Rent-A-Girlfriend

Episode 6

When we last left our hero and savior Chizuru, she had just offered to let Kazuya stay in the hotel room their grandmothers had tricked them into sharing, with the cliffhanger limply implying that maybe, just maybe she was entertaining the idea of getting close to him. Needless to say that's not the case – turns out Chizuru is just a die-hard for consumer advocacy and figures it'd be childish to make him sleep in the bathroom when they already have separate futons. Plus she's more than capable of kicking Kazuya's dick into his stomach if he is creepy and dumb enough to try anything, so they might as well just sleep through the night like the mature adults they are. Or, well, Chizuru is, anyway. She continues to be the absolute MVP of this whole show and if she has the patience to put up with our nudnik of a male lead then I hope she at least uses all the money she makes off him to buy herself something nice. She deserves it.

Kazuya also recognizes how great Chizuru is, and while he's still nursing a crush on her he's also started to acknowledge that her example makes him want to better himself. He's reached the stage of self-awareness where he realizes just because he's “trash” in his eyes doesn't mean he has to stay that way, and I do actually believe him when he explains that continuing to rent her time is so he can start figuring out how to do that. I both admire and kind of question Chizuru's willingness to become his by-the-hour life coach – she seems to genuinely want Kazuya to grow into a better person, and setting his goal as getting a real girlfriend to introduce to his family is a smart choice for motivating him and providing a goal for the story at large. I have no doubt there will be developments further on to push the two together, but for now this is an altogether healthier status quo for them than what they had going before episode 4. Still, dude better give her a generous tip for all she's putting up with.

But by harem anime law the moment relative equilibrium has been achieved a new girl must be dropped in to stir things up, and this time that girl is Ruka, the new girlfriend of Kazuya's other, shittier friend Kuri. At least that's the cover story Kuri gives, but we the audience have the OP and ED to go off of, and can surmise she's actually a rental girlfriend like Chizuru, even if the other characters are still fooled. That's not a complaint, for the record. Knowing that Ruka's on the clock like Chizuru makes a lot of the ensuing double date way funnier, because by god is Kuri smug about his spontaneous game, and having his whole spiel about women being attracted to his machismo undercut by the fact he's paying for the privilege of lying to his friend is just amazing. Hearing him, you'd think he goes around cruising for chicks on the daily, and knowing that it's all bogus is the closest thing this show has gotten to a self-own so far.If Rent-A-Girlfriend won't give us a likable dude in this cast, the least it can do is to keep shooting spitballs at them from the back of the classroom.

It also preemptively answers the question of how she realized Chizuru is a rental girlfriend. Well, besides the fact that neither couple has any onscreen chemistry or seem to talk to each other outside of the barest of conversations. If this is how Kazuya and Kuri behave on real dates, I can see why they're both single. Anyway, the ensuing gag of Chizuru proving their relationship via a sleight-of-hand kiss is pretty funny, but it all leads up to another cliffhanger ending with Ruka catching Kazuya with his poker face down, and unfortunately it doesn't leave much time to actually get a read on her personality. I'm hoping her short outburst at the end of the episode means she's got some fire to her, because Nao Tōyama can absolutely kill it with roles like that (see also: Nisekoi) and it'd be a shame to not let her loose.

For now though, “Girlfriend, Girlfriend” is like a soft reboot of the series half-way into the season, and it'll take another week or so to tell how the new dynamic and characters will shake out together. At the very least, this episode doesn't repeat itself or drag as much as last week, and the banter between our leads is back to being engaging. I still have the lingering feeling that either Ruka or Girl #4's introduction will be what tips this show over into full-on trash fire territory, but for the moment I'll just count myself lucky that Kazuya kept his pants on for most of this episode.

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Rent-A-Girlfriend is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.