Rent a girlfriend somehow pulls off the monumental task of making incels go “heh, I would be a MUCH better boyfriend than the protagonist” and them being CORRECT.
Protag is so thoroughly pathetic that literally any human being on the planet can revel in not being as bad as him. Power fantasy, except instead of saying "I could be that guy", they can all say "at least i'm not that guy".
Crackpot theory: The only reason why the heartdisease girl wants to be with protag-kun is because he is so boring that being close to him doesn't make her heart race enough to make her pass out.
Personally I'd rather be single than stay with someone incompatible and boring. But I don't have heart disease and I really understand how lonely one can get so she might just need to be with someone even if it's a horrible loser because it's better than dying alone.
It's literally the watered down fantasy of getting an insanely hot sex worker to truly fall in love with you cuz you're just that special or some shit.
given you're special on being a creep, a stalker, an incel, a reject and an asshole. but you're the MC so who cares, Chizuru/Ruka/Mami still want your D and/or are in love with you somehow. I like how some similar RL creeps watch this and think there's a chance they'll live the same sort of experience one day if they just copy Kazuya.
I recently read a book like that, only it then turned into a buddy cop story about disabling nuclear bombs with Nikola Tesla to preserve the Cold War status quo. It was awesome.
"All of her villain behavior only counts as villain behavior if you believe Kazuya Kinoshida deserves to be happy, and I abolutely, categorically do not." This might be my new favorite burn.
@@MrGksarathy Ruka kidnaps him to a hotel, force kiss him, stalks him to the point of joining him at work, blackmailed both him and Chizuru. Did Kazuya did any of those?
How did this manga even get written? I know mangakas are sometimes crazy but this is just a new level of insanity. Fun fact for all writers: absurdity =/= good.
To be honest I thought “There’s no way this shit is real” and then laughing my ass off at the whole absurdity. What the hell are the author, editor and magazine thinking or even trying to accomplish? This series is shit there’s no point in hiding it or in trying to defend it.
Fun fact: I have a heart condition similar to Ruka's, where if my heart beats too fast I could get arrhythmia and might actually die (it's killed a few people in my family, actually!) Because of this I've been taking medication that slows my heartrate somewhat my whole life. I'm saying all this because, in my personal experience, having my heart beat fast is actually a deeply unpleasant experience! It's not a good sensation, and having it happen immediately makes me want to down some atenolol to get it to stop! So Ruka's motivation is even more bullshit than you think it is!
Yes, but I suspect that because Ruka deeply desires to be normal, she might be weathering any effect from her increased heart rate trying it to be her new normal, that's unhealthy and might be reducing her life expectancy with that.
@@schris3 yeah but like... my heart rate doesn't feel abnormal. Like I don't "feel" like I have a slow heart, anymore than the average person "feels" like they have a normal heart. She's functionally made up this problem about needing her heart to beat at a "normal" speed, when she could live an entirely normal life with a slower heartrate and never even notice it as long as she doesn't, like, do too much strenuous exercise in one sitting.
@@tinyetoile5503 Ruka said that she is unable to get thrills from the amusement park and get the heart flutters from getting a crush, so she's acting like a girl that wants what she can't get, but doesn't really need to if she really thought about it.
That may be your experience, but I had a girlfriend who had a mitral valve prolapse (took digoxin to slow her heart) and she was a bit of a thrill-seeker. She definitely liked doing things that got her heart racing for a short time and took it close to the edge more than a few times, it was just part of her personality.
Mami's tragic backstory is that she was Kazuya's ex. No, seriously, imagine what sort of gaslighting horrors she must have gone through willingly dating that asshole!
I'm not trying to be rude but if you read mamis backstory in the manga her shit attitude would make much more sense, not that it made much sense to begin with
My mom watched this and asked if we're all aware that this is the anime equivalent of a bad soap opera. I told her that no, only about half the viewing audience knows that, and that's a generous estimate.
Domestic Girlfriend, Rent-A-Girlfriend and a whole lot of Shoujo manga would fit perfectly in Mexican public television if producers made them live-action and gave the characters stupidly long and flowery names. LMAO
I mean, a few episodes in, and I quipped to my wife : "This feels like a cheesy k-drama." Never finished the season, moved on to Stranger Things. Will probably finish it in my alone time, just to root for Mami.
@@BknMoonStudios Neither of the manga you listed are shoujo. Shoujo means that the target audience of the series are girls. These ain't being marketed towards girls.
Lol, people aren't even complaining about the anime, they're complaining about the manga they spent like 5 years reading week after week. If you binge read it it's fine although gets a little boring at the 'move-making' arc, but after that it's fine. One of the most popular series in Japan.
Can we really call Chizuru a Tsundere? I think her reactions to Kazuya's bullshit are, given the circumstances and severity, very light and level headed.
It’s like when a female character gets angry at someone literally kidnapping her and then gets called “feisty” like it’s not the most normal reaction in the world.
To be honest I thought the Chizuru and Kazuya you were talking about were the guys from King of Fighters and Tekken, and I thought “wait when did those two crossover?”, but you’re probably talking about different characters. As you can see I do not know much anime, I just get these videos in my recommendations.
Imagine writing a male character who’s defining character trait is “gets erections sometimes” like holly shit maybe next chapter they’ll reveal he breaths air. Wait you’re telling me this guy eats food? What a plot twist!
bro you ever stop and think you're asking too much out of a freaking COMIC BOOK?! can't wait to hear what you have to say about Garfield and Marmaduke.
@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 Holy shit dude, who peed in your cereal this morning? People are allowed to talk about things, even if it's not what YOU like or agree with. What a snowflake
if you were to make chizuru the protag the story could easily become some kind of horror story about this woman being harassed and forced to interact with this guy who can ruin her life if she pisses him off enough and she can't get him out of her life. her slowly falling in love with him would just add to the phycological horror of the thing.
“I hate this. I hate him. I do not hate Gfuel. I still hate this. I hate her. She’s okay. Everyone hates her. Tbh you can do better.” These chapter titles are such a mood.
That "astounding ability to convince its audience that a major plot development is right around the corner" bit hit me hard as someone dating a person hyperfixating on Miraculous Ladybug
Man, i used to hyperfixate on miraculous till season 2. After like 3 seasons and 2 movies, there literally ended up being no development between the two main leads, and they have pretty much no chemistry now. Such a waste for an interesting romantic premise..
Do yourself a favor and just watch episode 4 and skip the rest. It’s the only passable episode of the entire series in my opinion. I’d give that episode a 5 or 6 out of 10 surprisingly, and this is coming from someone who absolutely DESPISES the show. It was wholesome and actually somewhat funny.
I really feel like the whole "girl has a condition where her heartbeat is too slow so she wants to find someone to make it beat fast with love" would be a cute idea in a better series
Honestly it would make more sense if the reason Mami is trying to break up Kazuya and Chizuru isn’t out of jealousy, but out of genuine concern of Chizuru being subjected to a relationship with somebody like Kazuya
Not gonna lie, Mami and Kazuya were the perfect couple. Both pieces of absolute human garbage, to the point that the only good thing they could do would be to remove one another from the dating market. Like two missiles intercepting one another before they reach their targets.
just so you know, Mijayima Reiji (the author of this trainwreck) just started a second series about seven siblings who discover they're not actually siblings after being together their entire lives i am not joking, oh my God i wish i was
Let me guess, the brothers and sisters have been secretly harboring incest feelings for each other and now that they find out they're not related, they end up smooching each other? (I'm not gonna even check if I'm right, I just can't bring myself to do it).
Huh. I suddenly want to write a story about a girl doing everything she can to ruin her ex boyfriends life because he is, in fact, a certified piece of crap and she doesn’t want him to get his claws into a weaker girl who doesn’t have the gumption to walk away like she did.
I would suggest you start the story from his point of view, to make her seem extreme, and then slowly peel back the layers of how horrible he is. I don't know the ramifications of gaslighting your audience like that, but it could be interesting.
Love is actually utterly alien to Kazuya, and Rental Kanojo is his journey to begin to understand it. Mizuhara’s narrative role is to teach him what it takes to love someone. Ruka’s narrative role is to teach him the weight of being loved. Sumi’s narrative role is to give Kazuya the opportunity to practice how to love and how to be loved, since neither know what they’re doing. Mami, meanwhile, is a reflection of his original, destructively self-centered view of love. … is what I would say about a better-written story.
A couple of people noted that unlike Kazuya, Bakarina is a genuinely kind person who cares a lot about her loved ones, even though she's dumb like a bag of rocks. So basically her brain is tiny, but her heart is huge.
Bakarina is dumb, but she has honest empathy and compassion for people that isn't motivated by her own self interests. A concept Kazuya would never even begin to understand.
You know this story would've been a killer if it was about Kazuya being a unreliable narrator and about Mami being the actual hero, who after being with him discovered what a douche-canoe he is, and is now trying to save other girls, and expose him to the world.
I often also argued that it could've been a solid cautionary romantic tale if, since Kazuya x Chorizo are prolly one of the worst romantic chemistry pairings I've seen in anime/manga - it's like the "how not to approach romance" path. For her, guess it's not so bad altho' she also becomes a rather poor char the later the manga goes in she looks more like a marketing + stalling tool for the manga than an actual char - it's like if you take the "girls with walls up" trope, and see how far can you stretch it, as even 245 chz in, Chiz is still in "trying to figure out my feelings" mode. That's why Kazuya's potential would be greater, however, he's also kept in a statis for the most part so no dice. On the other hand, it could've also worked better if it focused mainly on the comedy IMO, cause the parts where the series takes itself seriously are downright eyeball rolling. Unfortunately , the comedy also quickly gets repetitive as it basically involves Kaz inner monologues simping chiz. So here we are...
If I ever continue this anime, I will consider Mami the protagonist. This season looks packed tho, and I am still catching up with the last one (just bought HiDive, so Im watching Demon Girl and Executioner Girl, also Koming, which was the first thing I saw after buying it).
Imagine how cool it would be if at the end he realizes by himself that he needs to change and doesn't end up with anyone. just like a self improvement ending or something.
@@travisbergen2807 Bro that'd be pretty awesome, kinda like as a cautionary romance story. Kinda same for Chizuru tbh since the char is just MID the later the manga drags, she basically sits there undecided how she feels while looking pretty (she's like the author main cash cow + plot staller). But unfortunately, it just ain't gonna happen, the story glorifies his simping, lmao.
@@NoRockinMansLand I agree… and to be perfectly honest.. I actually enjoyed watching the first 2 seasons and would love to see them finish it. While I share many of the criticisms and frustrations I also had a desire to keep watching. Not one of my favorite anime but there was a certain charm about it that kept me coming back. I don’t share the absolute hate that many people have for it.
@@adamsanders2270 and, I find it kind of odd to see how this was so despised when it is genuinely entertaining. A story doesn't have to be good for it to be entertaining either
@@NoRockinMansLand For sure. Also the characters don’t have to be perfect examples to be good characters either. But I agree. I feel like the anime watching community does this a ton. They get mad because huge numbers of people love Naruto and Demon Slayer. They talk about how they are overrated, but if people like them then I don’t see what the issue is. It does seem to be a move on the internet to attack things people like very harshly because it will draw attention from the haters and fanatics alike!
This series is instantly redeemed if the finale is Mami and Kazuya getting back together and just having the most toxic hellish relationship that leads to a dramatic School Days style gorefest or a long, grey life filled with gaslighting, manipulation and alcoholism. All while occasionally cutting to the other girls who went and lived normal lives and found true happiness and love for themselves. It won't, but I can dream.
This show gets even harder to watch when you realize that it could have ended the moment Ruka confessed to Kazuya. While her feelings are completely unjustified, Kazuya would have gotten the real girlfriend he so desperately wants to show to his grandmother (not to mention a girlfriend who he admits is cute in several of the episodes). But apparently the guy who is enough of a sociopath to constantly lie to his own grandmother and all of his friends all while guilt tripping and sabotaging Chizuru's work and future career is too much of a nice guy to hurt his bro's pride by dating a girl whom said bro never even truly dated. Stupid.
I feel like even *that* would have been a better thing for the anime to do. Like make Kazuya some immature sociopath who's doing this all just for his own sake. That would have been even somewhat better than whatever the hell this show is right now.
You don’t know how happy I am to see this comment. And this video. Cause Kazuya is a fukin…a fukin…I do not have the words for how much I hate this guy and his stupid ass ways of thinking. Dude literally came to the conclusion he’s in love with a chick who REPEATEDLY said she’s not interested. Tsundere or not. You’d think that he’d be happy she’s throwing her delicate-too-good-for-Kazuya cheeks at this shit head protagonist but no he’d rather chase girls who don’t what him. God this guy makes my brain melt. This show makes me want to punch my fucking tv. I COULDN’T EVEN GET PAST THE FIRST SEASON. If I ever was to be tortured just being forced to watch this show would be enough to make me want to fuckin kill myself.
At this point, we might as well use Harem Protagonist as a new unit of measurement for density. Which one to base it off is a question for another day. Personally, I vote Ichika
I love how the fans despise Mami for doing the toxic shit male protags do and are excused for - Lies, obsession, extreme selfishness, manipulation, disrespecting boundaries. Like yeah, the stuff she's doing IS bad, I'm glad you finally noticed!
When Hawaiians happened the whole game flipped. Mami is top tier (Along with Sumi). Kazuya shows signs that he has the capacity to improve but the writing won't let him. When Chizuru ran from the confession and followed the arc with her "investigation" she's now even worse than Kazuya.
Literally no though? Have you really been around fans of anime? Cause literally everyone complains about those types of things all the time, they don't mention them because they've gotten unfortunately begrudgingly used to it but actually bring it up? You're gonna get a whole rant about all the stuff they do in anime. Like the fanservice with minor characters, that's a big one that folks desperately try to ignore but will go off about if you ask directly. Maybe you have encountered some people who genuinely excuse those things and those folks are bad but not representative of the whole fanbase. You cannot generalize a group bigger than 30 because after that you become factually wrong about whatever stereotype of that fandom you're trying to perpetuate.
Actually I hate it all the time, especially a lot of male characters in shoujo manga (Boys over Flowers, Diabolik lovers etc). Especially those that get into the rapey stuff.
Yes and no. Mainly because if they did get together I am positive he would just disappear suddenly with the only evidence of his being the one town drunk seeing Mami driving out to pier late one night with a large wrapped up something over her shoulder. And he would deserve it
The fact that omega-bitch Mami has unironically become the favorite character for many readers should tell you how much people despise Kazuya and Chizuru. If you haven't read the last 10 chapters, here's a fun spoiler: she kissed Kazuya to save face, she then ghosted him for literally 3 whole months, and when they reunite Kazuya gives her money as if nothing happened, thus setting their relationship back to zero. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. Chizuru has become as much of a walking colostomy bag as Kazuya. I genuinely hope Mami succeeds at destroying them both. LMAO
@@mothersbasement Akasaka is the Kaguya-sama mangaka. You mean Reiji Miyajima. But I got what you mean. lol On a different part of spectrum with writing.
It has been a trip watching Miami's appreciation rise and Chizuru's fall as the weeks go on. Ironically the more screentime Mami gets the more toothless she gets, because god forbid her threats of progress actually resolve.
The time may come sooner than you think, when the same mangaka releases "Shiunji-ke no Kodomotachi". I have a feeling memes will be had if it is either worse or better!
It may never get the same memetic spread as "Better story than Twilight" because not all watches or reads that as much as Twilight. Unless we can get Robert Pattinson to say what a terrible book this is like he did with Twilight...
Nahh I reached out to an old male friend from Elementary school, and I found out he was showing my pictures to people at his school telling them I was his girlfriend. I only found out because he showed my best friends boyfriend not knowing we knew each other. Rent-a-Girlfriend was his favorite anime, surprise surprise 😂
When I was at college, we had one friend that talked a lot about her girlfriend. A LOT. We asked him when he was going to bring her or show us a pic. He finally agreed and showed us a picture: it was a cutout from a magazine. He alleged she was a model, so that was the picture he had at hand. Next week, he brought a real picture from a totally different girl, saying he was just joking before and this was his real girlfriend. Turns out it was the pic of a friend's sister which we later learnt he had stolen during a party at our friend's house. We avoided him like the plague for the rest of the semester.
One guy at a former job bragged he had two gfs, her "official" gf and me. He even had the guts to say that in public, with even our boss present. I laughed at his face and called him "dead pp". Thankfully I was fired not long after that.
The only good thing Kazuya has done, is fantasized about his girlfriend getting banged so we got borderline official hentai of her getting the wedding sausage.
I mean shoot, Mami's "villainy" could even be seen in a light that maybe she just is trying to save Chizuru from a toxic relationship you know? Helping someone else dodge a bullet.
And the reason she’s mean to the girls is to make them run away from kazuya, so she can continue to punish him for daring to spread his malignant plague of a personality onto other people, and they can move on with their lives.
"All of her villain behaviour only counts as villain behaviour if you believe Kazuya Kinoshita deserves to be happy. And I absolutely, categorically do not" Of all the languages im the world and you chose to speak STRAIGHT FACTS
I would like to add that when Kazuya saves Ruka, who one of his friends likes, his reason for doing so is because that friend would be upset if she got hurt...and the scene is played like it's charming instead of implying that Kazuya wouldn't save a girl just because preventing someone from getting hurt is the decent thing to do
@@timothymclean Facts. I hate seeing that last one (and it's ridiculously common) because that makes the character one dimensional and pretty much cheapens any other meaningful relationships they should have. I love a good romance, but a strong friendship and/or familial bond being developed along side it almost always elevates a story in my eyes. That's probably why Horimiya and Kaguya-Sama are my two favorite romance anime/media period.
@@goatskin4487 The only person who gendered the sentiment of "you should save someone when you can just because that's right to do" is you, dude. Andrea says "girl" one time but follows that up with "because preventing SOMEONE from getting hurt . . ." which is objectively gender neutral. Kazuya is a dickhead not because he won't lay his life on the line for women (you calling them broads is very telling) but because he bases who he will or will not help on their relation to him/his friends. This is shitty. If you CAN help someone you SHOULD help someone.
@@goatskin4487 That's not what I said, and nobody thinks that. I was just pointing out that the reason he saved her wasn't to keep her from getting hurt, but to keep his friend from getting upset that she got hurt. It implies that he wouldn't have helped her if not for his friend having a crush on her. I was saying that the scene acted like that was charming, when it really just showed that even when he saves someone, he's not a good or even decent person
You know, what angers me the most is that Rent-A-Girlfriend could have done something neat. The story could have figuratively and literally been about slapping Kazuya in the face and telling him to stop being such a f*cking incel, but it decided not to and just forget about a potentially interesting premise.
At first, I was under the mistaken impression that that was where the story was going, when Chizuru give him the tongue lashing he so richly deserved. Alas, I had my hopes dashed shortly thereafter.
It really seemed like that, the perfect premise for it. But unlike SAO, this isn't a matter of the show blowing it's good premise with bad writing, it's a matter of it going another direction. We're just not the target audience, so I can't be that mad.
Oh lord, we've reached a point where a show is so bad that Jeff is genuninely reccomending Arifureta over it. Next thing I gotta do is go look out of my window to see if there are pigs flying outside.
At least Arifureta has comparatively solid writing and shamelessly revels in being a teenage power fantasy, so I can see Geoff respecting and shitting at it at the same time. This... I can't even.
Arifureta is at least fun, and if you can ignore some of the obscene *edge,* arifureta can be extremely fun. You can't ignore RentaGF, it's *just* unfun to watch. Almost as bad as Eromanga Sensei in how much you just *cannot* ignore.
arifureta is charming because it isn't ashamed of itself. Its clear that everyone involved knows that its an edgy harem wish fulfilment series. So rather than pretend that the show is deep it revels in it. So if you watch it knowing this. the show is honestly fun. Especially season 2 that had far less production issues.
I watched this show, and the whole time I kept feeling like "surely it will get...somewhere...good or bad I don't care just go somewhere". Then I watched love is war and was like "oh...oh shit rent a girlfriend was really terrible." Also thanks for introducing me to love is war that is one of my favorites now.
Mami will always be my favorite character not JUST because she's out to "ruin" Kazuya, but because she's literally the only one moving the plot at times.
As someone said elsewhere in the comments, if you made Chizuru the protagonist, this wouldn't be too far off from the horror anime movie Perfect Blue. That thought also made me wonder, could most bad romance stories become psychological horror/Stockholm syndrome stories with a protagonist exchange?
Yeah, they could, and tbh they should have gone with Chizuru being the main protag instead. But considering the author, i dont think she will ever be lol🤣
The thing is, you change the context or perspective of pretty much any truely romantic line, and it can go from romantic, to utterly f***ing horrific. "Wherever you go, however far they take you, I will find you," said by your lover when you are forced to be apart is intensely intimate and sweet. The same thing said by an abuser is absolutely terrifying. I've also heard of the Danny Devito test. If you change the male lead to Danny Devito, i.e. make him not traditionally hot, and the romance breaks down, then it was never romantic to begin with. A million ways it can be done.
This manga is a 50 chapter manga being streched to 300 chapters and you really feel it. the "plot" is like a car driving around in a roundabout but unsure what exit to take
I hate the fact that he got attached and feels entitled to a girl who's literal job description is to actually be a make belief gf to other guys. He then gets jealous. Wtf?
@@yasserblidi9729 You are questioning how in a job about filling affection-based role in someone's life could lead to the client starting to develop feelings towards them?
@@GameBreaker1055 ohh. That's what you meant. Okay while it's understandable, it only makes things worse. From sad and somewhat pathetic to downright predatory. I actually wasn't aware there was an actual real life business bout being someone's romantic partner. More lewd stuff yes. This no. Still, you read the fine print, you came for the same reason as the others, you have no right to be mad at anyone but yourself when it's that clear cut. On the other hand if it wasn't made clear that they weren't exclusive, that's just outright evil.
@@yasserblidi9729 I get the concept from the point of view as hiring someone to fill for certain events, like hiring one for a party to not go alone and I can even get behind the idea of simulating the experience for unexperienced people to learn from. But obviously, the "stand in for the real thing" is the most common reason. And given things like the idol-culture in Japan it is no surprise really...
The thing that always bugs me the MOST about shows like Rent-a-Girlfriend is that they often present a protagonist so horribly shitty and terrible at the beginning that you IMMEDIATELY assume that this is the start of some sort of character growth arc. Like, going from Garbage to God status. But more often than not, shows/manga like these REPEATEDLY demonstrate that either the character's traits are simple plot devices keeping the "meat" of the plot going through what are supposed to be his personality/running jokes/etc. OR his traits are framed as misunderstood and that those around him should either sympathize or outright reward him for being himself and/or doing even the bare minimum of human decency. That's why I gave up on this show on the second to last episode of the first season. Because I just couldn't see how Kazuya could be redeemed after the trail of garbage and fire he left in his wake with everyone around him. I waited for him to realize his flaws and start learning to change and grow, but it just never came. The only opinion that's changed to me about this show since then is how I feel about Mami (thanks to you, haha).
SAME! I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop like "surely all of this dude's shitty behavior is going to come back and destroy him and he'll get cathartically punished and then maybe reform his ways..." But then when they introduced blue ribbon girl it became clear that they were just trying to give him a harem, and I fled in utter disgust.
And the author did something even worse in the manga, he gave us hope by giving Kazuya a sort of redemption arc that was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
At least, perhaps unintentionally, Kazuya serves as the perfect template for lonely boys interested in romance to look at and say "Wow, that guy is exactly how I should try NOT to be like!"
Except the series doesn't paint him in that light or point out his wrongdoings so anyone who's impressionable will think that if they act like Kazuya then they get girls like Chizuru, Ruka, Sumi and Mami. This series is the literal worst thing you can choose to show someone
If the show didnt get as big as it was we may have seen an actual ending to this manga by now without the author milking it for views Though the first season was actually good cause we all thought kazuya will grow as a character yada yad then guess what nothing happened One guy i think which increased the popularity is gigguk
@@navanithkrishnan7177 tho at the time there was still hope for this train wreck that is the story, to have a satisfying or interesting plot twist or real character growth, all hope was lost on s2 unfortunately, and it's not even in the middle, plus the writing got worse
I like Geoff's conclusion that while Kazuya is the "main character", Mami is the "protagonist" who actually seems to go through the Monomyth plot outline. She has a call to adventure (seeing Kazuya happy), a conflict (figuring out why he's so happy, and ruining it) and an antagonist (the other girls around Kazuya). Reminds me of Thanos in Infinity War. Good stories happen when the villain is the protagonist
@@GameBreaker1055 well, the villain isn't always the antagonist. As the video stated, it's possible that she's acting out her anger about another trauma on him or some other deeper character motivation.
@@brandondavidson4085 You could say the same about Kazuya. We don't know if he did not have a traumatic event in his past that caused him to become such a coward.
@@GameBreaker1055 someone else pointed out that when you see how Kazuya's grandmother talks to him, she has never once said anything good about him. Just constantly telling him he's not in the same league as the women who surround him in the story. I liked the first season because the characters had some complexity (any more than none is a low bar to clear), but the story seems like a waste of so much potential. You could make Kazuya learn from his mistakes, give Mami a sympathetic motivation, etc
@@brandondavidson4085 See, you can easily come up with excuses for both of them. Mami might striaght up be unable to actually feel proper attatchment to anyone and despises anyone who does because of it and Kazuya might have such an inferiority complext because of how his own family always talks down to him that he can't stand the idea of making mistakes that could proof their opinion right, therefore tries to hide them with lies. But that is not what the show does or the author wants to write. He just wants Kazuya to be a joke of a man, the girls psychotic and the elders to be annoying.
I know this starts by saying good romcom give you a new lens to understand and learn about the complex nature of love, but Kazuya lowkey reminded me an important lesson: Kazuya teaches you that self hate and “woe is me” attitude is ultimately a path that is destructive to others, because you manipulate with pity and lack social awareness because you become too self centred. It lowkey takes balls for a series to start with a this despicable of a character, and if it was pulled off correctly the shift from hating to supporting the MC would be incredibly satisfying. But to do that you need to actually have the character redeem himself, which this series decided not to do literally at all.
Worst thing is that the mangaka wrote this recognition into the story (I guess by accident) in the movie production arc and then reverted it immediately afterwards. He nearly redeemed Kazuya finally only for every single piece of character development to get hit by a bus and all his deepening relationships were immediately dropped. In that arc he had unique character traits, they disappeared, he was actually seeking a greater goal then sex, that disappeared, he wasn't even seeking to make Chizuru like him, he was purely doing it for her benefit, and that too disappeared. It could've been a phenomenal enough evolution of a loser character to stop being a loser and Reiji royally screwed it up because he needs hundreds of more chapters then 200. And not only does the series after that point revert literally every good thing Kazuya had going on, including that he wasn't even being a slave to his lust in that arc either, but it was ensured that he would only ever fake out the audience afterwards with false confessions that never go anywhere and are immediately and routinely retracted.
Woe is me is valid because lots of ppl get fucked over in this world. Most dont proceed to use that to manipulate others they just want things to improve ofc
So in summary, a man two seconds from becoming head mod of r/incel falls in love with a girl who’s out of his league and stalks her all while being stalked by a sick girl. Under all this is his ex’s plot for karmic revenge. Huh, this show would be funny if they author knew how shitty their characters were 🤣
In all of this, a cute girl with a legit psychological problem is thrown on the stage just to raise the waifu count, than disappears into the shadow realm. Yes, I'm still bitter about Sumi. She was good.
29:50 "Definitely a lying, manipulative snake. But so is fucking Kazuya. The only difference is he manipulates people with pity instead of lust." "You act like prey, but you're a predator. You use pity to lure in your victims."
It’s a brilliant strategy, really. Make being an incel so aggressively cringe that viewers looking for a harem anime feel the need to go out and talk to a woman out of fear of being like the MC. Shinzo Abe would be proud.
The girls in Rent a Girlfriend are made by the creator to fall in love with Kazuya for awful and bad taste. Let's be real.. Kazuya is not a good character/person and doesn't deserve a girlfriend but the creator made this to insert himself in it and give some kind of terrible romance story and make the audience believe this stuff can work
Well, realistically: good and/or beautiful women CAN have terrible taste in men. It happens irl. No one likes to see it, but I'm saying that this isn't an impossible scenario.
@@Saxjon Good point... still I hate it when it happens to good women but not bad women. I saw a video where this chick believe that thugs from jail will make a good partner and she found out the hard way
Oh God. It just dawned on me... The video helped me understand my frustration better. Kazuya's a damn Jerry. He pretends to be prey, but really he's a predator. Only instead of a keen hunting instinct, he lures his targets with pity and how pathetic he is, and when they enter his orbit he keeps them around by exploiting their nurturing side and taking little, frustrating bites that will ultimately kill them, but the bites are so small they mostly just think it's irritating but tolerable. Unaware that his poison is blowly building up inside them.
Everything about Kazuya feels scummy and unmanly. He doesn't respect Chizuru enough to be honest with his feelings. He doesn't respect her enough to take an honest shot. He doesn't respect her enough to protect her from people making wrong presumptions about her knowing full well how weird their relationship started. He doesn't respect her enough at all to still have the kinds of thoughts he has about her despite getting to know her. He's known her for a good full year and a half. He knows she's not that kind of girl. He knows about her grandma, her dreams, and why she got into the rentalkanojo business in the first place. And yet? He still thinks she's the kind of girl who'd get with guys for stupid reasons and make a point out of how they're so much better than him just to feed into his pathetic self-loathing. Oh, of course he's turned on by this too. Just to _really_ rub it in. Hell, he doesn't respect himself enough to get away from Mami after already hearing her smacktalk him in front of other people. The bloody simp even backed Mami up of all people when Chizuru batted to defend him. So why, oh why, should I root for him getting a happy ending?
"The concept of a character using their rental girlfriend gig as a way to combat their social anxiety is probably the most interesting thing the series does with its core concept." It's also the description of at least half a dozen hostesses, sex-workers, and other side characters from the Yakuza series! So even the most interesting character dynamic is done better multiple times elsewhere.
@@TheBonkleFox He definitely has a much better understanding of the boundaries of the transactions inherent to the relationship. Although a lot of the girls end up liking him anyways because Kiryu is just build different.
Rent-A-Girlfriend is the literary equivalent of spinning around in an office chair, maybe you enjoy it for a moment but then you realize you haven't gone anywhere, your head hurts and you're sick to your stomach
As a person how can spin for hours and not get even disorientated afterwards I feel insulted that you'd compare something potentially fun with no drawbacks to Rent-A-Girlfriend.
@@RGC_animation Never watched the anime, but I'm reading the manga. Not everything needs to be a 10/10 PERFECT OMG KAMI MANGA THIS CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE OMGOMGOMG. It's just kind of amusing to read. Sometimes I want to just read something that is middle of the road kinda generic but amusing. I don't wanna spend my whole manga reading time having my soul torn apart by Shuuzou Ooshimi or Satoshi Mizukami. Then again maybe I'm just biased I absolutely LOVE B Grade soap opera material. I'm basically everyone's latina grandma trapped in the body of a 30 year old white man oh well.
yeah she's definitely the best character in the series. She may be a bitch, yes, but she's a bitch i can definitely cheer for. especially in the events of the manga
@@takanara7 I haven't read or seen this series. But a woman breaking up with a man because she doesn't want to be with him, but trying to get him to improve himself because she still wants what's best for him is not exactly uncommon. I wouldn't be surprised if the way such a scenario was presented in a romcom anime caused her to look insane, but the same can be said for damn near anything
This whole show is like those parts in The Stanley Parable where you keep walking in circles and the rooms keep repeating until the narrator decides to let you go somewhere
Geoff rabidly cheering on Mami systematically destroying this idiot’s entire existence like the one dude at a WWE event cheering on Triple H as he picks up the sledgehammer is not something I knew I needed in my life.
Underrated comment. The fact that over 200 chapters in she gets more of a backstory than main girl Chizuru AND has to carry all the stereotypical jealous ex villainy of the series just makes me want to root for her more.
We need to start accepting that sometimes you can recognise a character is a villain and what their doing in pursuit of their goals is wrong, but still enjoy them because of good and engaging writing...but also sometimes you can recognise a character is a villain, what their doing in pursuit of their goals is wrong and root for them anyway because of the utter contempt you have the writing and the story's values. Yes, it was wrong for that character to kick that puppy or blow up the orphanage, but I can also recognise when the writer puts that in there because they couldn't actually convince you that the villain's opposition to the hero is wrong and had to throw in an undefendable but pointless villainous act to kill their support. And if a kicked puppy or dead orphans...or bullied waifu's is what it takes, then sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of standing up to bad writing.
I mean Rent a Girlfriend could have had some REALLY interesting themes, such as: How does monetary exchange affect love? How do we deal with someone we love not reciprocating our feelings? When does friendship become love? How do we deal with jealousy and regret in love? 1 could have been the Rental girlfriend part, 2 could have been Chisaru and Ruka, 3 could have been Sumi, and 4 could have been Mami But no. We got this trash instead.
@@madgainz7871 Also likely because the likes of Bleach, Naruto and One Piece also dragged over hundreds or even thousands of chapters long and made their creators a ton of money over the course of years, so the writer wanted to do the same thing delusionally thinking he'd be able to replicate their success easily and also become stinking rich off of dragging the plot out the same way. But neglecting to even realize that a rom-com is definitely not suited to the kind of story that CAN or even SHOULD have hundreds of chapters to resolve like a fantasy adventure can.
As someone said in another comment thread, if the anime we got was told from Chizuru's POV, it would basically be the horror movie Perfect Blue (minus the dissociative identity disorder).
@@madgainz7871 Honestly my opinion on all this is you guys are expecting way too much out of a freaking COMIC BOOK. Can't wait to see Mother's Basement's SCATHING ROAST of Marmaduke and Garfield.
I'm so happy you mentioned Tenchi. There's a reason why Tenchi has a large woman fan base decades later, because while they all wanted the most bland man in the world, Tenchi was an actual good guy and hero, and his harem had personalities and goals outside being with him. Haven't seen a harem anime like it, since. It's sad 2022 anime girls are still portrayed as objects with no personality or goals outside "want to be with self-insert boy character!". I honestly came here expecting MB to praise this popular incel anime. I was happily surprised.
I've never heard of Tenchi, probably because of my dislike for harem genre (especially sexualized fanservice/eroge). But your description piqued my interest. Can you tell me more about it? I want to know whether or not it's a good anime in general, or if it can even rivals masterpieces like Kaguya, Steins;gate or AoT
Ah, Tenchi was one of my favorites growing up (I’m 32 so that should tell you how old this anime is). It was fun, but also absolutely bonkers in the way that 90s anime often was. At one point the little sister of one of the main 2 female leads somberly tells the story of how their home planet was attacked, causing her to fall to her death. But then the goddess Tsunami, who is a tree and also a spaceship, assimilated with Sasami’s body. So Sasami is “sorta dead but not really.” None of the characters ever brings this up again.
I honestly miss the old Tenchi series. Besides…two, maybe three girls, everyone else was happy to just be able to live in his house rent free and goof off! They had their own lives and it was refreshing!
@@MinhNguyen.37 Tenchi is like the grand father of Harem/conedy but it's totally a harem comedy but it does have a real plot. So the plot goes Goof ball high schooler accidently wakes up the demon sealed beneath this tree in his grandfather's temple only it turns out the demon is a super crazy space pirate lady. Better description it's Lilo and Stitch but lilo is the surfer boy, stich is a cat girl, jumba is a loli, plekily and cobra are hot blondes, Nani is an old man, random space princess love interest and little sister and Gantu is an elf with an armada.
This show teaches THE WORST lessons to people about how dating works it blows my mind into fucking space. There is literally a moment like 150ish chapters in where Chizuru *actually says* "if he loves me... What can i do? I guess i have to accept his love." And its presented as this sweet moment and not the stalker-browbeating-stockholm-syndrome that it is 🤡🤡🤡
I haven't watch season 1 (nor do i plan to) or read the manga, but honestly the author had such an interesting premise that could go and send such an interesting message. Think about it, why does services like renting a girlfriend exist? (They really do exist btw in japan, along side renting a family or even places where you go just to spend time with somebody) 1 Word Loneliness, and this is a problem that's so prevalent and important to talk about not just in japan but also the world, although Japan has to deal with this like a lot. So imagine if this anime actually dealt with that, having the guy start out well... Like this and eventually growing to become more mature and a better person. You could do this with all the girls as well, like what made main girl start working as a rental gf? Is there some kinda trauma from a past relationship so that she looks at guys as essentially walking atms? Would her views of her work change by the end of the series? Because I have seen interviews of people working in the field because they feel genuinely good to accompany people and make them feel less alone, or with that mami chick, why is she so toxic? Is there anyway she can become a better person? One way i see the story could've progress is if main guy doesn't end up with anyone. He's friends with all the girls but something always blocks them from having a romantic relationship aka there's a deal breaker from either his or the girl's side. They grow from these experiences to become better individuals, emphasis on Individual
@@tobiaswedin see here's the thing, Stockholm syndrome was literally made up by cops as a way to shut up the girls who were criticizing how they handled the kidnapping situation.
Some people seem naturally inclined to gather to and defend extremely terrible stories. I've never understood it. I can understand guilty pleasures, but it doesn't feel like a "true fan" if they can only see an idealized version of a work of fiction, rather than liking it for its actual merits. Like, there's a few works I like that are terrible, but I either like them BECAUSE they're terrible or I like what parts of them AREN'T terrible to still acknowledge what parts of them ARE. I don't delude myself into pretending what's terrible about them doesn't exist.
Thinking someone with an opposing opinion to your own has to be brainwashed reflects more badly on yourself lmao. Lose the ego and argue in good faith.
Introduce him to a "good" one then (in the end its all subjective). I wasn't able to distinguish between "good" and "bad" anime until I consumed a lot of what I thought was "good" then watched something that was actually good. For me it was "My Romantic Teenage SNAFU." The most fulling romantic anime that related to the most because characters felt real, decisions had consequences, we saw progress and character development through them.
@@priestpega Man! I remember it was one of the first anime I watched back when you could find anime on TH-cam. When you just start out its typically all echi harem BS, its just what grabs you pre-teen/teen but even before I could appreciate it I still loved it. It went on a long hiatus, so much so that in the sea of other anime I forgot about. I remember seeing the trailer for the new season and everything just started rushing back, it left off on a sort of cliffhanger and something I had forgotten so long ago came back like I watched it the day before. I can sum up my satisfaction for that anime and what made it stand out among EVERY other one in its genre in two words, It delivered.
Broo you have no idea!! When Kazuya said "Rent you fool!" And starts falling to fight the greater demons, I was crying, shivering, and bussin non-stop. What an anime of all time!!
Mami and Kazuya as Evil vs More Evil is actually so funny and yet interesting to think about, that shouldve been the actual premise of this whole thing instead of the misogynistic, nonsensical pile of trash it is
There's no doubt that her actions were evil, but i'm willing to make expception if they are done ti dipshit like Kazuya. Ngl, i was rooting for her the whole time 😅
“Muh soggy knee!” Woke people are less than human. Kazuya sucks because he’s a simp, if he was like Andrew Tate the show would actually be interesting.
'That only counts as villain behavior if you believe Kazuya Kinoshita deserves to be happy..And I absolutely, categorically do NOT.' 😂.. Worth the half hr watch just for that line.
Rent a girlfriend's audience, at one long point in the manga, literally wanted the two protagonists to never end up with each other because their relationship has been so toxic. Nothing has been gained, no one has benefited, everyone has suffered, and Kazuya does not deserve anybody. I still remember cries of a "Separation Arc" where they could see life without each other and try and grow a little bit as people. And then we actually got a separation "Arc" and it was the absolute worst couple of chapters in the entire manga, and that was saying something, LOL.
I'm now imagining a situation where the writers leverage this to keep the show popular forever. "Look, once the show starts losing popularity, we have to wrap it up and hook the two protagonists up, and you wouldn't want that, would you? Better watch the show forever to keep that from happening."
"Mami is so incensed by the idea that a loser she dumped could somehow score a slam dunk on the rebound while she's busy doing himbo lay-ups" has shot right up to being one of my favorite Mother's Basementisms.
Ironically that was one of the only scenes I liked in the anime, his ex was BIG MAD!! Lol then he let her talk down to him and just walked away like a bitch and I was done
What makes Kazuya even worse is that he (even if unintentionally) is manipulating Chizuru into liking him by catching her in his lie and inserting himself into her life for years (despite the fact she is very against this) until she eventually breaks and just goes out with him. You can tell that she just doesn’t like him as by chapter 280 or whatever we’re on now, she still only treats him barely like a friend and that’s only because she has known him for years IT’s manipulation on many levels and it rubs me the wrong way
Before I knew anything about this series, I saw the spinoff series "Rent a (Really shy!) Girlfriend" at my local bookstore and gave it a chance. What a cute series! No guy characters in it, just about Sumi Sakurasawa trying to overcome her social anxiety by being a rental girlfriend, because her goal is to someday become an idol, and she can't do that if she can't talk to people. What a cute series! What a cute premise! Sumi seems like such a sweetie too! So I decided to check out the Rent-a-girlfriend anime out, which I didn't even realize had a male main character because he's definitely not shown in any promo material. And boy, not only was it bad, but it was really bad. Anyway, feel free to read the sumi manga, I'm going to pretend the original series doesn't exist and keep reading girl only series.
Makes me wonder if Reiji actually writes it or there is a ghostwriter in there because you can’t write the garbage he does in the main series (and the new manga he created) and yet write a decent side manga too.
@@lenleon3699 I'm sure you can, you just take every trope and throw it at the wall to lure people in with the main series to actually make money and then you'd do the decent stuff in spin offs when the teens are already hooked on your series for the wish fulfillment. Not saying this is true of course, just a possible reason the writing might have changed dramatically between the two. Pumping out full series i'm sure a lot of people might just phone it in.
@@Parasolhyena As backwards as that sounds it also sounds eerily true. The amount of chapters they need to pump out to keep mainstream series alive ends up kind of draining the creativity of even the best of writers. So I would not doubt even a hack could drag out at least sone decent material when not being pressured by deadlines. In the end, tight deadlines and stretching series beyond their natural ending points is what essentially turns even the best of mangas into garbage.
True, I just thought it was a nice idea for her to be leading him on by still continuing her job even after a believable "confession"😩this guy sucks so bad
@@emopeterparker7 lmao ikr? That could be a really interesting angle for a rom-con. Dude has hot ass gf who cucks him but he gets off from it. Everybody wins I guess 😆
"He lies constantly..." You literally just described every single sitcom and the reason I stopped watching them back in the 90s. They're based on grown adults doing shit that we spend eighteen years trying to get children not to do and will eject people from our lives if they do it more than a couple of times. Communication problems is one thing, but too many comedies are built on lies apparently being funny?
@@amandak.4246 same. But unlike me, my mom absolutely loves seeing characters in embarrassing situations. When i asked her if she ever felt secondhand embarrassment watching those shows, she said no. I dont know if im normal for not being able to watch those kinds of media, or if my mother is normal for loving seeing characters humiliated.
Perhaps at one point the goal was to send a message in an episode that lying is bad and has consequences, but serialized television doesn’t really allow for the growth needed for the lesson to stick. That means while each individual episode is saying ‘don’t lie! Lying will only make things worse.’ The season/entire show says ‘lying to people won’t cause any long term problems and people will always forgive you if you lie :)’
21:30 - I just realized Kazuya isn't only basically a *worse* Keitaro - because Keitaro wasn't the one who was the crap in Love Hina it was basically everyone around him - but he's also a Shittier *Scott Pilgrim* SOMEHOW
It feels wrong to even compare Kazuya to Scott. Scott's story is about two people recognizing their own shortcomings and making the choice to try and become better, even if just a little bit at a time, together. R-A-G is about two fundamentally terrible people dragging a bunch of uninvolved sex workers into their shit-slinging competition over a bad breakup. It's like character development in reverse.
@@wavewingman5993 My interpretation is that even while Mami is a shitty person, Kazuya is leagues worse because he never *had* to drag any of these girls into his shit in the first place - all while being an obnoxious sex pest and almost worse, a complete and utter coward who can't simply admit that he was lying.
I read enough of this manga to get to "we have to pretend to be a couple for the sake of my grandma!" Thing. Clicked on 200 chapters later that shit was still going, f*cking unbelieavable
Visiting the kanokari discord after this video was a massive mistake, I've never seen a fandom take criticism worse than kanokari, most of the people commenting had yet to watch the video and decided the best response would be to make fun of Geoff's appearance and say that he "blew his load on kaguya and doesn't have time for rent a girlfriend." As someone who didn't mind the first season of the anime and has read the entire manga for some insane reason, I think this video perfectly summarises the blindingly obvious issues with this show. It's so dissappointing to me that these braindead people are incapable of taking criticism, or even, if they don't feel like doing that, just being respectful and actually picking apart the video with some kind of intelligence.
I have no doubt plenty of people on that discord fucking hate and shit on the manga regularly. You just happened to encounter some of more rabid loyalists.
You should see the r/KanojoOkarishimasu sub. There's a lot of overlap between those who frequent that place and the discord. They write long essays about how every chapter has so much meaning and apologize for the character regression, lack of plot development, and generally how toxic and unhealthy the relationship between Kazuya and Chizuru is.
Considering the target audience and Geoff's pointing out that the ending theme even features the MC wanking it, it's so telling that the braindead members of that fandom default to idioms like "blew his load"...
I hate to assume becase being an anime fan doesn't mean you are incapable of being in relationships or things of the sort, but Id imagine a bunch of the guys there aren't actually lookers or in relationships themselves and while mothersbasement can have some shit opinions, he does/did his job pretty well. And he has a functional relationship supportive partner. I assume he isn't a an asshole to her. I think it is safe to assume on a fundamental level alot of those guys miss the point.
I've seen a defense of kazuya as a portrayal of a dumbass raised by his grandmother that sheltered and spoiled him so much he has no clue how relationships work (like most of the audience) which could be interesting but since there's no real exploration of this aspect of him like we see in subaru from re:zero for instance that shit is just boring
Agreed. The funny thing is, when I read that defense you mentioned: a clueless guy sheltered by his grandpa who doesn't understand relationships, the first person to pop into my head was Goro-kun from My Dress-Up Darling. And he's almost as beloved as Marin. As you said, goes to show what a difference it makes when there's a good writer on-board.
@@sageoftruth The thing about Gojo is that he’s actually a conpitent guy. He’s awkward but he’s also kind, selfless, and passionate for the things he loves. He basically has his life in order, and has a solid grasp on what to do in the future. Marin opens his eyes to the wonders of being with others while he conversely helps Marin with her cosplays! They both have valid reasons to fall for one another, and having amazing chemistry with eachother helps a fuckton. Their relationship progression feels natural, and most importantly, healthy You simply cannot say that about Kazuya and Chizuru
@@wisercupid6740 Ah, right, Gojo, not Goro. Oops. I thought that sounded off when I posted that name. But yeah. It goes to show that growing up alone with grandpa is no excuse for the kind of person Kazuya became. I guess one could still say that Kazuya just happened to be a worse person than Gojo, with worse chemistry with his partner, which wouldn't be saying much, given what a power couple Gojo and Marin are. In the end, I guess it depends on what the Kazuya stans were hoping to prove by mentioning his backstory.
Reminds me of how I thought the protagonist of Ready Player One was SUPPOSED to be this dumb loser weirdo nerd and that the reader was supposed to either laugh at or pity him for how much his personality and life revolves around the plot device, that "Boy this guy sure does suck" was the intended reading and that he'd at literally any point learn at least a single lesson about anything, only to have it entirely unironically go "Actually this guy is and always was the ideal male form because he's just so awesome" "It's supposed to be bad" can only work in very specific situations written by particularly skilled people, and only when those people seem to actually realize it's bad in the first place and can do something interesting with it.
@@wisercupid6740 Gojo actually has his own interests that define who he is as a character. Yeah he loves Marin and he loves helping her realize her passion by making clothes for her, but he has his own passions and goals as well with the hina dolls. That’s what separates him from Kazuya. Kazuya literally has no ambition in life besides getting a girlfriend and getting laid. He’s just floating on by in college on his family’s money with a family business that he doesn’t even really want to inherit but his grandma wants him to. The guy’s a total loser, which might be how the author wants to portray him as but god damn does it make him so unlikable. Like, he’s no different than guys who empty their wallets and simp over a stripper who “is sooo totally into him”. *hint they’re not*.
the thing that really gets me is how PRETTY all of the art is and how GOOD the animation is!! i wish i could do that, but it's stuck with this story and it kills me
Honestly, in a vacuum, Ruka's sad backstory concept sounds neat. A character who desperately wants to feel something, even feeling alienated from their family because they consider them to be a fragile thing who shouldn't even attempt/aspire to feel things like that, hears about a certain thing (love in Ruka's case) and decides to give it a shot, not getting it until an inciting incident makes them go "OH... so that's why everyone loses their head over this" and vows to explore this new aspect of their life. PROBLEM IS, said inciting incident is meeting a piece of scum so trashy Bondrewd and Shou Tucker deserve "dad of the year" awards by comparison, and instead of "aww how cute" i'm "girl why this waste of oxygen instead of every other option on the planet". I really hope i get to see the concept behind Ruka on another show, with characters that are not like the ones from this show.
look up a manga called "What Happens Inside The Dungeon". not the main but the bff of her has a similar issue tho. tldr; she just can not emotionally emotion anything, thus feels nothing. a dude is smitten with her, asks her out, but the relationship is bluntly one sided, even when they get physically intimate. then the guy finally breaks up with her, she STILL feels nothing until she borrows something from her sister and only then does it finally click and she bawls like a baby. i won't explain what the thing is as it's goofy and not PG-13, but even while the manga is a giant lewd joke at times, it's got some seriously deep moments and that's just one of them.
Not to mention, even you denote Kazuya "deserving" it. He keeps telling her "no" and she keeps deciding that that is irrelevant; going so far as to provide chizuru with a ripped condom and LYING about having sex with him I hate them both. Equally.
@@whatteamwildcats4033 oh yeah, Ruka is a really bad person too, she doesnt deserve to get what she wants either. Was just talking about the base concept of thr backstory, but you're completely right
@@sebastianchavez1225 ngl, her forcing herself on kazuya is kazuya's fault for not looking back and giving her a proper answer and just 'holding' her without any thought. Nothing that's good happens because of kazuya, its the author forcing kazuya to do so. Every bad thing is because of kazuya.
I thought the "we must pretend to be engaged for my grandma's health" was an ok starting excuse to bring the two main characters together, but I was shocked to see that about 120 chapters later it was still going, it was not just a silly starting point but the whole thing
As someone who enjoyed the Love Hina manga growing up, I will say this: Keitaro was at least actively trying to improve himself. He worked his ass off to try and get into a good college, albeit for a very romcom reason. He studied constantly, and got tutoring from the girls so he could improve his test scores, rather than so he could just be close enough to perv on them. Kazuya isn't trying to be any better than what he starts as. He just wants to be a loser "with a hot girlfriend".
I may be misremembering, but wasn't Keitaro a case of a male protagonist who had a libido, but wasn't a perv? It's been ages since I saw/read Love Hina, but I seem to recall that Keitaro could acknowledge and recognize his own interest in women, but he never perved on girls. Maybe a reflexive glance at cleavage if a woman drew attention to it, but he never did it intentionally, instead having a fairly resonsible control over his sex drive. Again, please correct me if this isn't accurate.
@@Cyberweasel89 That's correct, buuuut the writer IS kind of a perv. So the net result was the same, except it was always "accidents". That kept happening. A lot. But yeah, the actual character wasn't a creep at all, he was just written by someone who wanted to make the honry.
While I do agree with the assessment of Kazuya being a terrible person I don't think it's exactly fair to compare him to a series with dynamic character arcs. Kazuya isn't meant to change though I'd argue the problem with that is the audience is supposed to watch this awful person be rewarded for being awful unironically .
The most annoying part of this anime is the fact that I as a viewer WANT him to be better, want him to improve as both a person and character, but Christ he's so insufferable, and even the actions he takes to help Chizuru with her acting all have ulterior motives to help him feel useful to her... More so, just working for the sake of financial supporting her is so shallow and stupid, how can she even allow him to do that to himself? Instead of being a kind and normal individual and just supporting her as a friend emotionally and with showing support for her goals, he's basically bribing her to continue putting up with his BS.
Kazuma (Konosuba) - Great character because he's expected to be a total jerk, but he's a jerk that genuinely cares about the misfits around him. Kaguya (Love is War) - Great character because she wants to be the vulnerable damsel, but everyone around expects her to be the cool, level-headed beauty. Kazuya (Rent-a-Girlfriend) - To compare him to trash would be an insult to trash.
in the books kazuma effectively drop kicked himself in the face to spite someone who pissed off his least favorite party member. Rogs protag shouldn’t even be in the same conversation.
"She is Kazuya's righteous karmic reward for the untold suffering that he has inflicted on everyone who was ever foolish enough to care about him or his stupid go-nowhere love story just by being himself." - This is a perfect way to talk about Mami.
Watching trash anime because you like it? Nope. Watching trash anime because it is funny? Nope. Watching trash anime because Mothers Basement made a video on it? Yes
@@mothersbasement thanks for telling me where the list is. I was going to unironically ask if there was a list of good romance anime after I saw the intro lol.
@@mothersbasement Goddamn, you know, I couldnt make it through ep 3 of this jizz filled dumpster fire, and that comment just validated all of my distaste so perfectly. Thank you.
@@mothersbasement I've already watched all those...and Ai Yori Aoshi, DearS, Amagami SS, All Seasons of Da Capo, Golden Time, Girlfriend Girlfriend, Henneko, Hensuki, Kare Kano, If her Flag Breaks....god, what I have been wasting my life on. Oh well, time to catch up on Overlord.
the 7 witches anime i just finished that one it was pretty good honestly it ended pretty fast idk if theres more or if theres a manga i just watch anime
This series is almost everything I hate in these kinds of shows. Terrible MC, subpar love interests, complete lack of chemistry, terrible pacing, so little character growth that as you pointed out, you can jump around the chapters and honestly miss little to nothing. If this was just a slice of life comedy where there won't actually be an ending, then I wouldn't feel so disappointed lol
Its as if the writers never were in a real relationship and have no clue about human interaction. A lot of anime/manga is total garbage and only propped by incel wimps. This show is the epitome of shit writing.
I initially thought Kazuya didn't want to date Ruka, a long hanging fruit high schooler who was obsessed with him, as a sign of good morals/being a decent guy who isn't THAT horny, and that she'd exit the story being that example. I was clearly very wrong lol
![[LIVE] MCHOICE & MINT AWARDS 2024 at TRUE ICON HALL, ICONSIAM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wMewUeT5nbY/mqdefault.jpg)
Rent a girlfriend somehow pulls off the monumental task of making incels go “heh, I would be a MUCH better boyfriend than the protagonist” and them being CORRECT.
Protag is so thoroughly pathetic that literally any human being on the planet can revel in not being as bad as him. Power fantasy, except instead of saying "I could be that guy", they can all say "at least i'm not that guy".
the MC is God awful in this Anime
haha never thought of it that way.
I'd be a better boyfriend, and I'm not even a boy
@@virginiafernandez6846 neither am I.
You know a romance anime is bad when the male protagonist ending up with any of the females is the worst case scenario
you know it's bad when I'm using SAO as a positive example
@@mothersbasement lmfao
@@mothersbasement 🤣 true
I wrote my own comment, but this, is what I had such a hard time to say!
@@mothersbasement pls roast death note,it’s finally time
Mami's tragic backstory is that she used to date that guy. That putts all the Straw Hat pirates backstories to shame
Jfc I don't know who to feel worse for, that was Mami's backstory but it's gonna be main girl's future
That image of superheroes bowing to a doctor but it’s the Straw Hats bowing to Mami.
😭😭😭
She used to date a guy, probably got pregnant, the guy got scared off by her dad and then she had a miss carriage
nico robin can't even compare
Crackpot theory: The only reason why the heartdisease girl wants to be with protag-kun is because he is so boring that being close to him doesn't make her heart race enough to make her pass out.
Literally staying single does the same thing. Better.
@@maybe4549 Nah, she might actually find happiness and self-fulfillment in doing that 😔
Buhahaha!!! Good theory 🤣
Personally I'd rather be single than stay with someone incompatible and boring. But I don't have heart disease and I really understand how lonely one can get so she might just need to be with someone even if it's a horrible loser because it's better than dying alone.
this is my headcanon now
It's literally the watered down fantasy of getting an insanely hot sex worker to truly fall in love with you cuz you're just that special or some shit.
It's basically reiji projecting himself to the story. Especially if you've seen his chizuru posts. He's delusional.
But you're not only special! You're a *criminal* too! Truly a great show.
given you're special on being a creep, a stalker, an incel, a reject and an asshole. but you're the MC so who cares, Chizuru/Ruka/Mami still want your D and/or are in love with you somehow. I like how some similar RL creeps watch this and think there's a chance they'll live the same sort of experience one day if they just copy Kazuya.
I recently read a book like that, only it then turned into a buddy cop story about disabling nuclear bombs with Nikola Tesla to preserve the Cold War status quo. It was awesome.
@@mirusasaki Either that or trolling, which is just as likely.
"All of her villain behavior only counts as villain behavior if you believe Kazuya Kinoshida deserves to be happy, and I abolutely, categorically do not." This might be my new favorite burn.
I would add "Each member of the harem certainly do deserve to be happy. Just not with him".
@@lucinae8510 Ruka, does go a bit too far imo.
@@rapaly Even then, she's still a better person than Kazuya. She honestly just needs to take a break.
@@MrGksarathy Ruka kidnaps him to a hotel, force kiss him, stalks him to the point of joining him at work, blackmailed both him and Chizuru. Did Kazuya did any of those?
@@lucinae8510 No, Ruka belongs into a prison cell...
nothing will ever beat the time where people thought the cucking chapter was a shitpost because of how unbelievable it was
I still cant believe that it was even allowed to release
How did this manga even get written? I know mangakas are sometimes crazy but this is just a new level of insanity. Fun fact for all writers: absurdity =/= good.
Chapter 218 (for the people who don't know)
Edit:
This is rent a girlfriend manga and read the replies to know what happens
To be honest I thought “There’s no way this shit is real” and then laughing my ass off at the whole absurdity. What the hell are the author, editor and magazine thinking or even trying to accomplish? This series is shit there’s no point in hiding it or in trying to defend it.
Guts theme plays
Fun fact: I have a heart condition similar to Ruka's, where if my heart beats too fast I could get arrhythmia and might actually die (it's killed a few people in my family, actually!) Because of this I've been taking medication that slows my heartrate somewhat my whole life.
I'm saying all this because, in my personal experience, having my heart beat fast is actually a deeply unpleasant experience! It's not a good sensation, and having it happen immediately makes me want to down some atenolol to get it to stop!
So Ruka's motivation is even more bullshit than you think it is!
Yes, but I suspect that because Ruka deeply desires to be normal, she might be weathering any effect from her increased heart rate trying it to be her new normal, that's unhealthy and might be reducing her life expectancy with that.
@@schris3 yeah but like... my heart rate doesn't feel abnormal. Like I don't "feel" like I have a slow heart, anymore than the average person "feels" like they have a normal heart. She's functionally made up this problem about needing her heart to beat at a "normal" speed, when she could live an entirely normal life with a slower heartrate and never even notice it as long as she doesn't, like, do too much strenuous exercise in one sitting.
best comment
@@tinyetoile5503 Ruka said that she is unable to get thrills from the amusement park and get the heart flutters from getting a crush, so she's acting like a girl that wants what she can't get, but doesn't really need to if she really thought about it.
That may be your experience, but I had a girlfriend who had a mitral valve prolapse (took digoxin to slow her heart) and she was a bit of a thrill-seeker. She definitely liked doing things that got her heart racing for a short time and took it close to the edge more than a few times, it was just part of her personality.
Mami's tragic backstory is that she was Kazuya's ex. No, seriously, imagine what sort of gaslighting horrors she must have gone through willingly dating that asshole!
But given her personality, I would not be surprised if his personality is her fault...
They truly deserved eachother.
Don't blame Mami for that. Kazuya is a huge pos
I'm not trying to be rude but if you read mamis backstory in the manga her shit attitude would make much more sense, not that it made much sense to begin with
Mami would've been a great villain if Kazuya weren't an asshole.
My mom watched this and asked if we're all aware that this is the anime equivalent of a bad soap opera. I told her that no, only about half the viewing audience knows that, and that's a generous estimate.
Domestic Girlfriend, Rent-A-Girlfriend and a whole lot of Shoujo manga would fit perfectly in Mexican public television if producers made them live-action and gave the characters stupidly long and flowery names.
LMAO
I mean, a few episodes in, and I quipped to my wife : "This feels like a cheesy k-drama."
Never finished the season, moved on to Stranger Things. Will probably finish it in my alone time, just to root for Mami.
@@BknMoonStudios they hilariously aren’t even shoujo. Those are shounen. Not all romance is shoujo.
@@BknMoonStudios Neither of the manga you listed are shoujo. Shoujo means that the target audience of the series are girls. These ain't being marketed towards girls.
@@BknMoonStudios The difference is telenovelas are actually fun
The joy of rent a girlfriend is not watching it, but watching everyone else roast it to the ground.
Geoff neither made a roast nor did he burn the characters, my man straight up commited arson,
and I approve
Agreed, I love this show and I've never seen it.
It be making me giggle, smiling and shit
@@warphole0369 Geoff skipped the roast, took out the golden shovel and just buried it HHH style
Lol, people aren't even complaining about the anime, they're complaining about the manga they spent like 5 years reading week after week. If you binge read it it's fine although gets a little boring at the 'move-making' arc, but after that it's fine. One of the most popular series in Japan.
Can we really call Chizuru a Tsundere? I think her reactions to Kazuya's bullshit are, given the circumstances and severity, very light and level headed.
she's actually unbelievably patient and reasonable, almost to a fault lmao
It’s like when a female character gets angry at someone literally kidnapping her and then gets called “feisty” like it’s not the most normal reaction in the world.
@@cokebear1337 Weird reaction. Did you kidnap somebody? Be honest 😂
To be honest I thought the Chizuru and Kazuya you were talking about were the guys from King of Fighters and Tekken, and I thought “wait when did those two crossover?”, but you’re probably talking about different characters.
As you can see I do not know much anime, I just get these videos in my recommendations.
@@deadbeatnetwork9792this anime character sharing a name with Kazuya Mishima is a crime man 😂
Imagine writing a male character who’s defining character trait is “gets erections sometimes” like holly shit maybe next chapter they’ll reveal he breaths air. Wait you’re telling me this guy eats food? What a plot twist!
I'll definitely add all of those in my Twitter bio.
bro you ever stop and think you're asking too much out of a freaking COMIC BOOK?! can't wait to hear what you have to say about Garfield and Marmaduke.
@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 Holy shit dude, who peed in your cereal this morning? People are allowed to talk about things, even if it's not what YOU like or agree with. What a snowflake
his defining character is "getting an erection while having an NTR wet dream".
O
M
G
XD
if you were to make chizuru the protag the story could easily become some kind of horror story about this woman being harassed and forced to interact with this guy who can ruin her life if she pisses him off enough and she can't get him out of her life. her slowly falling in love with him would just add to the phycological horror of the thing.
Wow that would make this show better than the shit show that it is.
i would rather watch that
@@ryu9192 Havent seen this normie trash, will continue to not pay attention to it
@@thoticcusprime9309 the show right?
Stockholm syndrome
“I hate this. I hate him. I do not hate Gfuel. I still hate this. I hate her. She’s okay. Everyone hates her. Tbh you can do better.”
These chapter titles are such a mood.
At least GFuel is safe, lol.
I'd sooner overdose on gfuel than watch this dumpster fire.
W g fuel, L rent a gf
@@doppoi7241 But what if gf stood for gfuel? 😳
It’s like how Degenerocity said “A grandma with broken knees moves faster than the plot in Rent a Girlfriend”
my grandma walk faster than RAG plot and she got cremated 2 decade ago
holy shit it makes the one piece anime pacing look like a bullet train
@@Kneecaptainwell shid every other anime is going the speed of light then
That "astounding ability to convince its audience that a major plot development is right around the corner" bit hit me hard as someone dating a person hyperfixating on Miraculous Ladybug
It's a great way to describe what kept me hooked on Bleach.
Man, i used to hyperfixate on miraculous till season 2. After like 3 seasons and 2 movies, there literally ended up being no development between the two main leads, and they have pretty much no chemistry now. Such a waste for an interesting romantic premise..
Honestly I don't even think the community is still deluding itself
The way you called me out, had to take a second to recover.
@@yashika9744 Tbh there are the few episodes. And in my perspective I’m in and I have to get through, but I would never recommend anyone else come in.
I refuse to watch one single minute of season 2 of Rent-a-Girlfriend but I will gladly watch 36 minutes of it being roasted.
Do yourself a favor and just watch episode 4 and skip the rest. It’s the only passable episode of the entire series in my opinion. I’d give that episode a 5 or 6 out of 10 surprisingly, and this is coming from someone who absolutely DESPISES the show. It was wholesome and actually somewhat funny.
Amen brother
Your first mistake was watching it at all
That me but basically the whole series. Haven't seen any episode and refuse to watch it but a roast is fine.
your loss lol
I really feel like the whole "girl has a condition where her heartbeat is too slow so she wants to find someone to make it beat fast with love" would be a cute idea in a better series
Yep, but she has short hair.
She would work well in a shoujo manga or anime, too bad she exists in this one.
@@joyadeceren
What's wrong with having short hair...? What?
@@bobtheball5384 It's a joke that short haired girls will never end up with protag kun
@@rinar3562
Ohh I was not aware of that, thank you.
Honestly it would make more sense if the reason Mami is trying to break up Kazuya and Chizuru isn’t out of jealousy, but out of genuine concern of Chizuru being subjected to a relationship with somebody like Kazuya
waiting for some yuri W
Lesbian fetishization for the win
Idk if you're just not capable of thought but Mizuhara is the one benefitting from this relationship
@@locnguyen-ke2zw How about no
Mami, is in fact, a true hero.
Not gonna lie, Mami and Kazuya were the perfect couple. Both pieces of absolute human garbage, to the point that the only good thing they could do would be to remove one another from the dating market. Like two missiles intercepting one another before they reach their targets.
That last statement was beautifully poetic.
Except mami isn't human garbage and everything she does is justified bc everyone else in the show is human garbage
@@durteedan7836 no no no, sad backstory or not Mami is still trash but she's still somehow better than kazuya
@@r3ktfox146 bro I don't give a shit about her back story she still does nothing wrong
@@durteedan7836 What happened to you in the past does not justify your actions in the present. Stop justifying people being trash
just so you know, Mijayima Reiji (the author of this trainwreck) just started a second series about seven siblings who discover they're not actually siblings after being together their entire lives
i am not joking, oh my God i wish i was
And they all had superpowers, an abusive dad, a robotic mum and they're trying to stop the end of the world, I've seen this one before.
@@redbonky3447 Wait i can't tell if you're serious or not
That just sounds like fire emblem fates
Let me guess, the brothers and sisters have been secretly harboring incest feelings for each other and now that they find out they're not related, they end up smooching each other? (I'm not gonna even check if I'm right, I just can't bring myself to do it).
If there's a way to make incest even creepier, this manga-ka (doujinshi hack) will do it. Lay it on the ground and slowly back away.
For now on, instead of saying “still a better love story than twilight” let’s say “still a better love story than rent a gf”
both
Honestly, it's still a better love story than Twilight. That's how fucked up Twilight is.
thank you for this i will now use it often
@@cortster12 But hey, at least Edward, Bella, and Jacob are iconic characters and a lot of people enjoy them being on screen
@@cortster12 Twilight series made me cringe less than this series, so unfortunately I'd say Rent A Girlfriend is an even worse love story.
Huh. I suddenly want to write a story about a girl doing everything she can to ruin her ex boyfriends life because he is, in fact, a certified piece of crap and she doesn’t want him to get his claws into a weaker girl who doesn’t have the gumption to walk away like she did.
I would suggest you start the story from his point of view, to make her seem extreme, and then slowly peel back the layers of how horrible he is.
I don't know the ramifications of gaslighting your audience like that, but it could be interesting.
@@vxicepickxv Good idea
@@SitaraAleu let us know if you ever get around writing that. I wanna read it too!
I guess Cross Days attempts to do that. The antagonist is a literal sociopathic womanizer
@@DakotaofRaptors I really like the Cross Days manga and how it protrays Makoto as a sociopath
Love is actually utterly alien to Kazuya, and Rental Kanojo is his journey to begin to understand it. Mizuhara’s narrative role is to teach him what it takes to love someone. Ruka’s narrative role is to teach him the weight of being loved. Sumi’s narrative role is to give Kazuya the opportunity to practice how to love and how to be loved, since neither know what they’re doing. Mami, meanwhile, is a reflection of his original, destructively self-centered view of love.
… is what I would say about a better-written story.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 please i have to know, when and what did you edit?
That would have been really clever to read! I wish we got that! Instead…we get this.
That’s how I’d fix the story
Truly like this comment here 👍
Had us in the first half ngl
A couple of people noted that unlike Kazuya, Bakarina is a genuinely kind person who cares a lot about her loved ones, even though she's dumb like a bag of rocks. So basically her brain is tiny, but her heart is huge.
Bakarina is dumb, but she has honest empathy and compassion for people that isn't motivated by her own self interests. A concept Kazuya would never even begin to understand.
Bakarina is dumb of ass, but pure of heart
I'd love another season of villianess at some point
@@Alorso_ same but i heard it's getting a film soon
So she is a Dinosaur then.
You know this story would've been a killer if it was about Kazuya being a unreliable narrator and about Mami being the actual hero, who after being with him discovered what a douche-canoe he is, and is now trying to save other girls, and expose him to the world.
I often also argued that it could've been a solid cautionary romantic tale if, since Kazuya x Chorizo are prolly one of the worst romantic chemistry pairings I've seen in anime/manga - it's like the "how not to approach romance" path. For her, guess it's not so bad altho' she also becomes a rather poor char the later the manga goes in she looks more like a marketing + stalling tool for the manga than an actual char - it's like if you take the "girls with walls up" trope, and see how far can you stretch it, as even 245 chz in, Chiz is still in "trying to figure out my feelings" mode.
That's why Kazuya's potential would be greater, however, he's also kept in a statis for the most part so no dice.
On the other hand, it could've also worked better if it focused mainly on the comedy IMO, cause the parts where the series takes itself seriously are downright eyeball rolling. Unfortunately , the comedy also quickly gets repetitive as it basically involves Kaz inner monologues simping chiz.
So here we are...
If I ever continue this anime, I will consider Mami the protagonist. This season looks packed tho, and I am still catching up with the last one (just bought HiDive, so Im watching Demon Girl and Executioner Girl, also Koming, which was the first thing I saw after buying it).
Imagine how cool it would be if at the end he realizes by himself that he needs to change and doesn't end up with anyone. just like a self improvement ending or something.
@@travisbergen2807 Bro that'd be pretty awesome, kinda like as a cautionary romance story. Kinda same for Chizuru tbh since the char is just MID the later the manga drags, she basically sits there undecided how she feels while looking pretty (she's like the author main cash cow + plot staller).
But unfortunately, it just ain't gonna happen, the story glorifies his simping, lmao.
@@travisbergen2807 Kinda like... very similar to Toradora? Just more depressing?
The real plot hole is how any guy this desperate for love and affection would ever deny it from anyone. Particularly someone like Ruka.
Rofl
To be fair he clearly changed his stake to being in love with Mizuha
@@NoRockinMansLand I agree… and to be perfectly honest.. I actually enjoyed watching the first 2 seasons and would love to see them finish it. While I share many of the criticisms and frustrations I also had a desire to keep watching.
Not one of my favorite anime but there was a certain charm about it that kept me coming back. I don’t share the absolute hate that many people have for it.
@@adamsanders2270 and, I find it kind of odd to see how this was so despised when it is genuinely entertaining. A story doesn't have to be good for it to be entertaining either
@@NoRockinMansLand For sure. Also the characters don’t have to be perfect examples to be good characters either. But I agree. I feel like the anime watching community does this a ton. They get mad because huge numbers of people love Naruto and Demon Slayer. They talk about how they are overrated, but if people like them then I don’t see what the issue is.
It does seem to be a move on the internet to attack things people like very harshly because it will draw attention from the haters and fanatics alike!
This series is instantly redeemed if the finale is Mami and Kazuya getting back together and just having the most toxic hellish relationship that leads to a dramatic School Days style gorefest or a long, grey life filled with gaslighting, manipulation and alcoholism. All while occasionally cutting to the other girls who went and lived normal lives and found true happiness and love for themselves.
It won't, but I can dream.
"While some sins cannot be forgiven, effort to redeem oneself is never wasted"
-Dimitri
I'd be okay with a gorefest.
All the characters are pretty shitty, ESPECIALLY Kazuya.
That would be a pretty great plot twist.
I kind of want to write this now
@@RikkiLove0317 *Palpatine voice* Do it.
This show gets even harder to watch when you realize that it could have ended the moment Ruka confessed to Kazuya. While her feelings are completely unjustified, Kazuya would have gotten the real girlfriend he so desperately wants to show to his grandmother (not to mention a girlfriend who he admits is cute in several of the episodes). But apparently the guy who is enough of a sociopath to constantly lie to his own grandmother and all of his friends all while guilt tripping and sabotaging Chizuru's work and future career is too much of a nice guy to hurt his bro's pride by dating a girl whom said bro never even truly dated. Stupid.
And he wants to get with the girl he has the least in common with
I feel like even *that* would have been a better thing for the anime to do. Like make Kazuya some immature sociopath who's doing this all just for his own sake. That would have been even somewhat better than whatever the hell this show is right now.
You don’t know how happy I am to see this comment. And this video. Cause Kazuya is a fukin…a fukin…I do not have the words for how much I hate this guy and his stupid ass ways of thinking. Dude literally came to the conclusion he’s in love with a chick who REPEATEDLY said she’s not interested. Tsundere or not. You’d think that he’d be happy she’s throwing her delicate-too-good-for-Kazuya cheeks at this shit head protagonist but no he’d rather chase girls who don’t what him. God this guy makes my brain melt. This show makes me want to punch my fucking tv. I COULDN’T EVEN GET PAST THE FIRST SEASON. If I ever was to be tortured just being forced to watch this show would be enough to make me want to fuckin kill myself.
Which is why I hardly watch romance Anime because they always copy the same Pyramid. Modern Shoujo is a headache but Shonen is still entertaining
@@bluubandette8871 other way around, shounen romance is ass and shoujo, while unrealistic, is still 10x better
"He's very dense as fuck, even more so than most harem protagonists"
Bakarina: Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be LEGENDARY
Even Bakarina pales in comparison to his density. No light can escape it
"Don't flatter yourself." "You're not even a player."
The difference is that Bakarina actually has decent love interests who respect her as a human being.
At this point, we might as well use Harem Protagonist as a new unit of measurement for density. Which one to base it off is a question for another day. Personally, I vote Ichika
"Amateurs..."
Katarina: what?
Ichika Orimura: AMATEURS
I love how the fans despise Mami for doing the toxic shit male protags do and are excused for - Lies, obsession, extreme selfishness, manipulation, disrespecting boundaries. Like yeah, the stuff she's doing IS bad, I'm glad you finally noticed!
When Hawaiians happened the whole game flipped. Mami is top tier (Along with Sumi). Kazuya shows signs that he has the capacity to improve but the writing won't let him. When Chizuru ran from the confession and followed the arc with her "investigation" she's now even worse than Kazuya.
Literally no though? Have you really been around fans of anime? Cause literally everyone complains about those types of things all the time, they don't mention them because they've gotten unfortunately begrudgingly used to it but actually bring it up?
You're gonna get a whole rant about all the stuff they do in anime.
Like the fanservice with minor characters, that's a big one that folks desperately try to ignore but will go off about if you ask directly.
Maybe you have encountered some people who genuinely excuse those things and those folks are bad but not representative of the whole fanbase. You cannot generalize a group bigger than 30 because after that you become factually wrong about whatever stereotype of that fandom you're trying to perpetuate.
Trying to explain double standards to an average 16 year old weeb is like trying to teach a 6 month old how to use the toilet.
Actually I hate it all the time, especially a lot of male characters in shoujo manga (Boys over Flowers, Diabolik lovers etc). Especially those that get into the rapey stuff.
This would probably mean something if I watched romance or shoujo anime, fortunately I don't.
Wait; so Mami and Kazuya are both manipulative assholes? So... aren't they perfect for each other?
Mami is great and she isn't wrong about him
Absolutely! They totally deserve to be a couple and end up ridding the world of the other for the sake of humanity!
Two positives make a negative, two positives make a negative...
Yes and no. Mainly because if they did get together I am positive he would just disappear suddenly with the only evidence of his being the one town drunk seeing Mami driving out to pier late one night with a large wrapped up something over her shoulder. And he would deserve it
@@obbyg4ming905 That's not how that works.
The fact that omega-bitch Mami has unironically become the favorite character for many readers should tell you how much people despise Kazuya and Chizuru.
If you haven't read the last 10 chapters, here's a fun spoiler: she kissed Kazuya to save face, she then ghosted him for literally 3 whole months, and when they reunite Kazuya gives her money as if nothing happened, thus setting their relationship back to zero. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.
Chizuru has become as much of a walking colostomy bag as Kazuya.
I genuinely hope Mami succeeds at destroying them both.
LMAO
I really didn’t think they could roll it back after he audibly said “I love Chizuru” in front of everyone but I severely underestimated akasaka
@@mothersbasement Akasaka is the Kaguya-sama mangaka. You mean Reiji Miyajima. But I got what you mean. lol On a different part of spectrum with writing.
@@mothersbasement Fix your mistake quick before they see it!!!
Too much of Mother's Basement brain is occupied by Kaguya, he cant even remember Rent-a-GF's author
It has been a trip watching Miami's appreciation rise and Chizuru's fall as the weeks go on. Ironically the more screentime Mami gets the more toothless she gets, because god forbid her threats of progress actually resolve.
"Still a better love story than Rent-A-Girlfriend" needs to be a thing. Somebody better start meme-ing the f' out of that.
The time may come sooner than you think, when the same mangaka releases "Shiunji-ke no Kodomotachi". I have a feeling memes will be had if it is either worse or better!
It may never get the same memetic spread as "Better story than Twilight" because not all watches or reads that as much as Twilight. Unless we can get Robert Pattinson to say what a terrible book this is like he did with Twilight...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 I wont say this dub anime name ever for a meme lmao.
How can i meme-ing it? if i didn't even care to watch it :v
So basically Twilight but nobody defended it to begin with (there was even a joke about it in the video)
Nahh I reached out to an old male friend from Elementary school, and I found out he was showing my pictures to people at his school telling them I was his girlfriend. I only found out because he showed my best friends boyfriend not knowing we knew each other. Rent-a-Girlfriend was his favorite anime, surprise surprise 😂
💀💀💀
When I was at college, we had one friend that talked a lot about her girlfriend. A LOT. We asked him when he was going to bring her or show us a pic. He finally agreed and showed us a picture: it was a cutout from a magazine. He alleged she was a model, so that was the picture he had at hand. Next week, he brought a real picture from a totally different girl, saying he was just joking before and this was his real girlfriend. Turns out it was the pic of a friend's sister which we later learnt he had stolen during a party at our friend's house.
We avoided him like the plague for the rest of the semester.
One guy at a former job bragged he had two gfs, her "official" gf and me. He even had the guts to say that in public, with even our boss present. I laughed at his face and called him "dead pp". Thankfully I was fired not long after that.
YIKES
In the Words of Leopold Fitz: WHAT THE HELL?!
“She’s only a villain if you believe kazuya deserves to be happy, which he does not.”
This made me laugh so hard
Edit: fixed the name lol
It's Kazuya not Kaguya tho
@@akiraigarashi2874 Kazuya Mishima does deserve to be happy
Kaguya is an overpowered bitch
@@akiraigarashi2874 His name is Reiji Miyajima
The only good thing Kazuya has done, is fantasized about his girlfriend getting banged so we got borderline official hentai of her getting the wedding sausage.
@@shizachan8421 yall crazy he's tagiro
My favourite part is when Kazuya says "It's rentin' time!"
Truly one of the anime ever
I’ll be surprised if he hasn’t spent 1 rentillion dollars on her yet.
YOOOOOOOOOOO
Then he rents all over the bad guys!
Stand back, I am beginning to Rent!
The most moving scene in all anime? Definately top 3
I mean shoot, Mami's "villainy" could even be seen in a light that maybe she just is trying to save Chizuru from a toxic relationship you know? Helping someone else dodge a bullet.
based and true
And the reason she’s mean to the girls is to make them run away from kazuya, so she can continue to punish him for daring to spread his malignant plague of a personality onto other people, and they can move on with their lives.
@@ackleackenkaker8508 Honestly, he's such a terrible person. Mami sucks but he's so toxic it sucks the soul out of me to watch him exist
@@ackleackenkaker8508 Mami is indeed not the villain but she is the hero 💯
So in a way Villain Protagonist, Hero Antagonist.
"All of her villain behaviour only counts as villain behaviour if you believe Kazuya Kinoshita deserves to be happy. And I absolutely, categorically do not"
Of all the languages im the world and you chose to speak STRAIGHT FACTS
Damn right 😂
Or it could be because she is just a shitty person, that's a land point.
I would like to add that when Kazuya saves Ruka, who one of his friends likes, his reason for doing so is because that friend would be upset if she got hurt...and the scene is played like it's charming instead of implying that Kazuya wouldn't save a girl just because preventing someone from getting hurt is the decent thing to do
It's weird how many romance stories can't/don't distinguish between "X loves Y _sooo_ much!" and "X doesn't care about anyone except Y".
@@timothymclean Facts. I hate seeing that last one (and it's ridiculously common) because that makes the character one dimensional and pretty much cheapens any other meaningful relationships they should have. I love a good romance, but a strong friendship and/or familial bond being developed along side it almost always elevates a story in my eyes. That's probably why Horimiya and Kaguya-Sama are my two favorite romance anime/media period.
You shouldn't put your life in danger for every random broad you meet. Men aren't women's sacrificial pawns.
@@goatskin4487 The only person who gendered the sentiment of "you should save someone when you can just because that's right to do" is you, dude. Andrea says "girl" one time but follows that up with "because preventing SOMEONE from getting hurt . . ." which is objectively gender neutral. Kazuya is a dickhead not because he won't lay his life on the line for women (you calling them broads is very telling) but because he bases who he will or will not help on their relation to him/his friends. This is shitty. If you CAN help someone you SHOULD help someone.
@@goatskin4487 That's not what I said, and nobody thinks that. I was just pointing out that the reason he saved her wasn't to keep her from getting hurt, but to keep his friend from getting upset that she got hurt. It implies that he wouldn't have helped her if not for his friend having a crush on her. I was saying that the scene acted like that was charming, when it really just showed that even when he saves someone, he's not a good or even decent person
You know, what angers me the most is that Rent-A-Girlfriend could have done something neat. The story could have figuratively and literally been about slapping Kazuya in the face and telling him to stop being such a f*cking incel, but it decided not to and just forget about a potentially interesting premise.
At first, I was under the mistaken impression that that was where the story was going, when Chizuru give him the tongue lashing he so richly deserved. Alas, I had my hopes dashed shortly thereafter.
It really seemed like that, the perfect premise for it. But unlike SAO, this isn't a matter of the show blowing it's good premise with bad writing, it's a matter of it going another direction. We're just not the target audience, so I can't be that mad.
@@craigyeah1052 perhaps a *Rent A Girlfriend: Progressive* is in order?
It should have gone full Re Zero
@@DianaCHewitt yeah that was my expectation at first. That reminds me, when are we getting the next rezero season.
Oh lord, we've reached a point where a show is so bad that Jeff is genuninely reccomending Arifureta over it. Next thing I gotta do is go look out of my window to see if there are pigs flying outside.
At least Arifureta has comparatively solid writing and shamelessly revels in being a teenage power fantasy, so I can see Geoff respecting and shitting at it at the same time.
This... I can't even.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Arifureta SOMEHOW got better by the last half of the second season.
Next he'll recommend master of ragnarok.
Arifureta is at least fun, and if you can ignore some of the obscene *edge,* arifureta can be extremely fun.
You can't ignore RentaGF, it's *just* unfun to watch. Almost as bad as Eromanga Sensei in how much you just *cannot* ignore.
arifureta is charming because it isn't ashamed of itself. Its clear that everyone involved knows that its an edgy harem wish fulfilment series. So rather than pretend that the show is deep it revels in it. So if you watch it knowing this. the show is honestly fun. Especially season 2 that had far less production issues.
I watched this show, and the whole time I kept feeling like "surely it will get...somewhere...good or bad I don't care just go somewhere". Then I watched love is war and was like "oh...oh shit rent a girlfriend was really terrible." Also thanks for introducing me to love is war that is one of my favorites now.
Here's to hoping Tale of a Girl and Delinquent gets an anime adaptation
Kaguya goes to sh*t in the 2nd half anyway.
cap@@cokebear1337
because of Love is War I decided to pursue my masters :)
I watched the first couple of episodes of rent-a-girlfriend and felt the urge to go outside and actually be a productive member of society
this should be the reaction of any sane person
Ok, that does it. Not gonna come even close to that shit.
I'm glad I haven't watched this show, I'd simply die inside.
That is, unironically, the one redeeming factor of this show 😂
Same
Mami will always be my favorite character not JUST because she's out to "ruin" Kazuya, but because she's literally the only one moving the plot at times.
Which makes her the main reason this series even continues...
So what I’m hearing is she’s the main character
@@isaactrockman4417 Absolutely. Her backstory is more compelling than Kazuyas AND Chizurus as well
Yea but i don't want the plot moved at all
@@isaactrockman4417 Main characters don't push the story. Villains do.
This show/manga is so bad that Geoff deadass used SAO to reinforce his point. H o l y S h i t .
@Hidetaka Miyazaki Sanest League of legends player
@Hidetaka Miyazaki you cant quit, no one ever gets to leave.
😳
As someone said elsewhere in the comments, if you made Chizuru the protagonist, this wouldn't be too far off from the horror anime movie Perfect Blue.
That thought also made me wonder, could most bad romance stories become psychological horror/Stockholm syndrome stories with a protagonist exchange?
Yeah, they could, and tbh they should have gone with Chizuru being the main protag instead. But considering the author, i dont think she will ever be lol🤣
Well, they'd also need a different author who recognized how fucked-up the relationship was. But in principle, yeah.
Yes. Basically every popular "guy gets the girl in the end" story is just horror from the woman's perspective.
@@SinHurrNot all of them, but a good deal of them would be.
The thing is, you change the context or perspective of pretty much any truely romantic line, and it can go from romantic, to utterly f***ing horrific. "Wherever you go, however far they take you, I will find you," said by your lover when you are forced to be apart is intensely intimate and sweet. The same thing said by an abuser is absolutely terrifying. I've also heard of the Danny Devito test. If you change the male lead to Danny Devito, i.e. make him not traditionally hot, and the romance breaks down, then it was never romantic to begin with. A million ways it can be done.
This manga is a 50 chapter manga being streched to 300 chapters and you really feel it. the "plot" is like a car driving around in a roundabout but unsure what exit to take
Yeah thing is, cars run out of fuel and they eventually STOP.
@@nangsanbhalangblah333 this is the generic simulator one
@@nangsanbhalangblah333well, let's just say when they stop is when the mangaka dies or the manga just discontinues.
I hate the fact that he got attached and feels entitled to a girl who's literal job description is to actually be a make belief gf to other guys. He then gets jealous. Wtf?
Apperantly, that is the number one issue with the actual job in Japan
@@GameBreaker1055 Wuuuuut? How so?
@@yasserblidi9729 You are questioning how in a job about filling affection-based role in someone's life could lead to the client starting to develop feelings towards them?
@@GameBreaker1055 ohh. That's what you meant. Okay while it's understandable, it only makes things worse. From sad and somewhat pathetic to downright predatory. I actually wasn't aware there was an actual real life business bout being someone's romantic partner. More lewd stuff yes. This no. Still, you read the fine print, you came for the same reason as the others, you have no right to be mad at anyone but yourself when it's that clear cut. On the other hand if it wasn't made clear that they weren't exclusive, that's just outright evil.
@@yasserblidi9729 I get the concept from the point of view as hiring someone to fill for certain events, like hiring one for a party to not go alone and I can even get behind the idea of simulating the experience for unexperienced people to learn from.
But obviously, the "stand in for the real thing" is the most common reason.
And given things like the idol-culture in Japan it is no surprise really...
The thing that always bugs me the MOST about shows like Rent-a-Girlfriend is that they often present a protagonist so horribly shitty and terrible at the beginning that you IMMEDIATELY assume that this is the start of some sort of character growth arc. Like, going from Garbage to God status.
But more often than not, shows/manga like these REPEATEDLY demonstrate that either the character's traits are simple plot devices keeping the "meat" of the plot going through what are supposed to be his personality/running jokes/etc. OR his traits are framed as misunderstood and that those around him should either sympathize or outright reward him for being himself and/or doing even the bare minimum of human decency.
That's why I gave up on this show on the second to last episode of the first season. Because I just couldn't see how Kazuya could be redeemed after the trail of garbage and fire he left in his wake with everyone around him. I waited for him to realize his flaws and start learning to change and grow, but it just never came. The only opinion that's changed to me about this show since then is how I feel about Mami (thanks to you, haha).
SAME! I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop like "surely all of this dude's shitty behavior is going to come back and destroy him and he'll get cathartically punished and then maybe reform his ways..."
But then when they introduced blue ribbon girl it became clear that they were just trying to give him a harem, and I fled in utter disgust.
It's the first anime where I don't wan the best girl to win. Kazuya is not a prize worth winning.
I find re:zero is my favorite of that zero to hero type beat
Mami was right to dump him
And the author did something even worse in the manga, he gave us hope by giving Kazuya a sort of redemption arc that was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
It's crazy to think that if the story was about Mami trying to ruin this dudes life, it could actually be pretty entertaining
Then it could end like School Days, but with him killing her cause she couldn’t get over it.
@@cokebear1337😂😂
At least, perhaps unintentionally, Kazuya serves as the perfect template for lonely boys interested in romance to look at and say "Wow, that guy is exactly how I should try NOT to be like!"
Except the series doesn't paint him in that light or point out his wrongdoings so anyone who's impressionable will think that if they act like Kazuya then they get girls like Chizuru, Ruka, Sumi and Mami.
This series is the literal worst thing you can choose to show someone
@@KiraNightV Eh, that's fair.
@@KiraNightVwho cares, people watch for enjoyment nor to learn how to get females lmao
@@NoRockinMansLand I wasn't the one who made that point, I was just replying
I’ll never forgive the anime community for letting this series get as big as it did
We needed the rule34, more people know about this. The more porn.
If the show didnt get as big as it was we may have seen an actual ending to this manga by now without the author milking it for views
Though the first season was actually good cause we all thought kazuya will grow as a character yada yad then guess what nothing happened
One guy i think which increased the popularity is gigguk
@@navanithkrishnan7177 tho at the time there was still hope for this train wreck that is the story, to have a satisfying or interesting plot twist or real character growth, all hope was lost on s2 unfortunately, and it's not even in the middle, plus the writing got worse
@@eddusii ya ya thats what i was saying
This community did this to itself.
I like Geoff's conclusion that while Kazuya is the "main character", Mami is the "protagonist" who actually seems to go through the Monomyth plot outline.
She has a call to adventure (seeing Kazuya happy), a conflict (figuring out why he's so happy, and ruining it) and an antagonist (the other girls around Kazuya). Reminds me of Thanos in Infinity War. Good stories happen when the villain is the protagonist
Only that Thanos believed he was saving the universe.
Mami does it for shits and giggles
@@GameBreaker1055 well, the villain isn't always the antagonist. As the video stated, it's possible that she's acting out her anger about another trauma on him or some other deeper character motivation.
@@brandondavidson4085 You could say the same about Kazuya. We don't know if he did not have a traumatic event in his past that caused him to become such a coward.
@@GameBreaker1055 someone else pointed out that when you see how Kazuya's grandmother talks to him, she has never once said anything good about him. Just constantly telling him he's not in the same league as the women who surround him in the story. I liked the first season because the characters had some complexity (any more than none is a low bar to clear), but the story seems like a waste of so much potential. You could make Kazuya learn from his mistakes, give Mami a sympathetic motivation, etc
@@brandondavidson4085 See, you can easily come up with excuses for both of them.
Mami might striaght up be unable to actually feel proper attatchment to anyone and despises anyone who does because of it and Kazuya might have such an inferiority complext because of how his own family always talks down to him that he can't stand the idea of making mistakes that could proof their opinion right, therefore tries to hide them with lies.
But that is not what the show does or the author wants to write. He just wants Kazuya to be a joke of a man, the girls psychotic and the elders to be annoying.
I know this starts by saying good romcom give you a new lens to understand and learn about the complex nature of love, but Kazuya lowkey reminded me an important lesson:
Kazuya teaches you that self hate and “woe is me” attitude is ultimately a path that is destructive to others, because you manipulate with pity and lack social awareness because you become too self centred.
It lowkey takes balls for a series to start with a this despicable of a character, and if it was pulled off correctly the shift from hating to supporting the MC would be incredibly satisfying. But to do that you need to actually have the character redeem himself, which this series decided not to do literally at all.
Worst thing is that the mangaka wrote this recognition into the story (I guess by accident) in the movie production arc and then reverted it immediately afterwards. He nearly redeemed Kazuya finally only for every single piece of character development to get hit by a bus and all his deepening relationships were immediately dropped. In that arc he had unique character traits, they disappeared, he was actually seeking a greater goal then sex, that disappeared, he wasn't even seeking to make Chizuru like him, he was purely doing it for her benefit, and that too disappeared. It could've been a phenomenal enough evolution of a loser character to stop being a loser and Reiji royally screwed it up because he needs hundreds of more chapters then 200. And not only does the series after that point revert literally every good thing Kazuya had going on, including that he wasn't even being a slave to his lust in that arc either, but it was ensured that he would only ever fake out the audience afterwards with false confessions that never go anywhere and are immediately and routinely retracted.
That's basically Subaru from Re: Zero, self-entitled loser chock with self-pity getting beaten into the dirt and coming out a better person for it.
Woe is me is valid because lots of ppl get fucked over in this world. Most dont proceed to use that to manipulate others they just want things to improve ofc
So in summary, a man two seconds from becoming head mod of r/incel falls in love with a girl who’s out of his league and stalks her all while being stalked by a sick girl. Under all this is his ex’s plot for karmic revenge. Huh, this show would be funny if they author knew how shitty their characters were 🤣
My man, the fact that you put the r/ in this comment so precisely and well done deserves the GOAT of all cookies.
In all of this, a cute girl with a legit psychological problem is thrown on the stage just to raise the waifu count, than disappears into the shadow realm.
Yes, I'm still bitter about Sumi. She was good.
@@RickSolus Nope, she is not. Just cute shy girl with good design
This show has so much r/niceguy stuff as well
29:50 "Definitely a lying, manipulative snake. But so is fucking Kazuya. The only difference is he manipulates people with pity instead of lust."
"You act like prey, but you're a predator. You use pity to lure in your victims."
Yeah, it's Jerry meets Pretty Woman.
Honestly makes me think of one of the characters from the Monogotari series
Also what is missing is.
"Kazuya does it because he is a moron and a coward, while Mami does it because the suffering of other gets her off."
Isn’t that second part from Rick and morty
This guy is a ducking Jerry
It’s a brilliant strategy, really. Make being an incel so aggressively cringe that viewers looking for a harem anime feel the need to go out and talk to a woman out of fear of being like the MC. Shinzo Abe would be proud.
Or just drain their bank accounts and time so they have less opportunity to make the rest of our lives worse.
Don't Be Like This: The Anime
Just to note. Abe is no longer the Prime Minister. Fumio Kishida is.
Rip
LOOOOOL I never thought about it like this this is genius
"life is just too short for rent a girlfriend" is a quote to live by
tbh my biggest problem with rent a girlfriend is im not at all convinced any of them would like him even as a person let alone as a romantic interest
hes done like five nice things in his entire life and they don't really counterbalance the other eight hundred times hes been a huge ass
The girls in Rent a Girlfriend are made by the creator to fall in love with Kazuya for awful and bad taste. Let's be real.. Kazuya is not a good character/person and doesn't deserve a girlfriend but the creator made this to insert himself in it and give some kind of terrible romance story and make the audience believe this stuff can work
Well, realistically: good and/or beautiful women CAN have terrible taste in men. It happens irl. No one likes to see it, but I'm saying that this isn't an impossible scenario.
@@Saxjon Good point... still I hate it when it happens to good women but not bad women. I saw a video where this chick believe that thugs from jail will make a good partner and she found out the hard way
@@Saxjon sure but just because something isn't impossible doesn't make it good writing
Oh God. It just dawned on me...
The video helped me understand my frustration better. Kazuya's a damn Jerry. He pretends to be prey, but really he's a predator. Only instead of a keen hunting instinct, he lures his targets with pity and how pathetic he is, and when they enter his orbit he keeps them around by exploiting their nurturing side and taking little, frustrating bites that will ultimately kill them, but the bites are so small they mostly just think it's irritating but tolerable. Unaware that his poison is blowly building up inside them.
Honestly, he's worse than Jerry. Jerry is a bit meek but he has done good things, especially original Jerry.
@@KrytenKoro I'm inclined to agree. Jerry, for all his flaws, steps up in life and death situations.
Kazuya's just....ughh.
sorry for not getting something but... who is Jerry? for a little while i just thought you hated everyone named jerry or something ʼ:D
Ngl I thought you were referring to Jerry from Tom and Jerry for a sec there, but otherwise I whole heartedly agree.
Everything about Kazuya feels scummy and unmanly.
He doesn't respect Chizuru enough to be honest with his feelings. He doesn't respect her enough to take an honest shot. He doesn't respect her enough to protect her from people making wrong presumptions about her knowing full well how weird their relationship started. He doesn't respect her enough at all to still have the kinds of thoughts he has about her despite getting to know her. He's known her for a good full year and a half. He knows she's not that kind of girl. He knows about her grandma, her dreams, and why she got into the rentalkanojo business in the first place. And yet? He still thinks she's the kind of girl who'd get with guys for stupid reasons and make a point out of how they're so much better than him just to feed into his pathetic self-loathing. Oh, of course he's turned on by this too. Just to _really_ rub it in.
Hell, he doesn't respect himself enough to get away from Mami after already hearing her smacktalk him in front of other people. The bloody simp even backed Mami up of all people when Chizuru batted to defend him.
So why, oh why, should I root for him getting a happy ending?
"The concept of a character using their rental girlfriend gig as a way to combat their social anxiety is probably the most interesting thing the series does with its core concept."
It's also the description of at least half a dozen hostesses, sex-workers, and other side characters from the Yakuza series! So even the most interesting character dynamic is done better multiple times elsewhere.
a rental girlfriend is basically a far lower quality and cheaper escort.
Damn, I was literally going to comment the same thing but then I saw yours. Not even I have original ideas :(
Yakuza is THE chad japanese series
Kiryu also most definitely respects women more.
@@TheBonkleFox He definitely has a much better understanding of the boundaries of the transactions inherent to the relationship. Although a lot of the girls end up liking him anyways because Kiryu is just build different.
Sumi is a sweetheart and Centimeter is a bop. Those are the only things about this anime that even qualify as decent.
Someone will call you a creep for calling a girl like Sumi a sweetheart
Rent-A-Girlfriend is the literary equivalent of spinning around in an office chair, maybe you enjoy it for a moment but then you realize you haven't gone anywhere, your head hurts and you're sick to your stomach
As a person how can spin for hours and not get even disorientated afterwards I feel insulted that you'd compare something potentially fun with no drawbacks to Rent-A-Girlfriend.
But at least after you've healed, you would spin on a office chair again, I don't think anyone can heal from watching Rent-A-Girlfriend.
@@samsemy6825 Listen: it may be the lamest superpower ever, but you've still got one, so you need to account for the rest of us lacking it.
@@RGC_animation Never watched the anime, but I'm reading the manga. Not everything needs to be a 10/10 PERFECT OMG KAMI MANGA THIS CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE OMGOMGOMG. It's just kind of amusing to read. Sometimes I want to just read something that is middle of the road kinda generic but amusing. I don't wanna spend my whole manga reading time having my soul torn apart by Shuuzou Ooshimi or Satoshi Mizukami.
Then again maybe I'm just biased I absolutely LOVE B Grade soap opera material. I'm basically everyone's latina grandma trapped in the body of a 30 year old white man oh well.
Never considered the Mami-Kazuya thing as a “devil torturing the damned” dynamic.
The schadenfreude is now immaculate 👌
So glad to see people like mami for genuinely seeing how kazuya is a disgusting human being, I thought everyone hated her.
Mami kinda based
@@peskyanteater5267 Mami is actually insane. She broke up with the guy she should forget about him instead of trying to "fix" his life.
@@takanara7 na she the best character in the show. Based.
yeah she's definitely the best character in the series. She may be a bitch, yes, but she's a bitch i can definitely cheer for. especially in the events of the manga
@@takanara7 I haven't read or seen this series. But a woman breaking up with a man because she doesn't want to be with him, but trying to get him to improve himself because she still wants what's best for him is not exactly uncommon.
I wouldn't be surprised if the way such a scenario was presented in a romcom anime caused her to look insane, but the same can be said for damn near anything
This whole show is like those parts in The Stanley Parable where you keep walking in circles and the rooms keep repeating until the narrator decides to let you go somewhere
Geoff rabidly cheering on Mami systematically destroying this idiot’s entire existence like the one dude at a WWE event cheering on Triple H as he picks up the sledgehammer is not something I knew I needed in my life.
Underrated comment. The fact that over 200 chapters in she gets more of a backstory than main girl Chizuru AND has to carry all the stereotypical jealous ex villainy of the series just makes me want to root for her more.
The Mami relationship does remind me of Triple H and Steph in the Attitude Era.
@@tully6648 X2
@@meko98743 so when is Mami going to drug Kazuya and marry him while he's tripping balls?
We need to start accepting that sometimes you can recognise a character is a villain and what their doing in pursuit of their goals is wrong, but still enjoy them because of good and engaging writing...but also sometimes you can recognise a character is a villain, what their doing in pursuit of their goals is wrong and root for them anyway because of the utter contempt you have the writing and the story's values.
Yes, it was wrong for that character to kick that puppy or blow up the orphanage, but I can also recognise when the writer puts that in there because they couldn't actually convince you that the villain's opposition to the hero is wrong and had to throw in an undefendable but pointless villainous act to kill their support.
And if a kicked puppy or dead orphans...or bullied waifu's is what it takes, then sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of standing up to bad writing.
I mean Rent a Girlfriend could have had some REALLY interesting themes, such as:
How does monetary exchange affect love?
How do we deal with someone we love not reciprocating our feelings?
When does friendship become love?
How do we deal with jealousy and regret in love?
1 could have been the Rental girlfriend part, 2 could have been Chisaru and Ruka, 3 could have been Sumi, and 4 could have been Mami
But no. We got this trash instead.
How does monetary exchange affect love?
Are you fucking serious? 5000 years of history hasn't shown you yet? Money and Love can't be mixed! ffs!!!!
Because the writer just want to indulge in his own fantasies. I agree with you the theme could have been really interesting!
@@madgainz7871 Also likely because the likes of Bleach, Naruto and One Piece also dragged over hundreds or even thousands of chapters long and made their creators a ton of money over the course of years, so the writer wanted to do the same thing delusionally thinking he'd be able to replicate their success easily and also become stinking rich off of dragging the plot out the same way. But neglecting to even realize that a rom-com is definitely not suited to the kind of story that CAN or even SHOULD have hundreds of chapters to resolve like a fantasy adventure can.
As someone said in another comment thread, if the anime we got was told from Chizuru's POV, it would basically be the horror movie Perfect Blue (minus the dissociative identity disorder).
@@madgainz7871 Honestly my opinion on all this is you guys are expecting way too much out of a freaking COMIC BOOK. Can't wait to see Mother's Basement's SCATHING ROAST of Marmaduke and Garfield.
I'm so happy you mentioned Tenchi. There's a reason why Tenchi has a large woman fan base decades later, because while they all wanted the most bland man in the world, Tenchi was an actual good guy and hero, and his harem had personalities and goals outside being with him. Haven't seen a harem anime like it, since. It's sad 2022 anime girls are still portrayed as objects with no personality or goals outside "want to be with self-insert boy character!".
I honestly came here expecting MB to praise this popular incel anime. I was happily surprised.
I've never heard of Tenchi, probably because of my dislike for harem genre (especially sexualized fanservice/eroge). But your description piqued my interest. Can you tell me more about it? I want to know whether or not it's a good anime in general, or if it can even rivals masterpieces like Kaguya, Steins;gate or AoT
@@MinhNguyen.37 It is pretty old as Anime goes. If you dislike harem anime you will probably not like it much.
Ah, Tenchi was one of my favorites growing up (I’m 32 so that should tell you how old this anime is). It was fun, but also absolutely bonkers in the way that 90s anime often was. At one point the little sister of one of the main 2 female leads somberly tells the story of how their home planet was attacked, causing her to fall to her death. But then the goddess Tsunami, who is a tree and also a spaceship, assimilated with Sasami’s body. So Sasami is “sorta dead but not really.” None of the characters ever brings this up again.
I honestly miss the old Tenchi series. Besides…two, maybe three girls, everyone else was happy to just be able to live in his house rent free and goof off! They had their own lives and it was refreshing!
@@MinhNguyen.37 Tenchi is like the grand father of Harem/conedy but it's totally a harem comedy but it does have a real plot. So the plot goes Goof ball high schooler accidently wakes up the demon sealed beneath this tree in his grandfather's temple only it turns out the demon is a super crazy space pirate lady. Better description it's Lilo and Stitch but lilo is the surfer boy, stich is a cat girl, jumba is a loli, plekily and cobra are hot blondes, Nani is an old man, random space princess love interest and little sister and Gantu is an elf with an armada.
considering the fantasies Kazuya has, Mami might be the perfect woman for him, she can give him exactly the things he wants
Rofl
This show teaches THE WORST lessons to people about how dating works it blows my mind into fucking space. There is literally a moment like 150ish chapters in where Chizuru *actually says* "if he loves me... What can i do? I guess i have to accept his love."
And its presented as this sweet moment and not the stalker-browbeating-stockholm-syndrome that it is 🤡🤡🤡
Stockholm syndrome is when you actually fall in love with your kidnapper, this is just Chizuru accepting defeat in life..
@@tobiaswedin I'm thinking that was hyperbole to sell the point. Like calling the video a cold blooded murder of the show.
@@ArispeMatt I know that, I was just countering with my own point that the situation was even worse than what he depicted it as.
I haven't watch season 1 (nor do i plan to) or read the manga, but honestly the author had such an interesting premise that could go and send such an interesting message. Think about it, why does services like renting a girlfriend exist? (They really do exist btw in japan, along side renting a family or even places where you go just to spend time with somebody) 1 Word Loneliness, and this is a problem that's so prevalent and important to talk about not just in japan but also the world, although Japan has to deal with this like a lot. So imagine if this anime actually dealt with that, having the guy start out well... Like this and eventually growing to become more mature and a better person. You could do this with all the girls as well, like what made main girl start working as a rental gf? Is there some kinda trauma from a past relationship so that she looks at guys as essentially walking atms? Would her views of her work change by the end of the series? Because I have seen interviews of people working in the field because they feel genuinely good to accompany people and make them feel less alone, or with that mami chick, why is she so toxic? Is there anyway she can become a better person?
One way i see the story could've progress is if main guy doesn't end up with anyone. He's friends with all the girls but something always blocks them from having a romantic relationship aka there's a deal breaker from either his or the girl's side. They grow from these experiences to become better individuals, emphasis on Individual
@@tobiaswedin see here's the thing, Stockholm syndrome was literally made up by cops as a way to shut up the girls who were criticizing how they handled the kidnapping situation.
My friend thinks this is a top tier romance/harem anime. I simply cannot seem to convince him how bad it is. It’s like he’s been brainwashed
Some people seem naturally inclined to gather to and defend extremely terrible stories. I've never understood it. I can understand guilty pleasures, but it doesn't feel like a "true fan" if they can only see an idealized version of a work of fiction, rather than liking it for its actual merits.
Like, there's a few works I like that are terrible, but I either like them BECAUSE they're terrible or I like what parts of them AREN'T terrible to still acknowledge what parts of them ARE. I don't delude myself into pretending what's terrible about them doesn't exist.
Thinking someone with an opposing opinion to your own has to be brainwashed reflects more badly on yourself lmao. Lose the ego and argue in good faith.
Introduce him to a "good" one then (in the end its all subjective). I wasn't able to distinguish between "good" and "bad" anime until I consumed a lot of what I thought was "good" then watched something that was actually good. For me it was "My Romantic Teenage SNAFU." The most fulling romantic anime that related to the most because characters felt real, decisions had consequences, we saw progress and character development through them.
@@liveandletdie138 Agreed. "Oregairu" is on another level in the slice of life/romance genre. A great anime.
@@priestpega Man! I remember it was one of the first anime I watched back when you could find anime on TH-cam. When you just start out its typically all echi harem BS, its just what grabs you pre-teen/teen but even before I could appreciate it I still loved it. It went on a long hiatus, so much so that in the sea of other anime I forgot about. I remember seeing the trailer for the new season and everything just started rushing back, it left off on a sort of cliffhanger and something I had forgotten so long ago came back like I watched it the day before. I can sum up my satisfaction for that anime and what made it stand out among EVERY other one in its genre in two words, It delivered.
*_One of the best anime of all time. I cried when the MC Kazuya said: It's Rentin time!! & spend money to hire loser's girlfriend 😭🙏_*
When OnlyFans get an anime
I’m guessing your new to anime
Broo you have no idea!! When Kazuya said "Rent you fool!" And starts falling to fight the greater demons, I was crying, shivering, and bussin non-stop. What an anime of all time!!
@@boomz2526 OnlyFans is honest work. Not this.
Rent-a-Girlfriend is the most anime I've ever watched. Rent-a-Girlfriend truly has to be one of the anime released in 2022 so far.
Mami and Kazuya as Evil vs More Evil is actually so funny and yet interesting to think about, that shouldve been the actual premise of this whole thing instead of the misogynistic, nonsensical pile of trash it is
There's no doubt that her actions were evil, but i'm willing to make expception if they are done ti dipshit like Kazuya. Ngl, i was rooting for her the whole time 😅
“Muh soggy knee!”
Woke people are less than human. Kazuya sucks because he’s a simp, if he was like Andrew Tate the show would actually be interesting.
@@cokebear1337He'd be under arrest under credible suspicion of kidnapping and sex trafficking?
@@uberculex own that bozo.
@@cokebear1337 you sound triggered.
'That only counts as villain behavior if you believe Kazuya Kinoshita deserves to be happy..And I absolutely, categorically do NOT.' 😂.. Worth the half hr watch just for that line.
Rent a girlfriend's audience, at one long point in the manga, literally wanted the two protagonists to never end up with each other because their relationship has been so toxic. Nothing has been gained, no one has benefited, everyone has suffered, and Kazuya does not deserve anybody.
I still remember cries of a "Separation Arc" where they could see life without each other and try and grow a little bit as people. And then we actually got a separation "Arc" and it was the absolute worst couple of chapters in the entire manga, and that was saying something, LOL.
I could believe that would be the ideal ending.
Oh. Yeah. That. Ugh.
I'm now imagining a situation where the writers leverage this to keep the show popular forever. "Look, once the show starts losing popularity, we have to wrap it up and hook the two protagonists up, and you wouldn't want that, would you? Better watch the show forever to keep that from happening."
So the manga ended?
Wow. You know the relationship is bad when the fans--the FANS!--want them to break up.
"Mami is so incensed by the idea that a loser she dumped could somehow score a slam dunk on the rebound while she's busy doing himbo lay-ups" has shot right up to being one of my favorite Mother's Basementisms.
Ironically that was one of the only scenes I liked in the anime, his ex was BIG MAD!! Lol then he let her talk down to him and just walked away like a bitch and I was done
read that as “mother’s baptisms” and now i feel stupid
"How dare you hook up with someone hotter than me after I dumped your bitch ass!"
What makes Kazuya even worse is that he (even if unintentionally) is manipulating Chizuru into liking him by catching her in his lie and inserting himself into her life for years (despite the fact she is very against this) until she eventually breaks and just goes out with him.
You can tell that she just doesn’t like him as by chapter 280 or whatever we’re on now, she still only treats him barely like a friend and that’s only because she has known him for years
IT’s manipulation on many levels and it rubs me the wrong way
Before I knew anything about this series, I saw the spinoff series "Rent a (Really shy!) Girlfriend" at my local bookstore and gave it a chance. What a cute series! No guy characters in it, just about Sumi Sakurasawa trying to overcome her social anxiety by being a rental girlfriend, because her goal is to someday become an idol, and she can't do that if she can't talk to people. What a cute series! What a cute premise! Sumi seems like such a sweetie too! So I decided to check out the Rent-a-girlfriend anime out, which I didn't even realize had a male main character because he's definitely not shown in any promo material. And boy, not only was it bad, but it was really bad.
Anyway, feel free to read the sumi manga, I'm going to pretend the original series doesn't exist and keep reading girl only series.
the Sumi spinoff is all a fella needs.
Makes me wonder if Reiji actually writes it or there is a ghostwriter in there because you can’t write the garbage he does in the main series (and the new manga he created) and yet write a decent side manga too.
@@lenleon3699 I'm sure you can, you just take every trope and throw it at the wall to lure people in with the main series to actually make money and then you'd do the decent stuff in spin offs when the teens are already hooked on your series for the wish fulfillment. Not saying this is true of course, just a possible reason the writing might have changed dramatically between the two. Pumping out full series i'm sure a lot of people might just phone it in.
@@Parasolhyena As backwards as that sounds it also sounds eerily true. The amount of chapters they need to pump out to keep mainstream series alive ends up kind of draining the creativity of even the best of writers. So I would not doubt even a hack could drag out at least sone decent material when not being pressured by deadlines.
In the end, tight deadlines and stretching series beyond their natural ending points is what essentially turns even the best of mangas into garbage.
I hope it gets an anime adaption soon
Nothing could make this series any better than Chizuru "officially" dating Kazuya but still continuing her job as a rental girlfriend lol.
seems like he gets off on that though so it won't really negatively affect their relationship much lmao
not really. Even then, its still a whole shitshow
@@emopeterparker7 kazuha enjoys being cucked so probably...
True, I just thought it was a nice idea for her to be leading him on by still continuing her job even after a believable "confession"😩this guy sucks so bad
@@emopeterparker7 lmao ikr? That could be a really interesting angle for a rom-con. Dude has hot ass gf who cucks him but he gets off from it. Everybody wins I guess 😆
"He lies constantly..." You literally just described every single sitcom and the reason I stopped watching them back in the 90s. They're based on grown adults doing shit that we spend eighteen years trying to get children not to do and will eject people from our lives if they do it more than a couple of times.
Communication problems is one thing, but too many comedies are built on lies apparently being funny?
@@amandak.4246 same. But unlike me, my mom absolutely loves seeing characters in embarrassing situations. When i asked her if she ever felt secondhand embarrassment watching those shows, she said no. I dont know if im normal for not being able to watch those kinds of media, or if my mother is normal for loving seeing characters humiliated.
Think "social lying comedy" might be boomer humor at this point
@@puppeli I'd say you're the one who's normal, yes.
Perhaps at one point the goal was to send a message in an episode that lying is bad and has consequences, but serialized television doesn’t really allow for the growth needed for the lesson to stick. That means while each individual episode is saying ‘don’t lie! Lying will only make things worse.’ The season/entire show says ‘lying to people won’t cause any long term problems and people will always forgive you if you lie :)’
I hate kazuya, but chizuru is equally as guilty for letting it go on for 2 years and contributing to the lie
21:30 - I just realized Kazuya isn't only basically a *worse* Keitaro - because Keitaro wasn't the one who was the crap in Love Hina it was basically everyone around him - but he's also a Shittier *Scott Pilgrim* SOMEHOW
It feels wrong to even compare Kazuya to Scott. Scott's story is about two people recognizing their own shortcomings and making the choice to try and become better, even if just a little bit at a time, together. R-A-G is about two fundamentally terrible people dragging a bunch of uninvolved sex workers into their shit-slinging competition over a bad breakup. It's like character development in reverse.
@@wavewingman5993 My interpretation is that even while Mami is a shitty person, Kazuya is leagues worse because he never *had* to drag any of these girls into his shit in the first place - all while being an obnoxious sex pest and almost worse, a complete and utter coward who can't simply admit that he was lying.
@@KaiTenSatsuma To be fair, it's not like Mami is clear of blame either. From what I can tell, she's dragged the other girls into their shit before.
I read enough of this manga to get to "we have to pretend to be a couple for the sake of my grandma!" Thing. Clicked on 200 chapters later that shit was still going, f*cking unbelieavable
Visiting the kanokari discord after this video was a massive mistake, I've never seen a fandom take criticism worse than kanokari, most of the people commenting had yet to watch the video and decided the best response would be to make fun of Geoff's appearance and say that he "blew his load on kaguya and doesn't have time for rent a girlfriend." As someone who didn't mind the first season of the anime and has read the entire manga for some insane reason, I think this video perfectly summarises the blindingly obvious issues with this show. It's so dissappointing to me that these braindead people are incapable of taking criticism, or even, if they don't feel like doing that, just being respectful and actually picking apart the video with some kind of intelligence.
"Well, nobody's perfect" -Billy Wilder
I have no doubt plenty of people on that discord fucking hate and shit on the manga regularly. You just happened to encounter some of more rabid loyalists.
You should see the r/KanojoOkarishimasu sub. There's a lot of overlap between those who frequent that place and the discord. They write long essays about how every chapter has so much meaning and apologize for the character regression, lack of plot development, and generally how toxic and unhealthy the relationship between Kazuya and Chizuru is.
Considering the target audience and Geoff's pointing out that the ending theme even features the MC wanking it, it's so telling that the braindead members of that fandom default to idioms like "blew his load"...
I hate to assume becase being an anime fan doesn't mean you are incapable of being in relationships or things of the sort, but Id imagine a bunch of the guys there aren't actually lookers or in relationships themselves and while mothersbasement can have some shit opinions, he does/did his job pretty well. And he has a functional relationship supportive partner. I assume he isn't a an asshole to her. I think it is safe to assume on a fundamental level alot of those guys miss the point.
I've seen a defense of kazuya as a portrayal of a dumbass raised by his grandmother that sheltered and spoiled him so much he has no clue how relationships work (like most of the audience) which could be interesting but since there's no real exploration of this aspect of him like we see in subaru from re:zero for instance that shit is just boring
Agreed. The funny thing is, when I read that defense you mentioned: a clueless guy sheltered by his grandpa who doesn't understand relationships, the first person to pop into my head was Goro-kun from My Dress-Up Darling. And he's almost as beloved as Marin.
As you said, goes to show what a difference it makes when there's a good writer on-board.
@@sageoftruth The thing about Gojo is that he’s actually a conpitent guy. He’s awkward but he’s also kind, selfless, and passionate for the things he loves. He basically has his life in order, and has a solid grasp on what to do in the future. Marin opens his eyes to the wonders of being with others while he conversely helps Marin with her cosplays! They both have valid reasons to fall for one another, and having amazing chemistry with eachother helps a fuckton. Their relationship progression feels natural, and most importantly, healthy
You simply cannot say that about Kazuya and Chizuru
@@wisercupid6740 Ah, right, Gojo, not Goro. Oops. I thought that sounded off when I posted that name.
But yeah. It goes to show that growing up alone with grandpa is no excuse for the kind of person Kazuya became.
I guess one could still say that Kazuya just happened to be a worse person than Gojo, with worse chemistry with his partner, which wouldn't be saying much, given what a power couple Gojo and Marin are.
In the end, I guess it depends on what the Kazuya stans were hoping to prove by mentioning his backstory.
Reminds me of how I thought the protagonist of Ready Player One was SUPPOSED to be this dumb loser weirdo nerd and that the reader was supposed to either laugh at or pity him for how much his personality and life revolves around the plot device, that "Boy this guy sure does suck" was the intended reading and that he'd at literally any point learn at least a single lesson about anything, only to have it entirely unironically go "Actually this guy is and always was the ideal male form because he's just so awesome"
"It's supposed to be bad" can only work in very specific situations written by particularly skilled people, and only when those people seem to actually realize it's bad in the first place and can do something interesting with it.
@@wisercupid6740 Gojo actually has his own interests that define who he is as a character. Yeah he loves Marin and he loves helping her realize her passion by making clothes for her, but he has his own passions and goals as well with the hina dolls. That’s what separates him from Kazuya. Kazuya literally has no ambition in life besides getting a girlfriend and getting laid. He’s just floating on by in college on his family’s money with a family business that he doesn’t even really want to inherit but his grandma wants him to. The guy’s a total loser, which might be how the author wants to portray him as but god damn does it make him so unlikable. Like, he’s no different than guys who empty their wallets and simp over a stripper who “is sooo totally into him”. *hint they’re not*.
the thing that really gets me is how PRETTY all of the art is and how GOOD the animation is!! i wish i could do that, but it's stuck with this story and it kills me
There's soo many artist (even r34) who are artistic and the plot is degenerate...
Honestly, in a vacuum, Ruka's sad backstory concept sounds neat.
A character who desperately wants to feel something, even feeling alienated from their family because they consider them to be a fragile thing who shouldn't even attempt/aspire to feel things like that, hears about a certain thing (love in Ruka's case) and decides to give it a shot, not getting it until an inciting incident makes them go "OH... so that's why everyone loses their head over this" and vows to explore this new aspect of their life.
PROBLEM IS, said inciting incident is meeting a piece of scum so trashy Bondrewd and Shou Tucker deserve "dad of the year" awards by comparison, and instead of "aww how cute" i'm "girl why this waste of oxygen instead of every other option on the planet".
I really hope i get to see the concept behind Ruka on another show, with characters that are not like the ones from this show.
Also Mami hate is unjustified because as it turns out, Kazuya deserves all the shitty treatment he's received
look up a manga called "What Happens Inside The Dungeon". not the main but the bff of her has a similar issue tho.
tldr; she just can not emotionally emotion anything, thus feels nothing. a dude is smitten with her, asks her out, but the relationship is bluntly one sided, even when they get physically intimate. then the guy finally breaks up with her, she STILL feels nothing until she borrows something from her sister and only then does it finally click and she bawls like a baby. i won't explain what the thing is as it's goofy and not PG-13, but even while the manga is a giant lewd joke at times, it's got some seriously deep moments and that's just one of them.
Not to mention, even you denote Kazuya "deserving" it. He keeps telling her "no" and she keeps deciding that that is irrelevant; going so far as to provide chizuru with a ripped condom and LYING about having sex with him
I hate them both. Equally.
@@whatteamwildcats4033 oh yeah, Ruka is a really bad person too, she doesnt deserve to get what she wants either.
Was just talking about the base concept of thr backstory, but you're completely right
@@sebastianchavez1225 ngl, her forcing herself on kazuya is kazuya's fault for not looking back and giving her a proper answer and just 'holding' her without any thought. Nothing that's good happens because of kazuya, its the author forcing kazuya to do so. Every bad thing is because of kazuya.
I thought the "we must pretend to be engaged for my grandma's health" was an ok starting excuse to bring the two main characters together, but I was shocked to see that about 120 chapters later it was still going, it was not just a silly starting point but the whole thing
And it's still ongoing 240 chapters in, because the mangaka can't think of any other reason to keep them together.
Fuck it, Grandma's best girl.
As someone who enjoyed the Love Hina manga growing up, I will say this: Keitaro was at least actively trying to improve himself. He worked his ass off to try and get into a good college, albeit for a very romcom reason. He studied constantly, and got tutoring from the girls so he could improve his test scores, rather than so he could just be close enough to perv on them.
Kazuya isn't trying to be any better than what he starts as. He just wants to be a loser "with a hot girlfriend".
I may be misremembering, but wasn't Keitaro a case of a male protagonist who had a libido, but wasn't a perv? It's been ages since I saw/read Love Hina, but I seem to recall that Keitaro could acknowledge and recognize his own interest in women, but he never perved on girls. Maybe a reflexive glance at cleavage if a woman drew attention to it, but he never did it intentionally, instead having a fairly resonsible control over his sex drive. Again, please correct me if this isn't accurate.
@@Cyberweasel89 That's correct, buuuut the writer IS kind of a perv. So the net result was the same, except it was always "accidents". That kept happening. A lot.
But yeah, the actual character wasn't a creep at all, he was just written by someone who wanted to make the honry.
While I do agree with the assessment of Kazuya being a terrible person I don't think it's exactly fair to compare him to a series with dynamic character arcs. Kazuya isn't meant to change though I'd argue the problem with that is the audience is supposed to watch this awful person be rewarded for being awful unironically .
@@Muu0934 Kazuya desperately needs to change. Then meet a whole new cast of characters who know nothing of his pathetic past.
True. Him thinking he is gonna keep chizuru is outstanding to me
The most annoying part of this anime is the fact that I as a viewer WANT him to be better, want him to improve as both a person and character, but Christ he's so insufferable, and even the actions he takes to help Chizuru with her acting all have ulterior motives to help him feel useful to her... More so, just working for the sake of financial supporting her is so shallow and stupid, how can she even allow him to do that to himself? Instead of being a kind and normal individual and just supporting her as a friend emotionally and with showing support for her goals, he's basically bribing her to continue putting up with his BS.
Kazuma (Konosuba) - Great character because he's expected to be a total jerk, but he's a jerk that genuinely cares about the misfits around him.
Kaguya (Love is War) - Great character because she wants to be the vulnerable damsel, but everyone around expects her to be the cool, level-headed beauty.
Kazuya (Rent-a-Girlfriend) - To compare him to trash would be an insult to trash.
in the books kazuma effectively drop kicked himself in the face to spite someone who pissed off his least favorite party member. Rogs protag shouldn’t even be in the same conversation.
Kazuya (Tekken) - Throws his father into a volcano.
You should have used Miyuki or Ishigami as the best male character
You can have a jerk protagonist in a harem setting in an anime called “Trapped in a Dating Sim” (I’m being for real) and still have him likeable
@@Abbaschand based
"She is Kazuya's righteous karmic reward for the untold suffering that he has inflicted on everyone who was ever foolish enough to care about him or his stupid go-nowhere love story just by being himself." - This is a perfect way to talk about Mami.
Imagine if the story decided to focus on her pursuit.
Kind of like a Happy Sugar Life scenario.
"For more efficiency please hire an assasin" said the guy who spoiled the series end.
Watching trash anime because you like it? Nope.
Watching trash anime because it is funny? Nope.
Watching trash anime because Mothers Basement made a video on it? Yes
Don’t watch this one. I have a list of better ones at the end
@@mothersbasement thanks for telling me where the list is.
I was going to unironically ask if there was a list of good romance anime after I saw the intro lol.
@@mothersbasement Goddamn, you know, I couldnt make it through ep 3 of this jizz filled dumpster fire, and that comment just validated all of my distaste so perfectly. Thank you.
@@mothersbasement I've already watched all those...and Ai Yori Aoshi, DearS, Amagami SS, All Seasons of Da Capo, Golden Time, Girlfriend Girlfriend, Henneko, Hensuki, Kare Kano, If her Flag Breaks....god, what I have been wasting my life on.
Oh well, time to catch up on Overlord.
the 7 witches anime i just finished that one it was pretty good honestly it ended pretty fast idk if theres more or if theres a manga i just watch anime
Mami is the protagonist, antihero and hero we need to destroy Kazuya.
Everytime I try and watch this show I just can't overcome the violent urge to shove the main character's head in a blender
This is the minimum requirement to be my friend now
I can complete understand the sentiment and feel the same urge... I have given up on this anime
"Well, nobody's perfect" - Billy Wilder
This series is almost everything I hate in these kinds of shows. Terrible MC, subpar love interests, complete lack of chemistry, terrible pacing, so little character growth that as you pointed out, you can jump around the chapters and honestly miss little to nothing. If this was just a slice of life comedy where there won't actually be an ending, then I wouldn't feel so disappointed lol
Its as if the writers never were in a real relationship and have no clue about human interaction. A lot of anime/manga is total garbage and only propped by incel wimps. This show is the epitome of shit writing.
All we can say about Kazuya is that he loves his Grandma, He whines a lot, is an asshole and likes Fish.
Me: …So he’s Adam Sandler?
Insult to Adam
At least Adam Sandler is funny... occasionally.
Adam Sandler can act. Kazuya likes to be cucked
What’s it like seeing the Matrix code behind reality?
I initially thought Kazuya didn't want to date Ruka, a long hanging fruit high schooler who was obsessed with him, as a sign of good morals/being a decent guy who isn't THAT horny, and that she'd exit the story being that example. I was clearly very wrong lol
Why are you wrong
@@NoRockinMansLand is this a genuine question?