Rent-A-Girlfriend and the Appeal of Harem Anime

I love harem anime and manga. It’s a genre that I’ve found the most stories that I end up loving and thinking about constantly. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Sora no Otoshimono, Jitsu wa Watashi wa, Quintessential Quintuplets, the World God Only Knows, and of course, my favorite manga of all time, Nisekoi. However, despite my clear adoration for the genre, I feel that most of the community gives these stories a bad rep. They say harem series are nothing but wish fulfilment or are the equivalent of horse races to bet on who will eventually win in the end. A big part of this perception comes from a simple misunderstanding of the conventions of the stories or, in the case of people who believe these stories to be wish fulfillment, it stems from people believing the genre is best represented by ecchi series such as To-Love Ru or Highschool DxD and, not to deny those series of the meaning they have, these are not necessarily what the genre is. I mean, let’s put it this way. These types of ecchi harem series were so popular in the anime space that Rosario+Vampire’s anime adaptation emphasized these aspects where the manga is literally just a shounen action series (that you should read right now because it’s kinoooooo). Sure, the reader base tends to be younger and thus there will sometimes be a level of fanservice, I feel that devolving the genre to nothing more than a chance to get your rocks off is nothing but a false representation of this genre that I love. Now, you could watch my Nisekoi series of videos for how stories of this nature tend to carry themselves out, but I think there’s a series that just got adapted into an anime that I’ve recently come to adore that better shows what I mean when I say that the harem genre is incredible. So today, we’re talking about Kanojo, Okarishimasu, better known as Rent-A-Girlfriend, to show how it proves that there are great strengths present in the harem genre that few people seem to understand.

Rent-A-Girlfriend is pretty popular in the anime community as is, what with it having this fun OP and hot ladies, but I think its college setting and the more “mature” aspects seem to better rope people in. However, there is this level of immaturity present throughout the story, as represented by the immense amounts of jacking off and panty shots, that is important to consider when talking about what it’s going for. See, a big part of most harem series tends to be this aspect of maturing into your own person. When going from highschool and into adulthood, the world bombards you with choices. What college you should go to, what should your career be, where should you live and most importantly for the sake of discussion: who are you and what will you do when you find someone you love? That’s why, when I talk about harem series, I tend to point out that a good way to see what a harem series is trying to say is by looking at the personality and the dilemma of the main character. For Raku in Nisekoi, he’s this guy given a life that he’s not completely satisfied with and has things he wants to change but is unwilling to make the proper steps to get out of it. This is reflected in his crush for Onodera Kosaki, who he is on good terms with but isn’t willing to pull the trigger and risk his feelings to find out if she feels the same. When Chitoge comes along, he rejects everything about her but is forced to get to know her. Thus, you can see throughout the story of Nisekoi, there is this main theme of working to change yourself and that love is something you learn to take risks and change yourself for. In the case of Rent-A-Girlfriend, the fact that Kazuya is basically the anime protagonist embodiment of a redditor is no accident. It’s why so many of us are irritated by and, though hard to admit, relate to him in the cringiest ways. In no way is he supposed to be someone whose position we want to be in and oftentimes he’s in a situation many of us are already in. He’s a loser in college who doesn’t know what he wants to do and spends most of his time jacking off thinking about having a girlfriend. He’s not doing anything with his life but wants to do something. But he broke up with his ex and has lost all hope in his chances of finding love, so he turns to the rental girlfriend system in order to regain that feeling of what it’s like to have a girlfriend. In the process he meets Mizuhara Chizuru, the picture of the perfect girlfriend who is actually hiding who she really is. If you put two and two together, the theme of Rent-A-Girlfriend can be determined to be: in order to move forward from the person you are, maybe a rental is necessary to give a person a drive to pursue the real.

I want to take a second to look at the rental girlfriend system as it’s presented in the series, because I’ve seen people compare it to prostitution and thus “problematic,” but, while it’s certainly similar to compensated dating, which is an actual thing, the show presents this system as more akin to something like maid cafés. For those unsavvy on the particulars, a maid café is this place where the waitresses dress as maids and do things like this:

But while these girls are acting like these cutesy and doting maids, it’s nothing more than an act because there is a line of fiction and reality present in these cafés. It’s a healing experience for those who come to the maid café, a fantasy to get them through the day. But that line of fantasy and reality is so crucial to the balance that these maids and their clients experience. That girl is not the maid outside of her work. The rental girlfriend system is inherently a system of healing that’s meant to not be a replacement for a real girlfriend but to give a person the drive to pursue a real relationship by experiencing a taste of how it feels. It has rules in place to seperate that line, as the clients can’t interfere with their personal lives and are only allowed a certain amount of time to be together. In fact, they’re not allowed to be rented at all if these lines are crossed and reported to the agency. The problem arises for people unable to separate real from fake and this becomes a big conflict for Kazuya throughout the story. He shouts at her when he thinks she’s just manipulating him on their second date, he stalks her outside of work, and of course, begs her to help him outside of work hours that forms the biggest lie in the whole show that the conflict is built upon: telling his grandmother that they’re in a relationship for real. He can’t find that barrier and thus forces too much into Chizuru’s life.

The core of the story is this relationship between Chizuru and Kazuya, how the two of them learn about the line between real and fake and how they both come to learn that the feelings they have for each other are more than just that of a guy and his rental girlfriend. Notice how I said Kazuya and Chizuru. Not Kazuya and Ruka, not Kazuya and Sumi and not Kazuya and Mami. Definitely not. Ew, gross. This is an important detail because a big part of the misconception of harem series is this idea that “any girl can win” and thus it becomes a horse race to bet on one and watch the others lose. But I think, and this might come off as rude, that if you don’t realize who’s obviously going to win then I think you’re not understanding what’s going on. Most harem series have the main character be presented multiple choices, not because it’s to titillate the readers and give them waifus to latch onto, but for the sake of making you understand why the main character chooses who he does. It’s inherently not a realistic situation that the main character is being placed into and thus is a hyper exaggerated representation of the aspects of love that the main character and his eventual main love interest don’t understand, but highlight what they don’t want and what they need to improve on. It you don’t want mild spoilers for the following series:

Nisekoi

The World God Only Knows

be warned and skip to this timecode if needed.

Being that Nisekoi is a story inherently about the meaning of real love and the risk and change it requires to find it, it’s safe to assume that the characters in the story are at the service of this theme. Onodera is someone who can’t and arguably is too afraid of changing, Marika is someone whose bold and forceful nature pushes the other girls to make their move while she herself is someone who is forcing herself to be this way while hiding her true feelings, Tsugumi is this girl who wants to be feminine but is stuck acting like a guy because of her duties, so on and so on. They are not there to be used as possible endings, but rather choices that are there for the main character to see where he needs to go. They all serve to push him in the right direction. This is also the case for the most choice-based and visual novel focused harem series in the World God Only Knows. Katsuragi Keima is someone who loves visual novels because he can see the ending and can treat it all like a game. He doesn’t want to do these things with a real girl, as they don’t match his ideal. But throughout the course of being forced to earn the love of several tropey girls in real life, he realizes what he really wants isn’t some idealized waifu like in his game, but someone real like the feelings he sees throughout the course of the story. So clearly, the choice he makes is the character that best embodies the real. And considering that the fake and real as well as choices for one’s future are so central to Rent-A-Girlfriend, the same is true of its own story. Mami is a character who presents us with Kazuya’s cowardice and regret: his first girlfriend who he originally saw as his hope but crushed him when she used him. She’s his biggest fear that keeps him stuck in place, but what she does is act as the conflict that pushes Chizuru to find her feelings for Kazuya as well as for Kazuya to stop dwelling on the past and be brave enough to move forward and declare what he wants, which is why when he defends Chizuru in episode 3 it’s so great. In the end of where the anime adapted, this is more prominent when Mami threatens Chizuru’s livelihood as a rental girlfriend, which pushes Chizuru to stand her ground and defend Kazuya.

Ruka is a similar character function to Marika in Nisekoi, as both are extremely forceful and make the other characters act on their feelings, but what sticks out the most about Ruka are two major things: she’s younger than Kazuya and he’s not interested in her. I’ve seen people talk about how it’s weird and predatory to have Ruka be a highschooler and also be a rental girlfriend, but the fact that she’s an immature kid fits that need for growth. She throws herself at Kazuya because she wants something she never had before: a heart-racing experience. She basically begs for Kazuya to recognize her as an equal to Chizuru, yet Kazuya is only interested in that initial girl who pushed him to be a better person. What Ruka presents is this idea that Kazuya doesn’t desire a girl who just accepts him as is and is willing to throw herself at him for nothing, but someone who can inspire him and make him be a better person. He wants to mature, and this girl who only enables his immaturity is not going to be the one he ends up with. Her forceful nature also forces Chizuru to realize her feelings for Kazuya when she intrudes on the lie to Kazuya’s grandmother and questions the validity of not just their relationship but also the line between real and fake.

Even Sumi presents Kazuya a very interesting situation, because she wants to be a more confident person yet can’t even talk to people. She becomes a rental girlfriend to practice her assertiveness but still struggles, so Chizuru has Kazuya, who’s used to being with rental girlfriends, train Sumi to be more confident. Considering the redditor that he is, he is now forced to become more of a chad and be the dominant force: assert himself to then urge Sumi to follow in turn. 

Notice how every single one of these relationships point to one defined path: Mizuhara Chizuru…or rather the real girl Ichinose Chizuru behind the mask of the perfect girlfriend. It’s super fitting that she’s an actress, someone who has to hide her true feelings and clearly define a line between real and fake. But there is something interesting about that. In acting, even though you’re playing a role, you’re still expressing some level of true emotion. The implication is that for her to move forward, the line has to be crossed: from the fake to the real. And in the manga, OH BOY. Let’s just say I am looking forward to season 2 adapting some of the best material in the series.

These choices are there to develop Kazuya, Chizuru and their relationship. Just like in any shounen action series, the enemies the main character faces and the allies they make are there to develop them and their ideals: to grow them as people. We know Naruto is probably going to win, but what we want to see is how that changes him. We know that even in shows like Gurren Lagann, Simon is going to win, but it’s the fact that there’s a journey to win. The very idea that a harem series is just a horse race to bet on is like saying God of Highschool is a gamble to see who wins. We know who wins, but I wanna know why. And the fact that Rent-A-Girlfriend is so blatant about that makes it super clear for other harem series like it.

While I initially wasn’t feeling it as much at first, as I came to see more of the story play out (and also reading the manga), I grew to love the hell out of it. This series uses the full range of what harem stories are capable of, and if this is someone’s first experience and they like it, I hope it pushes them to watch more. It shows that there’s always more to it than a waifu menu but rather a story to watch two people change through their relationships and be pushed by others to come closer together, and I hope other people see that. I’ll definitely be making a full-on Rent-A-Girlfriend analysis in the future, so I hope you’re looking forward to that in the future.