This was a really good volume. Sumi and Kazuya shine and show a trememdous amount of heart. This felt more meaningful and moved the story forward quite a bit. We also get a good Mizuhara backstory. This volume did a lot to get the series back on track and exciting again. I was sad when this volume ended.
An aquarium date with Sumi and Kazuya should be a relatively straightforward event, but Kazuya and Sumi both have a lot on their minds. We see the origins of Mizuhara and her love of acting, plus a more-awkward-than-usual proposal from Kazuya.
Look, I would be the first to admit that my regular reviews of Rent-A-Girlfriend tend towards being pretty harsh, or Rant-A-Girlfriend you could say, and to say that I think that the series is uneven is a big understatement.
However, credit where it’s due - this is an above average instalment and I would even say it’s quite good. Not for nothing, this also swerves largely away from its roots as a harem story in favour of being thoughtful and reflective and focusing on character over gags.
Yes, there are some really out-of-place moments (Kazuya’s one panel fantasy of Mizuhara seems especially designed to reassure the thirstier reader that this still has sex on the brain), but they definitely seem placed more to check a box than for any good reason.
The pseudo-date with Sumi is very nice, full of sillier moments (but not too silly) and some costume changes you can see coming a mile off, but when it turns out that Kazuya has something weighing on his mind, the two share a real moment of genuine emotion, even as Sumi is sort-of getting her heart broken.
It’s the best Sumi has been, doing a great job as a shoulder for Kazuya to lean on in response to his own grief over Mizuhara’s misery regarding her grandmother. It’s a quiet moment in a series that tends to go broad and large and it is effective in its low-key nature. It hasn’t quite been given enough emphasis that Kazuya and Mizuhara have this one particular thing in common, honestly, so good work bringing it back.
The next arc is focused on Mizuhara in middle school, a grumpy urchin who thinks men are dumb and wishes are stupid (a realist, basically). Her grandfather turns out to be the lively one, but Mizuhara discovers her grandmother’s acting and wants to follow in her wake.
It’s a solid one-two punch with the previous chapter, which is completely focused on how much work Mizuhara puts into her acting activities and then this comes along to explain why and why she persists.
When her grandfather gets in an accident, Mizuhara learns that maybe not all dreams are stupid and having something to put your faith in isn’t the worst, even if that faith might only be rewarded in the smallest amount.
This then leads back to the present, where Kazuya comes up with a radical scheme/plan that might make it possible for Mizuhara to get on the big screen before her grandmother dies. It’s bold, and dumb, and very out of the box, but that’s kind of what makes it interesting.
With Kazuya finally figuring out that he’s dead weight, he decides to change himself instead and, while his pitch could use a little work, it’s at least a glimmer of hope and it even makes reference to what he’s studying in college (remember that!?). It’s certainly got a lot of potential for a strong story arc and that’s as good as you can hope for.
No, it’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s blatant how manipulative this writing is. C’mon, we get an emotionally wrenching death that’s basically the prelude to grandmother getting killed for maximum drama later (prove me wrong, manga!).
However, it also delivers a believable reason for Kazuya to keep meeting with Mizuhara outside of their financial arrangement and his earnestness and the effort he’s putting in are actually good qualities that would help sell the two as a couple down the road. Certainly more than anything else the series has done.
4 stars - sure, this has any number of ways where it could go flying off the rails, especially given the track record so far, but I’m not going to deny that I read this, enjoyed it, and thought it was fairly strong the whole way through. Justly rewarded.
This volume! It brought tears to my eyes.... it was so emotion and just really well done! I'm still in shock over it! Sumi and Kazuya bonding at the end of the date was beautiful! They just let each other feel all the emotions and supported one another! Ah! Just so touching and heartfelt! Then getting to learn more about Chizuru's (heartbreaking) past.... I teared up so much reading about her Grandpa and how strongly he felt about having dreams and just how passionate he was when it came to Chizuru's dreams. He seems like he was an amazing role model to have and I feel so many emotions for Chizuru.... this poor girl has been through so much! I'm glad we got to learn more about her and her past because I feel like she's such an interesting character and it's good to see her with our own eyes and not through Kazuya's. And speaking of our boy! This man is just being an absolute goat right now! He's trying so hard to make Chizuru's dream come true! Like he put his little brainstorming cap on and actually came up with an idea! I like when we get to see his more intellect side haha. Hopefully his idea works! I'm really rooting for them!
Dah mula masuk scene Kanojo Okarishimasu Season 3.
Kalau baca manga, tak rasa sangat pun betapa slownya si Kazuya ni nak confess kat Chizuru. Tapi kalau tengok anime tu rasa macam nak cubit-cubit Kazuya sebab payah sangat nak cakap "saya suka awak".
Chizuru pun satu. Macam dah tercatch feeling jugak tapi acah-acah ego nak teruskan hubungan profesional je dengan Kazuya. Aiyoo! Penatlah aku dengan dua ketul ni.
Dahtu makin naik volume, makin bertambah pulak FLnya. Dahlah perangai masing-masing pelik. Saya terlalu baran untuk harem ni.
The previous volume ended in the middle of the perfect date that the previously introduced shy escort had prepared for the protagonist, supposedly to practice her escorting arts. She had led him to a big local aquarium, given that the guy is a fanatic of aquatic life, and the previous volume abandoned them as they were going to attend a dolphin show. Witnessing the slave drivers coercing the dolphins and killer whales into performing humiliating tricks (jk, I don’t care) makes the protagonist cheer like a little kid; he had always wanted to come, but he has shitty parents and his friends didn’t want to go to such gay places. The shy escort keeps blushing uncontrollably. Although the girl had been careful and had guided the protagonist to sit back enough so that they wouldn’t get splashed, the killer whale is particularly naughty that day, and drenches them both from head to toe. The protagonist doesn’t have any major issue with it but he notices that the shy escort, who seemingly has a bad anxiety disorder, is paralyzed due to having failed to prevent this situation. The protagonist, wanting to make her feel better, bursts into laughter and assures her that getting wet is just part of the experience. As he’s leaving to buy some cheap clothes, she mouths to herself that she is in love. So this series turned into a sort of harem thing, except a very ineffectual one.
She had also planned for both to enjoy some fishing in some nearby pond prepared for it. The protagonist is clumsy at it as he tends to be with everything, and cuts his finger with the hook. The shy escort hunches over and licks his open wound. The protagonist freaks out not because he laments her unsanitary decision, but because this damn girl is stealing his heart away.
For the end of the date she has chosen a romantic spot overlooking some illuminated bridge. The protagonist notices other couples making out, and that the shy escort is slowly inching closer. She gives him a birthday present; it seems that she had planned this moment from their first or second time they met. The protagonist, facing the lengths this girl went to produce such a magical day for him, is overwhelmed by the presence of such a pure angel, and almost cries. However, as he realizes the work this girl put into growing out of her extreme shyness, and the growth other people in his life have shown (his beloved escort coprotagonist, as well as his possibly underage, blackmailing actual girlfriend), he feels that he’s the only one who hasn’t grown at all. The shy escort notices he’s feeling down, and wants him to open up to her accommodating ears. Thinking about what has kept him down these past days he goes back to how the woman he loves only has her grandmother for a family, but that the grandmother is going to pass away soon. Although he initially took the main escort for a naturally strong person, he now knows that she’s just stoic and hard working, and refuses to show her wounds for anybody else to lick. He’s desperate to help her somehow, but he feels completely impotent. The shy escort pays him back for him having listened to her troubles before: she grabs his hand and demands to know. He opens up about everything, but when he sheds a tear, he panics believing that the girl is going to consider him pathetic for it. However, the girl is quietly sobbing. After she assures him that she’s there for him, he lets go and cries like a little bitch baby as well. It seems that this whole shy escort sidequest was intended to present to us the traditional best girl of this series.
The experience with this angelic creature has given the protagonist wings to act towards helping the main escort to fulfill her dream, which is for her grandmother to see her in a feature film. From now on the story takes a sharp turn and changes in tone significantly. We follow the main escort for a bit to understand that for the last years she has been eroding away by going to college, attending acting lessons, caring for her grandmother, going out with clients as an escort, and trying at auditions (not to mention dealing with the protagonist) to the extent that she’s surviving through energy drinks and stuff like that. One day that she comes home from tending to her grandmother at the hospital, she receives the news that she’s failed another audition she was hoping to succeed at. Looking at a photo of her smiling but very deceased grandpa, she tearfully asks what more could she do.
It launches a flashback to events that happened like six or seven years ago. The escort was living with her loving grandparents. This girl had resorted to acting in an uncaring way and guarding her feelings as a way to deal with the trauma of having lost her parents. We see that her grandpa was a loud, very animated man. She’s fed up, however, with his positive thinking, how he goes on about how she could achieve anything she would put her mind to, and that he wishes for nothing else than for her to honestly pursue her dreams in life. She mocked the guy when he spoke about superstitious stuff like a Japanese tradition of going up and down a hundred times the steps to some temples in order for their wishes to be granted, or something to that effect. Most of the time this little future escort is either reading novels or watching movies. She had heard that her grandmother appeared in movies back in the day; the future escort ends up coming across an old movie maybe from the sixties that the grandmother stars in. When she watches the film and witnesses her grandmother as a young woman giving the performance of her life, the future escort is speechless, awed by her talent. From then on she wishes to become just like her grandmother, and an actress as well. Her grandfather, moved, proclaims that she should give her all and that he’ll always support her.
Some time passed and she’s attending acting classes. However, one of those days, after her grandfather drives her there in his taxi, the guy gets isekai-d by truck-kun, the fabled number one serial killer in the land of the rising sun. The future escort, upon hearing the news, appears at the hospital where the guy is on the brink of death, and she’s so desperate as to die of grief right there. Realizing that she can do nothing rational to help, she goes to one of those temples her grandfather used to tell her about and runs up and down the stairs a hundred times. When she comes back to the hospital looking all rough, the grandfather is doing worse. The despairing girl berates him for having assured him that he’d support her until the day she became an actress. She’s letting her grief out like she’s never allowed others to see from then on.
The grandfather recovers enough consciousness to mumble that she’ll for sure achieve her dream, and then performs a flawless version of the “I guess I’ll die” meme.
Back to the present day, the escort is holding her deceased grandfather photo. She falls on her knees and cries like back in the day, only to get interrupted by someone ding donging her apartment. She switches to her stoic persona almost immediately, and she looks annoyed at the interruption. The protagonist is standing in front of her apartment with a determined look on his face. He demands her to open the door. Given that until now the guy wouldn’t have uttered such a demand, she’s even more annoyed and confused, and when she does open the door the guy forces his way in. He shows her in his laptop that he’s created a crowdfunding entry on some popular site for her to get a movie done before her grandmother passes away. He’s confident, somehow, that him going to college to study business stuff (he’s going to inherit his parents’ shop) is going to allow him to produce such an endeavour. He seems to have researched that they can rent a movie theater and other logistic stuff like that.
She’s overwhelmed by this sudden offer, and asks him to please give her time to think about it. The way she dismissed him made him believe she had took him for a complete moron, but some time later she appears at his door, and with a trembling voice she asks him that if he’s going to give up in the middle of it, or if he can’t do it, to say it right now (most of his previous actions haven’t exactly given her the confidence that he can be relied upon). He states confidently that he can do it, and that he’ll show it to her. Hiding her expression on her palm, she asks him to please make her a movie.
So now the series will move into producing this elaborate thing. Weird flex, author(s), but okay. I liked this volume a lot in general. Some of the stuff and how it was presented moved into cringe territory, but that’s mostly due to how Japanese innocent earnestness tends to vibrate through our jaded Western hearts, I think. I tend to dislike flashbacks, because the iceberg feel of not knowing the exact details of the past of any character tends to give a more solid feel to the narrative, but this flashback set up quite well how the escort is likely going to move into letting her grief and unresolved trauma out, probably using the protagonist as a support.
Regarding our chosen protagonist, despite him repeating over and over how much of a loser and worthless he is, and that he hasn’t moved forward at all, looking back at the first few volumes, he was someone that most of the time you’d be ashamed of knowing and having to defend. However now he’s a determined young man who is doing his best to support/court the love of his life. Fiction is intended to show us how people can change through hardship and pain, so this is a success as far as I’m concerned.
I just stopped reading after this volume because I was too physically tired. This is one of those ongoing series that whenever I reach the point where there are no more chapters to read, it’s going to kill me for a while.
So I just bawled my eyes out for Chizuru at chapter 100. What a bomb to get to know her true story, and I can now say that I finally get her and her issues around bonding (+trusting) other people.
Her grandad visually meant the world for her, and as a fellow granddaughter watching my own grandad pass away in my own arms... this touched me in a far new level. Chizuru has always have my respect, but her and I are now bonding in a far new level.
She got my respect.
Also, Sumi is finally growing! AND SHE IS SO FREAKING CUTE. My own heart will have a big issue knowing who to support regarding Kazuyas love.
Please, Print these books in English fast! 🐬❤
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This was a really good volume, definitely the best so far. Sumi us a great character and she was amazing, then they give us chizurus backstory and that emotional ending. It was great I was trying not to cry. Didn’t expect something that great from this shitty manga.
Okay so legit it actually shows Kazuya becoming a relatively better person and Mizuhara's backstory got my ASS CRYING, I'm a little bitch when it comes to these things but it was such a good book. The art was gorgeous as always
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
It's so sweet how all the girls fall in love with Kazuya, even though he's completely unaware! We also get to learn more about Chizuru's past, which is really interesting. I think the drawings are even better than before – they're so lovely!
um this was surprisingly pretty good. that might be because the other volumes weren’t my fav soooo this one seems better by comparison. there were a lot of smal moments i enjoyed which was cool ig
Okay these past two volumes have been the best of the bunch recently and have really grabbed my intrest back! Hopefully it continues cause I'm loving it again now!