A while back I was looking for a new anime to watch. I have a pretty large Watch List on Crunchyroll because I add things on a whim, but I tend to use the old Last In, First Out methodology. So I’m always watching stuff I just recently added and shows further back in the list get forgotten. This time around I decided to go the END of my Watch List and pick something.

I’ve been “learning” Japanese on Duolingo for about 10 months now, and I find watching anime helps keep me motivated to stick with that. After 315 days of learning, I know almost NO Japanese. I’m still learning to parse the language; it is still a challenge for me to figure out where one word ends and the next begins. Learning what the words actually mean is a whole ‘nother level of difficulty! Of course in anime characters tend to speak even faster than they do in my Duolingo lessons but I still feel like, on some subconscious level, watching anime is helping me. Or maybe I’m just justifying sitting around watching TV. But when I DO pick out a word or phrase, I get pretty excited. The other day, for the first time, I caught a change between the spoken dialog and written. The spoken referred to someone playing a game with their younger sister while the sub-title said they were playing with a friend. I was ecstatic! LOL

And just to complete the circle, I got the idea that I wanted to learn Japanese decades ago with the goal being able to play Japanese video games and watch anime that hadn’t been translated. Back then there was a lot less translating stuff to English, at least officially. Of course today everything gets translated but I still had a hankering to learn it, plus I’ve heard learning a new language is good for staving off old-man-brain so finally, almost a year ago, I got started.

Anyway, way off topic. So I scrolled to the end of my watch list and just past the series I’ve completed was Rent-A-Girlfriend. I have no recollection of how it got added as it definitely isn’t in my normal wheelhouse. I was honestly a little hesitant because I was worried it was some kind of soft core hentai. (I’m sure there’s a word for soft core hentai but I don’t know what it is.) But it wasn’t. Mostly.

I don’t know if renting girlfriends is a real thing in Japan. I’m guessing it is. The idea (based on this anime at least) is that you’re basically hiring someone to be your date for the day. I guess we’d call them escorts. But the dates are just that: dates. No fooling around after. No going home with anyone. It’s a way to pay to have some charming company for an afternoon or evening. At least that’s what I gathered from this show. Could be a complete fabrication, I haven’t done the research.

Anyway, when the series starts out, 20-something college student Kazuya has been dumped by his first real girlfriend. To cheer himself up he rents Mizuhara who of course is beautiful, intelligent and classy. At the end of the date she holds his hand and he thinks she has fallen for him. Then he looks up her profile and all her other dates are sharing how great it was that she held their hand at the end of the date. Kazuya gets mad and gives her a bad review. But of course he rents her again. Through a series of hijinks, both of the fake-couple’s families meet the pair and assume they are actual boyfriend and girlfriend, and from there they keep up the facade so as not to disappoint anyone.

To make matters worse, it turns out the two go to the same school. And just to stretch credibility even further.. it turns out they are next door neighbors! What are the odds? “Off the clock” Mizuhara is very different from “girlfriend” Mizuhara and Kazuya likes the real her even better, it seems. By now they’ve gone on so many dates there’s a whole bunch of people who think they’re a real couple and they struggle to keep their secret. This leads to more women entering the scene. The ex gets jealous, they encounter another rental girlfriend who falls for Kazuya and blackmails him into dating her, and a few more are picked up along the way. I guess this is why it is tagged as a “Harem” show but really he for the most part (he IS still a horny 20-something) just has eyes for Mizuhara.

I really enjoyed this one. It was often funny, it was often sweet. At times it was a little sad, and yes, at times it was a little dirty. Most of the dirty stuff happens in Kazuya’s imagination and as someone who once upon a time was a 20 year old ruled by his hormones, I could relate to a lot of his thoughts, and so I found them funny. For example he’ll accidentally get a glance down a character’s blouse and he’ll quickly look away while in his head he’ll be screaming at himself because he can’t get an imagined naked image of her out of his mind. It never goes too far though and outwardly he is a gentleman. Just like I always was as I suddenly found a cloud or something super fascinating while the little devil on my shoulder urged me to sneak another peek.

The biggest issue I had was that Kazuya is so much his own worst enemy. He is always over-thinking things and that leads him to always say or do the absolute worst thing. I’d get frustrated with him fairly often, though I dunno, maybe that is part of why the show hooked me: “Will he EVER learn?” 🙂

There are currently three seasons and I’ve read there’s another coming next year. So, spoiler, there is no resolution by the end of season 3. But I found I was really rooting for the couple to get together. Maybe they will in season 4.

So yeah, no longer will I turn my nose up at anime labeled Romance, Harem, Shonen. Shonen in particular I generally avoid due to all the shouting. Kazuya mainly shouts inside his own head and it isn’t too bad.

I’m always a bit hesitant to recommend a TV show or a movie as I am definitely no critic and tend to be “easy” on this kind of media. And I’m even less of an expert on anime. But hey, if you have Crunchyroll and it sounds interesting, maybe give it a try. You might find it as endearing as I did. Though it CAN be a bit difficult to explain to your partner why you’re watching something with such a salacious title!