Another fun anime I’m enjoying during the current season is Kanojo, Okarishimasu, aka Rent-a-Girlfriend, which is a harem anime based on the manga by Reiji Miyajima and Kodansha. The show tells an entertaining (so far) story about a guy who rents a girlfriend online and ends up with a very complex life, and I’m enjoying the un-predictability of the story and the quality of the production (and the waifus, of course).
When university student Kazuya gets dumped by his girlfriend Mami after a month, he logs into a girlfriend-rental app and rents a beautiful girl named Chizuru to go on a date with him. One thing leads to another, and Kazuya’s sick grandmother ends up meeting Chizuru, and is overjoyed that her grandson finally found a beautiful girl to date, even though Kazuya is only renting her by the hour. Kazuya’s ex Mami gets back into his life and, jealous that he found such a gorgeous girlfriend so soon after they stopped dating, starts executing a plan to break them up. Soon two other girlfriends-for-rent enter the fray, and poor Kazuya has himself a proper harem around him. With all these girls in his life, surely he’ll be able to lose his virginity soon, right?
Why I’m Enjoying Rent-a-Girlfriend
As I’ve written before, I’m a fan of the “harem” genre in anime, and consider it to be one of the core building-blocks of anime storytelling, up there with the drama that comes from young people trying their best at sports, the attraction of being isekai’ed into a fantasy world where you have advantages over the characters we encounter there, or the calming relaxation that comes from a slice-of-life or cute-girls-doing-cute-things story structure.
But while some harem anime works can be somewhat predictable and formulaic (Date A Live, Infinite Stratos, The Asterisk War, Oreshura), the best harem stories transcend their limitations and tell a story that’s self-aware. Some of the best examples of these “post-modern” harem stories might be How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend, The World God Only Knows, Oresuki or Oregairu, depending on your tastes, of course. And I’m getting this vibe from the Rent-a-Girlfriend anime, too: it’s trying to tell a non-traditional and grown-up story that has a lot more complexity than the average fanservice-heavy harem with characters you only notice because of pantyshots and boob jiggles.
Are Rental Girlfriends a Thing in Japan?
In my post about 11 weird things the Japanese actually do, I mention that “rental Instagram friends” are an actual thing, so people without any friends can stage a fake birthday party and post selfies with their “friends,” although I don’t know how common these services actually are. I do know that a friend of my mother-in-law’s actually hires herself out as a “rental grandmother” for weddings, where she’s paid to beam with happiness that her “grandchild” has found such a wonderful partner to marry. So I assume that (non-sexual) rent-a-girlfriend or boyfriend services must exist somewhere.
(Of course, when we think of “rent a girlfriend” those of us with dirty minds think of a girl one would rent for sex. Prostitution is ostensibly illegal in most parts of Japan, although there are services like “Delivery Health” that will dispatch a girl to your home or hotel room for some horizontal stress relief. I’m going to predict that the popularity of the Kanojo, Okarishimasu anime and manga will cause some of these businesses to re-brand themselves as “Hourly Girlfriend Rental.”)
Prepare to Hate Mami
An evolving trope in anime storytelling seems to be making a female character who’s designed to be the focus of fans’ disgust and hate. Two examples are Akane from Scum’s Wish, who, ahem, sleeps around a bit, or Malty from Rising of the Shield Hero. I think fans will also love to hate Mami from the Rent-A-Girlfriend anime, because of her constant scheming to interrupt Kazuya’s happiness…or is she really scheming? Maybe she really does still love him? Watch the show and find out!
Thanks for reading this overview of the Rent-A-Girlfriend anime. Will you be watching? Discuss below, or tell us on Twitter!
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