Kanojo, Okarishimasu
Rent-A-Girlfriend

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So there's this new manga that recently caught my attention called "Kanojo, Okarishimasu", or in English: "I Want to Borrow a Girlfriend". What is this about? Quite frankly, it's literally what the title says. The main character is literally paying to be a sugar daddy to set up dates with a girl that sells her time for dating services. Controversial topic? Let's see.

Kanojo, Okarishimasu is a shonen romance manga serialized in one of the most popular shonen manga magazines - Weekly Shonen Magazine. Written and drawn by Reiji Miyajima, it competes directly with other romance titles in the magazine like Domestic Girlfriend, Boarding School Juliet, ... and 5-toubun no Hanayome. It sells decently, but not as much as its competitors and I'm sure you can guess why.

Paying for dating and sex services has always been a controversial topic among the dating community. The majority of people hold the firm belief that you can't "pay" for love, which is true, but the reason why these kinks exists is because they are substitutes for real relationships.

Our protagonist, Kazuya Kinoshita is a freshman college student who was recently dumped by his ex. Looking to relieve himself of his breakup, he seeks solace in a rental girlfriend app called "Diamond". There, he comes across one of the top-ranked rental girlfriends named Chizuru Ichinose (she uses a different last name for her Diamond profile for privacy purposes). And the romantic comedy shenanigans go from there.

Frankly, if I were to compare this manga to its competitors, I wouldn't say it's any different. Its romantic tension is derived from ridiculous coincidences that force the two main romantic interests to be in the vicinity of each other, which is what normally captures readers since this is next to improbable in real life. In fact, I would say the closest comparison in my opinion would be Nisekoi - both the romantic love interests are pressured to fake their relationship due to family pressure.

So let's move on to the juicy stuff: the main criticism of this manga. The premise. Kazuya is like any other shonen romance main character; spineless, unmanly, and not willing to take risks which is what makes it easy for the author to continue writing chapters without anything significant happening. However, Kazuya gets a lot more criticism that other main characters not because he's indecisive, but simply because of the fact that the romance revolves around a sugar daddy service. I'm not going to go into depth about the morals of this premise but I will say: if this romance was based off any other setting, it would be much less criticized and more popular.

The reason why I absolutely love this manga though, is because the author had the guts to use a premise that is highly controversial, and create a semi-realistic romance story out of it. Everything in this manga is extremely well done, including the characters and plot contrary to popular belief. If you treat this premise like you're not offended just by the fact that it's controversial, then you will have an insanely fun time reading this if you self-insert as Kazuya.

The story doesn't exactly portray Kazuya as a bad person even though he does stupid things you would expect from a romance lead. He is in fact, quite genuine with what he desires and tries to make things right regardless of the outcome. In fact, he is so relatable if you've been through romantic troubles that it's insanely easy to self-insert into him. The only difference is that he's a realistic protagonist that gets into unrealistic situations, which makes it the perfect story to enjoy as long as you don't have a problem with the premise.

If you would like to read a manga where the setting and characters try to take a risk to do something different, then this is definitely the manga for you. If you like to stick to vanilla manga and don't like reading anything that might offend your morals and values, then don't read this. However I would still like everyone to be more open-minded and give this manga a shot, because you will never discover anything new if you only stick to what you're comfortable with.

This manga is boring and frustrating. The MC is a cuck, one of the worst cuck that I have ever seen but you can know it from the synopsis ( It's didnt disturb me but i saw on MAL that a bunch of people were complaining, well I dont know what kind of person you want the MC to be knowing he rents a "girlfriend" but yes...)

The main problem of that story (i'm on chapter 145 so clearly far in the story) is the pace, it's one of the slowest if not the slowest pace that I have ever seen and oh gosh I have ... seen many things. Basically you have idiot MC who is in love with the fake girlfriend, this one is quickly in love with him too but both will NEVER admit it. Sometimes at the end of the chapter you have a hope for the following chapter but finally it was a prank.

You are doomed to see an idiot MC (who has less testosterone than my 80 years old grandpa) complaining about how he's a worthless loser and an idiot girl who does not want to admit her love without any reasons. She does not even send signals, you cant even guess that she's in love with MC, you only know it because she suggests it once or twice while talking to an another character... That's why this story is soo frustrating.

In more than the half of the 145 chapters, you just have a fake date with the fake girlfriend with the girl who acts almost everytime coldly and beside her you have the MC, awkward and idiot everytime.

(minor spoilers) obviously you have the harem with the worthless MC. He has an another cute rental girlfriend who is openly in love with him, she becomes more and more annoying throughout the story. You have the ex of the MC who dumped him but for some reasons, she's still in love with him and she's possessive with him even if she's not with him (she will hugely stalks the MC). This girl is probably the most interesting character of the story.

UPDATE : well, chapter 219 now, it hasn't changed a lot. Same endings that lead to nothing,
same pace and now we get to know a little bit why does the bad girl do all of that to piss off MC and guess what ? Yes it's bad and inconsistent.

Finally the only redeeming quality of this manga is his art. It's modern and beautiful, girls are well drawn and cute but that's all..

This manga is one of those manga that the more you progress throughout the story, the more you will hate it. The author had a good idea but he totally messed up the pace and the growning relationship between both MC. I absolutely do not recommend to read it.

My first ever review on MAL, I decided to let it be for this manga because I would feel pretty damn guilty if I had not.

Story: 4/10, I’m being generous here, since this has the Shounen tag and all, but overall nothing tasteful or worth noticing, and the story progresses in the most riduculous ways.

Art: 6/10, this depends a lot on everyone’s taste, I think the girls are nicely drawn, details are good enough. I would have given a 7 if male characters other than the MC did not look like corrugated sketches that were disposed of by the editor.

Character: 2/10. For me, a ... story cannot be good if the characters are not up to par. The reason I gave this double the score I should have, is solely because of Kibe. Calling the MC a piece of shit would be over-complimenting him, this guy makes Yuuki Rito and the senpai from Don’t Bully Me, Nagatoro look like the manliest characters on Earth. For a story and characters built around such an MC, how others managed to cope with his crap never fails to amaze me every chapter. Anyone with the least bit of self-esteem would find it impossible to relate to the MC in any way.

Enjoyment: 2/10. Only the art counts towards this, really.

Overall: 3/10. If you are the type of guy who would punch your best friend in the face for telling you to get over your ex - who everyone (including you) knows is a 2-faced bitch - then you might enjoy this manga.