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First of all, id like to say this is the first review I'm ever writing so please bear with me. Rent a Girlfriend or Kanojo, Okarishimasu coincidentally happens to be one of the first anime I ever watched. I initially watched it 2 years ago. However, after re-watching it yesterday, and the second season airing right now I just felt I had to lay out my final thoughts on this show. Before watching this, I only had watched Attack on titan and one punch man. So, yes this was a drastic change in genre from my previous watches. But RaG was actually what got me ... into the romance/harem/romcom genres I don't know exactly which one this show lies in as it is a cluster fuck of all 3. With all that being said this show introduced me to the genres. When watching any other show of said genres the writing isn't always up to standard when it comes to quality. This anime however despite all of its other strange qualities was written well to match its genre. Now before I begin digging into the nitty-gritty of what I think this show accomplishes well; let's all just take a second to admit that the romance/harem/romcom genres are made for degenerates by degenerates. With all that I'd like you to keep an open mind while reading, thank you!

Plot:
Now the plot of this show does at first glance seem to be your typical rom-com/harem plot (difficult to put into words) but pretty much you have the main character trying to get girls and randomly they just start falling into his lap. Suddenly there are a bunch of women around him but somehow he can't get with any of them. Because he can't make up his mind about which one to pursue and so the story gets dragged on for four seasons until he finally decides to kiss one chick and the thing ends. I just described 90% of the harems I've seen and what's worse is sometimes they don't even get there and just keep going *cough cough date a live cough cough. Then I guess you would ask what makes this different and what makes it better than the rest. Well, first off the pacing is the best out of any anime I've seen period. There wasn't a single moment where it was slow or rushed. I was having fun the entire way through glued to my screen. Every scene is there to drive the plot forward; so much so that it baffles me how someone could even think of some of the situations featured in this anime. For example when Kazuya and Chizuru are hiding from their grandmas under the covers in a hospital and my guy Kazuya gets a boner. Of course, this is beyond unrealistic as in real life who in their right mind would hide on top of each other like they were about to smash. But this is exactly where I think most people misunderstand the purpose of this kind of show. They are supposed to be an escape from reality not a fucking self-insert where you can pretend you have bitches. So stop crying that the show is "unrealistic" that's what it is supposed to be, clearly you haven't seen any similar anime. I have to admit that there were multiple scenes that I just couldn't watch because they were so revolting if you have seen the show you know exactly which scene's I'm talking about. However, I do believe that they were not accidentally thrown in because of bad writing. I think it is intentional as this show at its essence is about cute girls in an extremely cringey setting. Just think about it for a second the entire premise is based on a guy that just got dumped and to get over it instead of talking to someone he decides to rent a girlfriend. If that's not the most unrealistic thing I've heard of I don't know what is. Especially as a Canadian I've never in my entire life heard of a rental girlfriend so with just that it takes the cake as the most outlandish anime I have seen. Oh, wait... Hxreos (yeah Hxreos definitely takes the cake).

Art:
I mean there isn't much to say about this, DMM pictures make fire-looking productions. The visuals are on point for the entire watch. All of the characters are well-drawn and the attention to detail is really good everywhere.

Sound:
I have to admit I was expecting better. As hearing the opening is what got me interested in the show initially. It is clear to me now that the opening served more as an advertisement as I assume a great deal of the budget went to creating the opening and ending. Because there is a noticeable dip in quality from the op/ed to the ost during each episode. I'm not saying the ost is bad it's just noticeably worse which disappointed me. Specifically, I didn't like the track that they played when Chizuru would get mad because it felt completely wrong. After all, she never got mad over dumb stuff because surprisingly she is a human being that gets mad for valid reasons but the soundtracks just made her look like a joke in some scenes. Case and point the aquarium scene she is a professional getting angry over someone messing with her work and creating a scene in public. Of course, she would get mad but they made her seem like a child getting mad over nothing with this music (as well as the facial expressions but especially the music).

Character:
From what I've seen the consensus is to either hate or love this anime based on your opinions of the main cast specifically the L of the century Kazuya. Now it was extremely funny seeing people go off on this L of a human being. What all of them seem to misunderstand is that you are supposed to hate him. The majority of people seemed to think that the plot was set up in a way for us the viewer to feel bad for this degenerate Kazuya. But as revealed him getting dumped was his fault cause he couldn't fucking control his unbelievable drive for sex and tbh I don't feel bad for him at all. As he was eyeing Mami twenty-four seven so ofcourse she dumped his ass any girl would if you act like a creep twenty-four seven and say that you want to have enough kids to fill a soccer team. Kazuya is a strange mf that's the point of the story as a normal person would never rent a girlfriend after getting dumped. He is weird and his decisions are supposed to be revolting to us the viewer. Like when he stalked Mizuhara for the entire episode (the worst episode of the show btw) I was hoping to see some police come out and take him away but of course, that wouldn't happen it's fiction. In real life, Kazuya would have been arrested 10 times over for sexual harassment stalking, and countless other weird shit he does. I repeat he is not meant to be a fucking self insert like a bunch of people seem to think holy shit are you relating to a guy that got dumped and then started renting a girlfriend while sexually harassing another and stalking the girl he paid to go on dates with. He is meant to be hated not to be related with. He becomes more redeeming when he saves Chizuru from drowning but that isn't for the sake of the harem self insert blank slate protag that the majority of people seem to be oh so in love with. The point of Kazuya is for all of the fucked up shit wrong with his brain at the end of the day he is trying his best to get a girlfriend again after being dumped, and creating a hopeless situation for himself by pretending to be dating another girl. I will now try to wrap up this section as it's been going on for long enough. As much as I would love to go on a five-paragraph rant about every single character in this show and why they are great; my main point is that there is much more to every single character in this show than meets the eye. We are misled to believe they are one dimensional by the writing. They are much deeper each with their own goals and aspirations. They are never black and white none of the characters are purely bad or purely good because they are all people.
The characters are supposed to be realistic but the setting and situations they get into are what make it fiction. The main mistake people seem to make about this show is Mami chan many people seem to think she is purely evil. She has a very nasty side, but she is a human we all have our nasty sides. She isn't a black and white character like many of us seem to think(including myself on the first watch-through). Speaking of the first watch many people seem to miss key plot elements when writing their in-depth reviews. Specifically, about why Kazuya got dumped in the first place he got dumped because he was a creep and Mami got tired of it. She blocked him because he was a creep. She started acting horrible to him because to her it seemed like was just trying to make her feel terrible by bringing his insanely hot girlfriend right after they broke up. I think anyone would get angry over this not just an "evil" person. She is definitely on the worse side of good and evil, however, Kazuya isn't much better. Kazuya's arc is trying to improve himself so he can get laid while his intentions are wrong he is shown the entire time so we can see him trying to better himself. Mami chan's screen time is unbelievably limited which is why her true emotions are impossible to understand. But based on her limited screen time she does seem to become a better person as towards the end she doesn't just tell everyone how much of a loser Kazuya is for renting a girlfriend for an entire year but she instead politely asks Chizuru to stop as she wants Kazuya to get a real girlfriend. Clearly, this shows that she isn't pure evil she just feels bad for Kazuya and how pathetic he is. While one would argue why doesn't she just date him then, she most likely still sees him as a pathetic creep (understandably so) but still wants him to be happy.

Enjoyment:
Overall the show was extremely enjoyable of course there were incredibly cringe moments and moments where I wanted to beat the shit out of Kazuya, but that just added to the fun. It was a blast to watch and with the new season airing, I honestly can't wait for the next episode each week. The best rom-com I have ever seen and most likely that I will ever see. If you read all the way through and want to give feedback feel free to leave a comment on my profile I will respond. I'm exited to see all of the hate comments thank you Xcb2 OUT! <3