Kanojo, Okarishimasu

Kazuya Kinoshita is a 20-year-old college student who has a wonderful girlfriend: the bright and sunny Mami Nanami. But suddenly, he doesn't. Without warning, Mami breaks up with him, leaving him utterly heartbroken and lonely. Seeking to soothe the pain, he hires a rental girlfriend through an online app. His partner is Chizuru Mizuhara, who through her unparalleled beauty and cute demeanor, manages to gain Kazuya's affection.

But after reading similar experiences other customers had had with Chizuru, Kazuya believes her warm smile and caring personality were all just an act to toy with his heart, and he rates her poorly. Aggravated, Chizuru lambastes him for his shameless hypocrisy, revealing her true pert and hot-tempered self. This one-sided exchange is cut short, however, when Kazuya finds out that his grandmother has collapsed.

They dash toward the hospital and find Kazuya's grandmother already in good condition. Baffled by Chizuru's presence, she asks who this girl might be. On impulse, Kazuya promptly declares that they are lovers, forcing Chizuru to play the part. But with Kazuya still hung up on his previous relationship with Mami, how long can this difficult client and reluctant rental girlfriend keep up their act?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ichinose, Chizuru Main

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Kinoshita, Kazuya Main

Horie, Shun Japanese

Sakurasawa, Sumi Supporting

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Sarashina, Ruka Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Nanami, Mami Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kibe, Yoshiaki Supporting

Akasaka, Masayuki Japanese

Kinoshita, Nagomi Supporting

Nozawa, Yukari Japanese

Ichinose, Sayuri Supporting

Sadaoka, Sayuri Japanese

Flea Market Saleswoman Supporting

Kowaka, Wakana Japanese

Kuribayashi, Shun Supporting

Kajiwara, Gakuto Japanese

Aoi, Hiroyuki Producer

Simone, Jamie Producer

Matsuzaki, Yoshiyuki Producer

Sawada, Airi Producer

Reviews

Aug 5, 2024

Capuchin_Lover

Recommended

If you can't take cringy things do a 180 and go watch ANYTHING else, if not keep reading.

This is a anime that is more simply a car accident that is wildly burning, you know it is bad, but, you won't stop watching it.
It has some good moments and the protagonist with all his defects still make some sense in some parts of the season.
All girls are very much interesting to say the least, because I've thought that this anime had some superficial people but not so much, everyone has their motivations and reasonings to do what they do, even the scummiest ones.
It is an anime ... that takes an interesting take on love and doing what you need to forget things, move on, interact with new people and the betterment of oneself.

Even though the main character IS kinda of an annoyance at VARIOUS moments of the anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 14, 2025

Neimaj

Mixed Feelings

What a goofy little, lovey dovey romcom to review just in time for Valentine's Day. Half a decade after everyone stopped caring about it. Oh boy. In my mind, I made a promise to myself that I would lean more towards positivity in my reviews this year. For this, I just wanted to throw my thoughts and opinions out into the ether. I'm torn on Rent-A-Girlfriend. I vaguely remember the negativity surrounding this anime during 2020. Anime fans have the tendency to either harshly judge an anime that doesn't fully deserve it, or overpraise it to high heaven. Reading reviews now, it seems more divisive ... than anything. Just a wide range of opinions that are slightly leaning towards terrible. I probably consider myself to be in the middle. However, as I'm writing this review, I am a few episodes into season two, and my overall score for this show is dropping fast. Things are going downhill pretty quick, but I will try my best to only speak about the events of season one. I was in the mood to watch a show like this. So I brought this upon myself.

Kazuya Kinoshita is a twenty year old college student who was recently dumped by his girlfriend, Mami. Despite only dating for roughly a month, this shatters Kazuya's heart. Young love, I guess? Shortly after this, Kazuya finds an interesting app called Rent-A-Girlfriend, and it's exactly what it sounds like. You rent a girl to go out with you so you can mitigate the emotional pain. Out of desperation and loneliness, Kazuya does it. He's gonna Electric Wind God Fist the hell outta this woman. Enter Chizuru Mizuhara. She's essentially the perfect girlfriend and my personal favorite girl in the show. You could argue she's the only good one, but we'll get into that later. She works for the agency that runs the app. At some point, Kazuya realizes how emotionally manipulative the Rent-A-Girlfriend app is and takes his aggression out on Chizuru. Chizuru blows up on the guy even harder, and at this moment, the anime introduces a common trend throughout the rest of the show. Well, not a trend, but the idea that Chizuru is acting. Because of course she is! She's putting up a front to seem like the perfect girlfriend. She does it for her job, duh! One thing leads to another, with Kazuya introducing his fake girlfriend to his family. The only noteworthy reaction was probably from his grandmother, who immediately takes a liking to Chizuru. Kazuya is such a loser that the idea of having a girlfriend moves his grandmother to tears. And what a little cowinkidink! Chizuru's grandmother goes to the same exact hospital and is good friends with Kazuya's grandmother. WOW! Long story short, Kazuya and Chizuru must put on this charade of acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, because it'll might make both of their grandmothers upset? I'm adding a question mark to that because it's pretty stupid and baffling as I'm saying it out loud. Especially with how long and drawn out the lie is. It's really exhausting to watch after a while. I'm trying my best not to speak in hindsight after watching part of season two.

Let's get this out of the way first and foremost. This show is not good. There. I said it. Although, it is engaging. Orginally, I was going to refer to Rent-A-Girlfriend as a guilty pleasure anime. Then quickly remembered that guilty pleasures shouldn't exist in the first place. No one should ever have to feel shameful or guilty for enjoying something. It also doesn't concisely describe my overall feelings towards the show. A 5 out of 10 is not a good score. It's mixed feelings. And it's sad, because I legitimately enjoyed the first five episodes of Rent-A-Girlfriend. Everything after a certain major event in episode five feels redundant and annoying. The show just becomes an ordinary, dime a dozen, generic, romcom anime. I've seen them all, okay!? The only difference here is that Rent-A-Girlfriend has the gall to introduce four girls to it's non-harem, and three quarters of it is just flat out bad. Okay, maybe not that last girl. She just doesn't seem cut out for her own job, and she's in a total of two episodes. Maybe three. And yes, I called it a "non-harem." I don't view Rent-A-Girlfriend as a harem anime, even though it's disguised as one.
The first girl introduced is Mami Nanami. A complete and utter sociopath. It's a real shame too, because I think Mami is really cute with an adorble character design. She's just horribly two-faced and actively tries to sabotage Kazuya and Chizuru's relationship. Now, admittedly, Mami kind of being an agent of chaos was entertaining to watch for a while. However, she's not a good person, and this is a major plot point. Kazuya, for whatever reason, what's to hook back up with Mami!? Despite Mami being a morally dubious person, and never treating Kazuya with respect! What!? Even by the end of season one, I still didn't fully understand why Kazuya wanted to patch things up with her. And he thought the Rent-A-Girlfriend app was emotionally manipulative. Mami is far worse and just so nosey. I guess you can say that Mami is the antagonist of Rent-A-Girlfriend.

You wanna know who else is just as bad, if not worse? Ruka Sarashina. The next girl who is introduced. It's strange because when she's first introduced, she's seemingly a nice, normal, inconspicuous girl. Then later on, it's revealed that Ruka is also working as a rental girlfriend just like Chizuru. Ruka is my least favorite character in Rent-A-Girlfriend. She uses a heart monitor to scout out her ideal boyfriend. I believe her criteria is at least 90 BPM. I can't quite remember. Kazuya is able to make Ruka's heart race like crazy. Mazel Tov! Immediately after this, she becomes obsessed with Kazuya to a frustratingly annoying degree. Constantly shoving her way into the plot and his face. She insist that she's Kazuya's girlfriend, when the only reason why he chose to date her, was out of pity and through Chizuru's suggestion. She's also a saboteur similarly to Mami. Ruka's antics only get worse as the series goes on. She's awful.

Finally, Sumi Sakurasawa, the last girl introduced in this season. I was alluding to her earlier in the review. She isn't a bad girl at all. She's actually quite sweet. I love how we get a brief peek into Sumi's daily routine, and surprise surprise, she's also a rental girlfriend. She views Chizuru as a role model and someone to look up to. Despite the two being very close in age. Chizuru has been far more successful in the rental girlfriend business compared the Sumi. At some point, Chizuru asks Kazuya to go on a date with Sumi. Sumi is extremely shy and she doesn't like to speak much. Because of that, she's been getting a lot of negative reviews on her dates. Kazuya is the only guy Chizuru trusts with Sumi, because she believes that Kazuya can help Sumi come out of her shell and interact more. Sumi is not a bad girl, I just don't think she's very well suited for her job.

Explaining the rationale behind these characters and the show itself gives a headache, but I need to dump these thoughts somewhere. The main plot of Rent-A-Girlfriend is for Kazuya and Chizuru to pretend to be a serious couple for the sake of their grandmothers' happiness. IT'S THE LYING THAT KILLS ME. The lie goes on for so long, evolving into this needlessly convoluted mess. The incessant bluffing from these two is another thing I find irritating. Kazuya and Chizuru are always planning to tell everyone that they broke up, and will never be seeing each other again. It never happens. They just never go through with it, or there's some sort of interruption. Another thing that's so strange is that Mami and Ruka easily have the power to ruin their relationship. Ruka is in an even greater position to do so. And they just never do it because there would be no story. Fine. Okay. Sure. Cool. Whatever. Even the ending of this season was bad. Episode twelve reverts all of the "PROGRESS" between Kazuya and Chizuru back to zero. That ending scene was pretty bad, not gonna lie. And yet, in spite of all of that, I still can't hate all of it. Like I said earlier, I genuinely enjoyed the first five episodes of Rent-A-Girlfriend. There were no glaring issues that I had with it. Mami was genuinely entertaining to watch in those early episodes. She was like a devil trying to tempt Kazuya at certain points. Like some sort of devil gene, I don't freaking know! At that point, I wasn't even sick of these characters just yet. I didn't even mention Kazuya's stupid friends, Kibe and Kuri! On the surface, Kibe and Kuri seem pretty shallow in terms of personality and character. However, they truly do care for Kazuya and want what's best for him. Hell, Kibe even calls out Mami for being an asshole and has a meaningful conversation with Chizuru. Probably my favorite scene in the show, a heartfelt moment that I really liked. All of episode five is great, too! There's a good amount of positivity in this season worth mentioning, and I feel somewhat obligated to defend it. Although! The exact moment where things started to get rocky was when Ruka was introduced, and I already explained why that was a problem. The second-half of this season was rough. So as a whole, I'm split on Rent-A-Girlfriend. The show starts off as a strong 6, then fizzles into a 5, by the end. Straight down the middle. It's passable yet frustrating. I don't have a strong desire to speak about the production values of Rent-A-Girlfriend. Visually speaking, everything is fine. Nothing stands out in any way. This looks like your run-of-the-mill modern anime. Same goes for the music; nothing of note. Not really what I wanted to touch upon in this review. I just wanted to ramble about the silly writing choices and the story. Orginally, I had plans to review season two and season three after this. Uhhh, that ain't happening anymore. I can defend some of season one, and that's it. 5 out of 10.

By the way, here's my ranking of the girls. I had to do it.

1.) Chizuru (Best <3)
2.) Sumi
3.) Mami
4.) Ruka

Also I've read chapter 218 of the manga. It essentially cemented my current feelings with the series. Pathetic...

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 19, 2024

SAINTPABLO_22

Not Recommended

GOOD IDEAAAAAAAAA HORRIBLE EXECUTION

My high hopes coming into this show was crushed as I believed that the idea of 'Rent A GF' would be the perfect topic for a great romcom however this turned out to be a waste of a good idea.

Of course this show has numerous flaws but the most obvious flaw is the characters who regardless of their writing are simply wayy too annoying making it unbearable to get through the show.

The MC speaks for himself as you get to see the dude jerk off which is just unpleasant already but on top of this the decisions the MC makes in ... the show give me 2nd hand embarrassment making it so difficult to get through the show as you are constantly forced to cringe at everything the MC does. But it's fine as long as the female cast is good right?......

In a Harem the female characters are the most important part of the show. However 'Rent A GF' ruins this as well.

The yellow haired chick who's name I forgot pisses you off so much which is technically good because she is the 'villain' of the show however I just can't stand there character. Even worse than her and the MC for that matter is the blue haired chick, she is the most annoying character by a long shot and I hope she dies from her heart problems. The quiet girl is ok but pretty much way too boring and that leaves Chizuru who is the only good character in the entire show and is also a BADDIE.

If it wasn't for the idea of this show being good & Chizuru then 'Rent A GF' would easily be a 1/10. DO NOT WATCH THIS GARBAGE. Also scares me that season 2 is considered .... worse

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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