Rent-a-Girlfriend
彼女、お借りします
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A dumped college student rents a girlfriend and cannot stop — rental intimacy as romantic comedy.
Kazuya Kinoshita, a twenty-year-old student in Tokyo, is dumped by Mami Nanami after a month and, lonely and sore, books a rental girlfriend through an app. Chizuru Mizuhara is flawless on a date, and on the second one he takes his hurt out on her. Then his grandmother collapses, and at the hospital he introduces Chizuru as his real girlfriend. Chizuru's own grandmother, Sayuri, a former actress and the last family she has, is a patient there too, so the lie has to be kept up for both old women. Chizuru, it turns out, is a classmate who lives next door. Her real name is Chizuru Ichinose, and she works as a rental girlfriend to pay for acting classes.
Kazuya falls for her and keeps booking her. Others crowd in. Mami resents how quickly he found someone else and sets out to break them up. Ruka Sarashina, a rental girlfriend born with a slow heart, feels it race only with Kazuya and forces him, by threatening to expose the lie, to make her his provisional girlfriend. Sumi Sakurasawa, a painfully shy colleague of Chizuru's, practises on a date with him and quietly falls for him.
When Sayuri's doctors say she has little time, Kazuya proposes a crowdfunded film starring Chizuru so that her grandmother can see her on screen. The film is made with the help of their new neighbour, Mini Yaemori, but Sayuri collapses before the screening, and Kazuya projects it in her hospital room so she can watch part of it before she dies. At the end of a day out he has planned to lift her spirits, Chizuru finally cries for the grandparents who raised her.
Kazuya tries again and again to confess. On a family trip to a spa resort, Mami, who has found out everything, shows his family Chizuru's rental profile and makes it look as if she has been using him. Kazuya claims they became a real couple a week before Sayuri died; when Mami demands proof, Chizuru kisses him in front of everyone, admits she was a rental girlfriend, and says she is his girlfriend now. Mami, it emerges, grew up under a controlling father who drove away the boy she loved. Chizuru then vanishes from Kazuya's life for three months, and when she returns she tells him her feelings are confused and asks for time. An earthquake damages their building. The fifth season ends with a drunk Kazuya blurting out that he loves her, and with Chizuru announcing that she, Kazuya and Mini will live together for a month in the house where she grew up. A sixth season has been announced.
Starring
Shun Horieas Kazuya Kinoshita
An indecisive, self-pitying student who rents a girlfriend after being dumped and ends up lying to his whole family about her.
Kazuya Kinoshita’s story
Kazuya is twenty and freshly dumped by Mami when he rents Chizuru and, on their second date, takes his hurt out on her. Then his grandmother collapses, and he tells his family Chizuru is his girlfriend. He falls for her, works at a karaoke bar to pay for dates, and lets Ruka blackmail him into being her provisional boyfriend. For Chizuru's dying grandmother he crowdfunds a film and projects it in her hospital room. His confessions keep failing. At the spa resort, when Mami exposes Chizuru before his family, he stands up for her, and she kisses him. Then she vanishes for three months and he sinks into depression. When she asks for time, he promises to wait; drunk one night, he blurts out that he loves her.
Sora Amamiyaas Chizuru Mizuhara
A top-rated rental girlfriend and aspiring actress, raised by her grandparents, who keeps up Kazuya's lie for her grandmother's sake.
Chizuru Mizuhara’s story
Chizuru lost her mother young, was left by her father and raised by her grandparents. She wants to act like her grandmother, Sayuri, once an actress, and pays for classes by working as a rental girlfriend. Caught in Kazuya's lie, she keeps it up for Sayuri's sake, stands up for him when Mami mocks him and refuses Mami's money. She stars in the film he crowdfunds; Sayuri sees part of it before she dies, and at the end of a day out Kazuya plans for her, Chizuru finally cries. At the resort, exposed by Mami, she kisses Kazuya before his family and says she is his girlfriend now. Then she disappears for three months, comes back unsure of her feelings and asks for time. At the end she, Kazuya and Mini are to live together for a month.
Aoi Yukias Mami Nanami
Kazuya's ex-girlfriend, sweet on the surface, who works in secret to break up every couple she sees, him and Chizuru above all.
Mami Nanami’s story
Mami dumps Kazuya after a month, then cannot bear that he has found someone else so quickly. She mocks him at a party, invites him home and kisses him at the beach. She finds out what Chizuru does and offers her money, which Chizuru refuses. She befriends Kazuya's grandmother online, becomes her adviser and turns up on the family's spa trip, where she lets everyone see Chizuru's rental profile, makes it look as if Chizuru has been using Kazuya, and demands a kiss as proof. Her own story is told: a father who ran her life, a marriage arranged for her, a boyfriend her father forced to leave her. Since then, any couple makes her want to break it up. Told by Chizuru to stop lying to herself, she keeps turning the words over.
Nao Toyamaas Ruka Sarashina
A rental girlfriend with a congenitally slow heart, who feels it race only with Kazuya and blackmails her way into being his girlfriend.
Rie Takahashias Sumi Sakurasawa
A painfully shy junior at Chizuru's agency who took the job to change herself and falls quietly for Kazuya.
Yu Serizawaas Mini Yaemori
A streamer and cosplayer who moves in next door, runs the film's crowdfunding campaign and pushes Kazuya and Chizuru together.
Why it matters
Rent-a-Girlfriend takes a real Japanese trade, paid companionship by the hour, and asks what exactly is being bought. Kazuya pays for an afternoon of attention and then cannot tell the performance from the person; Chizuru performs the ideal girlfriend for money so that one day she can perform for a camera, and the series is at its best when it treats that work as work. A reviewer at Anime Feminist praised the opening for touching on the social implications of the rental business and for respecting Chizuru's agency; another found its hero a stock harem lead. Under the comedy runs a quieter subject: two grandmothers, a lie told to make them happy, and whether a kindness built on deception can ever be confessed. The hero is often exasperating. By its third season, one Anime News Network critic wrote, the series had begun to face his flaws.