when they discover
that they go to the same college and are next-door neighbors. As the series progresses, other rental
girlfriends arrive in the picture, and become intertwined with their “will
they, won’t they” storyline.
This anime was one of the hits of
the recently finished summer 2020 anime season.
However, I never really got invested on it. In fact, as what I mentioned in my initial thoughts of it, I seriously considered dropping it a few episodes in. I ended up watching all 12 episodes of its first
season because I hoped it would eventually captivate me. Well, that never happened. While watching its weekly episodes, I did occasionally
derive entertainment from it, but it never totally clicked with me.
A big reason why the anime was
not able to draw me in completely is because Kazuya and Mami, his POS of an ex,
are so thoroughly irritating to watch.
It would have been fine if it was just Mami, being an antagonist and
all, but Kazuya is the effin’ main character.
With the case of harem, even if the main character is flawed or wimpy,
he must at least have adequate redeemable qualities to convince the audience
that he deserves a “happily ever after” with one of the girl characters. Kazuya, however, was simply a pathetic, self-centered
jerk straight-up.
Now, I understood that it was
probable that he would be improving himself during the course of the series –
that’s what character development is all about after all – and that was the
idea that made me stick around. Unfortunately,
any maturity and self-improvement he underwent during the course of the first
season were, in my opinion, insufficient to make up for the initial turnoffs he
emitted. I never got convinced that he’s
a harem MC worth rooting for. Therefore,
I only got annoyed more when the girl characters started falling for him when
he didn’t deserve it yet.
Chizuru, by the way, is extremely endearing. She probably deserves to be enshrined among the upper levels of the waifu tier list. Still, the merits she brings to the table can’t offset the show’s unpleasantries
I don’t know. Maybe Rent-A-Girlfriend
is simply not for me. I just like my
harem anime to be like The Quintessential Quintuplets – wholesome and fun and has a likable MC from the get go.
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