English Dub Review: Rent-a-Girlfriend “Ex-Girlfriend and Girlfriend”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After seeing each other at the college, Chizuru pulls Kazuya aside to make sure her secret stays one. Unfortunately, that isn’t the last time they run into each other especially when they both live next door to each other. When Kazuya’s grandmother decides to visit Kazuya, he is thrown into a panic. Out of options, he begs Chizuru to be his girlfriend once again to which Chizuru refuses. However, when Chizuru hears his grandmother’s words from next door, she heads over there much to Kazuya’s surprise.

Then the two agree to go to the hospital for his grandmother on Wednesdays. However on the way back they run into Kazuya’s friends who invite them out to drink. When they get there Kazuya sees that his ex-girlfriend, Mami is there with other people in the group. After they order drinks, Mami starts telling everyone that she has a boyfriend and asking Chizuru about her experience with Kazuya. Then she publicly humiliates him in front of their friends to which Chizuru asks her to stop. At the end of the party, Kazuya mopes on the street after Chizuru leaves where Mami catches him.

Our Take:

Chizuru’s identity as both herself and a rental girlfriend has been interesting to watch with how she switches in between them seamlessly. In the beginning, the camera moving from left to right in between Chizuru’s two forms: her girlfriend mode and her normal mode with Kazuya in the middle was an excellent transition to show the drastic difference in her appearance and her personas. However she starts to blur the line when she brings up the user agreement when she pulls Kazuya into the file storage room. When Chizuru brings up the agreement, she’s the one making boundaries to Kazuya because she has the most to risk in this if her agency finds out,

When Kazuya asks her to be his girlfriend again, the section she brings up prevents unsavory situations for the rental girlfriend since they can’t go into private residences with the customer. It forces Kazuya to back off a bit and it smacks the audience with that real risk in her line of work. Chizuru going into his place is forbidden and that’s what makes the next scene impactful.

When Kazuya asks for the second time, the chain on her door breaks, and when she overhears his grandmother’s words which prompts her to show up at his doorstep. Essentially with that, she broke through the chain of her role as a rental girlfriend. It’s a big step for her to take since it violates her agency’s rules and blurs the line distinguishing her personas. However, she does it because she understands the feeling of not wanting to disappoint his grandmother. At this rate, she could be a positive influence on Kazuya’s self-esteem.

Kazuya’s character development is definitely going to be slow since so many people degrade him for his “virgin” behavior, but it would be good to have him build his self-esteem back up with changes in his life. I hope that he doesn’t rely too much on Chizuru for everything though.

Now let’s talk about Mami, right from when she bumps into him, alarm bells started ringing. It just seemed too deliberate to me, and my suspicions were confirmed with the conversation that her friends had about him and her cold response. Then we get to the bar where she humiliates him by talking about his sex drive. The scene worked well in making me furious for Kazuya because no one deserves to be humiliated like that in front of their friends and relieved when Chizuru asks her to stop. Mami knows that he won’t fight back and even plays it off as teasing when everyone in that room knows it’s not.

Furthermore, her actions after Chizuru leaves with ordering the drinks shows that she still has power over Kazuya. Her dialogue on the street just screams emotional manipulation too as she doesn’t even apologize for her words. Personally I’m wary of the next episode because it looks like they might be going to either his or her apartment. It isn’t good for Kazuya if she’s toying with him since his self-esteem is pretty low.

Overall the episode was good in showing relationships both positive and negative. Personally I’m rooting for Kazuya to just gain some confidence at this point. Also for him to stand up against Mami and not take any more of her toxicity.