Genres: Comedy, Romance, School, Shounen
What is it about?
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?
What did I think?
Overall I had a pretty average feeling over this anime. Not bad… but I also wouldn’t call it good…
So… Let’s start with the things I did like. First of all the animations. Pretty, colorful and dynamic. I definitely liked those.
I also liked the concept, the idea of renting a girlfriend just for a date and ending up having to pretend to date for much longer is fun and very promising.
The anime was very funny, there were definite moments were I really had to laugh out loud.
The female MC also has a lot of the traits of a tsundere, so that’s fun to.
So far all good, if not great, things.
So.. why did I say it wasn’t good. Well, just how unbelievable it is. And with that I don’t mean the fact that you can rent a girlfriend and it stays completely PG+13. It’s unlikely to happen in real life, but I could get on board with that part of the story.
My problem is with how naïve they all act towards love. I mean, they’re all supposed to be in college, but have the emotional intelligence of a bunch of 16 year old’s.
I get why they pushed the characters in college, it would not be believable that a 16 year old guy could rent a girlfriend. But other that that, the characters really seemed to fit more in a high-school kind of environment. Definitely on an emotional level, they just didn’t seem to be mature enough to be acting the way that they did.
They tried to make up for it, by having the characters go out and have a couple of drinks or something, but even with that. It just never made sense for me.
In general it’s a very cool concept for an anime and with more mature characters it has definite potential to be an amazing anime. But as it is now, I just can’t really get into the story because I just can’t connect with the characters.
Otaku and proud girl 