English Dub Season Review: Rent-a-Girlfriend Season Five
Overview:
With his family’s traditional spa resort trip underway, Kazuya has been unable to take his relationship further with his rental girlfriend, Chizuru. After receiving mixed signals from her, Kazuya comes to the decision to finally end their long-lasting facade upon returning to Tokyo.
Our Take:
I’ve made no secret of how I feel about this show. It’s not my favorite, and I honestly hate that other more deserving shows get passed over for more seasons while this is getting a sixth season. I get it, it’s a popular manga, and for some reason it’s still going. When all is said and done, I think this will end up being one of the most drawn-out rom-coms in history. I’m pretty sure that Rent-a-Girlfriend has more chapters than My Hero Academia at this point, or if it doesn’t, it will soon.
One thing I never talked too much about was the replacement of VAs we got a while back. Kazuya used to be voiced by Aleks Le and is now voiced by Alex Mai. Chizuru was voiced by Lizzie Freeman and is now voiced by Celeste Perez. I’ve gotten used to the new voices, and I want to be clear: while I might hate the characters, it’s not their fault. I think the voices are great. In fact, it sounded like Ruka had been replaced in the last episode, and I hope that’s not the case, but if it is, we should support the new VA. I can’t help but wonder why the cast keeps getting replaced if that is the case. Maybe the VAs thought this show wouldn’t last as long as it has?
As for this season, it had some ups and downs, but mostly downs. Kazuya and Chizuru had a perfect opportunity to give up the charade. But now Chizuru knows how Kazuya actually feels, and she needs some time to figure out if she feels the same way. So obviously they couldn’t let the family know that.
I feel like a broken record, but characters make or break a show like this. So when all the characters suck, it stands to reason that the show will suck. There are like two characters that aren’t awful people. Yaemori and Sumi, but they don’t get enough screentime to matter. I like Mami because she’s such a hater that I can’t help but respect it. Everyone else, though? They suck, and I hate them. Anyways… I’ll see ya’ll when season six comes out, I guess.
