Rent-A-Girlfriend Review

I always love a good slice-of-life romance series. After all, I did write a 12-volume light novel series that very same exact genre!

*Ahem*

Nevertheless, there was a lot of hype surrounding Rent-A-Girlfriend (Kanojo, Okarishimasu) and the premise for the show seemed pretty promising. Therefore, I wanted to check it out and see what it was about. Now that the first season is over and done with, did it do enough for me to warrant sticking the impending season two on my ‘to watch’ list?

Let’s go!

The Story

The story for Rent-A-Girlfriend is a rather simplistic one. Kazuya is a college student who got dumped by his girlfriend Mami after one month so after getting tired of firing off some knuckle children into an awaiting Kleenex, he discovers a Girlfriend Rental service.

Enter Chizuru… everyone’s favorite waifu of the season.

Kazuya goes out with Chizuru but has conflicting emotions. He knows it’s all an act and to prove his point, he rents her again just to tell her off! This brings out Chizuru’s true persona… that of a tsundere.. and thus begins the story of these two interacting with each other, getting into odd situations, and slowly realizing that there might just be something there between the two of them after all.

That is about as deep as the story for this show gets; however, it is a nice example of doing more with less. The individual situations and the hole that Kazuya digs that just gets deeper and deeper with each episode serve as this show’s main hook and what a hook it is! The fact that Chizuru could end this farce at any point but continues to keep doing Kazuya a solid shows her commitment to, not only, her job but to also protecting Kazuya because he is a client of hers.

The series does try to break things up by adding some new characters which do, in fact, spice things up but the only issue I have with that is the fact that it is painfully obvious that everything is about Kazuya x Chizuru so the added characters and side romances seem more like a failed attempt at a distraction more than anything… even if the story itself tries to justify their additions. Then again, just having two characters throughout the entirety of the series would get old pretty fast so I can certainly understand trying to mix things up a bit.

The Characters

Speaking of the characters, there isn’t much of a cast in this show but, as I’ve said before, this show does a great job with the ‘less is more’ approach.

Kazuya Kinoshita

Kazuya is a pretty interesting main character. On one hand, he is pretty polite and thoughtful when it comes to things. He’s always thinking about the ramifications of his actions and this turns into a lot of self-depreciation. He often puts himself down and/or is aware of how useless he is in a lot of things, but mainly in the romance department. On the other hand, despite the fact that he is aware of all of this, he is a lecherous pervert who can only think about sex. If you don’t believe me, just look at the pile of Kleenex in his waste bin… or the fact that there was a masturbation scene where he was thinking about his ex-girlfriend Mami.

If that’s not enough to tip you off, whenever he thought about getting back together with Mami, all he could think about was wanting to do her. At first, he thought the same about Chizuru even though he knew that everything about her was fake and that the rentals were just pure entertainment. Of course, this changes over the course of the show which leads to him developing as a character. Kazuya becomes more humble as the show goes on… especially at the end where he even does his friend, Shun, a favor in order to patch things up with him. He does have a soft and gentle side to him but it’s usually overshadowed by the fact that he is a bumbling idiot. At least he’s not a flat, one-dimensional, unsure protagonist that we usually get in these kinds of shows!

Chizuru Ichinose

Chizuru is a rental girlfriend and a quite popular one at that. She’s only doing this so she can save up money to fulfill her goal of becoming an actress. After she is rented by Kazuya and he steps over the line by calling her out on the entertainment side of her job, she reveals her true nature of that of a tsundere. Or… at least I’d like to claim that. Can you really call Chizuru a tsundere, though? Sure, she is pretty harsh towards Kazuya and even more so when she discovers that is starting to have feelings for him; however, with the way Kazuya came off… he did so in such a way that really demeaned her choice of profession, as temporary as it may be. That, in and of itself, is also a direct insult to her as a person.

I don’t know about you but if someone demeaned what I did for a living in a harsh manner, I wouldn’t be able to see them in a positive light. It’s almost as if Kazuya gave her an excuse to be a tsundere around him. Even after he apologized, he kept roping her into his mess. The hole kept getting deeper and deeper and she was being pulled along for the ride. I know that would annoy the ever-living hell out of me so, again, there’s another excuse for her to treat him with a bit of piss and vinegar.

The only thing that really stops her attitude being the result of Kazuya’s actions is the simple fact that he consciously makes the decision to go along with everything. Because as such, all of this stress that she’s putting on herself is simply voluntary. Yet, the tsundere attitude remains. Oddly enough, it’s this combination of sweet and spicy that has drawn the attention of anime watchers and thus, it is why she has been considered waifu of the summer anime season.

Mami Narami

Bitch. Plain and simple. Call a spade a spade because that’s exactly what she is. She dumped Kazuya but as soon as she sees Kazuya with Chizuru, she becomes so jealous that she makes it her mission to try and break the two of them up. Of course, she has no idea that Chizuru is just a rental but still… to go that far to ruin one man’s happiness… there’s no other label that would describe you in a more accurate way.

Ruka Sarashina

Ruka is another rental girlfriend but she’s a bit different. Ruka has a heart condition and because as such, she became a rental girlfriend to try and find the one person that could elevate her heartbeat. She ends up being rented by Shun; however, when she meets Kazuya, her heart hits the beats per minute that she was looking for. For Ruka, it’s love at first sight. In fact, Chizuru, at this point, agreed to help Kazuya get a girlfriend so she even nudges him in Ruka’s direction.

Ruka seems a bit on the desperate side though. So much so that even Kazuya with his perverted and lecherous mind, things that not all the lights are on upstairs. He even enlists Chizuru’s help in order to try and get him away from her but, in the end, he takes Chizuru’s advice and gives her a chance. Ruka didn’t really mean any harm… it’s just that she came on way too strongly and after learning about her past, you can’t really blame her. She had sought someone for the longest time that could make her heart beat. After a long and arduous search, you finally find the guy who can make you feel something and you don’t want to let the opportunity pass you by.

Sumi Sakurasawa

She was a late addition in the first season but she is, yet another, rental girlfriend. Her problem is that she’s pretty timid and shy so Chizuru asks Kazuya for a favor. She wants him to rent her and help her overcome her shyness. Watch the series to find out what happens there but Sumi is too cute for her own good. With the second season being announced, I’m sure that we will see more of her in the future and I certainly hope that we do.

Outside of this, there are all of your background, secondary characters such as Kazuya’s friends Shun and Yoshiaki… as well as Kazuya and Chizuru’s grandmothers Nagomi and Sayuri but they only add bits and pieces to the show when they are needed and are not really true mainstays… although I will say, I know where Kazuya gets his lecherous antics from. He has one spicy grandmother.

Art, Animation, & Sound

Being a slice of life series, there really isn’t much to write home about when it comes to art and animation. As for the artwork, it’s a city setting so you’re going to get your familiar backgrounds, all of which look fine. There is one unique thing about the characters I do want to point out, though.

The characters have red outlines in certain scenes. Typically, you will see a character’s outlines done in traditional black but here, they are all accented in red. I thought that was a pretty cool touch and something I haven’t really seen since How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. Also, if you paid attention to their hair, some characters; like Chizuru and Mami, have part of their hair dyed but it’s represented as a smooth gradient transition rather than a hard color stop. It was a nice and subtle touch but one that worked pretty well!

The animation was pretty average but it is a slice of life tv anime series. We’re not going to see any amazing pre-rendered 60 fps CG fight scenes like in some of the higher budget shows out there but what were given fit the genre and didn’t really distract you from what was happening on screen.

As far as the OST… sadly, like most slice of life shows, this one was forgettable. I think I can recall only one slice of life show’s OST and that was High Score Girl’s. They had some amazing tracks on that one but here… just background music to keep you from listening to dialogue against deafening silence. It is about all you need for a slice of life show, though, so the OST fulfilled its purpose.

Overall Thoughts

Simple is as simple does and simple does it really well. Keeping the cast small and the overall plot basic really helped you to absorb yourself into this show. Seeing Kazuya get into situation after situation was entertaining and it made me want to see more of it. Watching the characters slowly develop was also a joy, too. It didn’t fill you with any tension or aggravation from going too fast or too slow, either. The pacing of the show felt right and while I was worried that it would be either a rushed or an inconclusive ending, once season two was confirmed, I felt that it ended the show at the perfect spot.

If you like slice of life romance shows with some comedy mixed in, Rent-A-Girlfriend lives up to the hypes that surrounded it. While it’s not the best slice of life romance that I’ve seen, it was highly satisfactory and did enough to get me to want more of it. Season 2 is definitely on my ‘to watch’ life and I can’t wait to welcome the cast back and to see what happens next!

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Until next time,

Ja ne!