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

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Ruka and Kazuya go on a date and he remains indecisive on his relationship with her. Kazuya and Ruka talk privately in a room at their workplace as he decides to date her for real, Kazuya spots Mami and Chizuru together through the window of the door. Unable to focus on anything else, Kazuya eavesdrops as Chizuru and Mami have their karaoke date. Mami discusses her thoughts on Chizuru’s acting and her opinion on Kazuya renting her. After they leave, Kazuya makes an excuse for getting off work early by chugging down water and throwing it back up. Kazuya finds them on a bridge where Chizuru asks about Mami’s feelings for Kazuya and Mami asks if Chizuru’s fallen in love with him.

Chizuru tries to persuade Mami into giving Kazuya another chance when Mami doesn’t give a clear answer on that. Later Kazuya waits for Chizuru at their apartment and tells her thanks while revealing that her outing with Mami was at his workplace. While Chizuru is giving him options on getting a girlfriend, Kazuya then blurts out that he wants her. After a montage of their moments throughout the series, Kazuya then adds “as a rental girlfriend” and backtracks before saying farewell and instantly agonizes over his words in the privacy of his apartment while Chizuru does the same in hers. The anime ends with Kazuya meeting up with Chizuru while the other characters are going about their day.

Our Take:

The episode was tortuous in a lot of ways. Let me start with Kazuya’s hesitation and his decision with Ruka. Even though he’s doing this to keep Chizuru’s secret, their dates appear to be one-sided and Ruka even realizes that forcing love isn’t a good idea, and wishes that he’d fall in love with her for real. On that note, having the ending song in the background was a bit of whiplash cause I wasn’t expecting it to be played during that scene. Just when you think he’ll try his best, the Mami and Chizuru situation literally crosses paths with him at his karaoke place.

Chizuru and Mami’s outing was intense in my opinion. For starters in that one room, the tension was thick as butter with Chizuru’s nervousness. The sound effects add to the tension especially after Chizuru questioned Mami on her intentions with that microphone feedback as it cuts off the karaoke background music. Furthermore, when Mami talks to Chizuru about her relationship with Kazuya, the money portion of the rental girlfriend business appears to be a problem with Mami. What’s even more suspicious is that the camera directs our attention to the golden teddy bear necklace she’s wearing and it implies that someone gave it to her. Even in the end credits Mami’s sporting a new bracelet with a star while she’s in a car with a guy. It’s clear that money and gifts appear to irk Mami which is confusing, but her refusal to believe in true love and what not could be a piece to that puzzle. There’s also the fact that Mami is holding Chizuru’s secret over her head even with her claim that she won’t tell anyone I wouldn’t put it past her to post it on her private social media as a venting post.

Then there’s the bridge scene where Chizuru questions Mami on her feelings for Kazuya. Admittedly it was high time we got some insight on Mami’s thoughts on Kazuya because so far we got almost nothing from her. However, she dodges the question to focus on Chizuru’s feelings for Kazuya. The indirect reactions are more revealing than their dodges and it sheds some light on both girls and their feelings for Kazuya. Also, it’s the first time where Chizuru gets to see Mami’s scary dead eyes when she refuses to tell her since it’s between her and Kazuya. The conversation gives us a timeline on how long Chizuru and Kazuya have been “dating” which is twelve months.

Rent-a-Girlfriend knows where to hurt especially with that backtrack after that montage of their moments together. The montage was a great set up to visually recall all the moments she had with him along with the opening in the background. Then his confession being backtracked by those four words: “as a rental girlfriend” really was frustrating to watch, but that is Kazuya’s character. However, we get to see Chizuru’s reaction to that and it was good to confirm her feelings for Kazuya.

Now the ending scene with all the characters from Kazuya to the grandmas. In that scene, we can spot the minor characters like Kazuya’s grandma and Kibe chatting with each other. There’s also Mami’s comment on how boring her situation is, and her with another guy it’s natural to assume they’re dating. Mami doesn’t appear to be interested in her normal relationship. The song accompanying the ending was comforting and a good piece to end the season as Kazuya meets Chizuru for another date.

Overall this final episode was a good setup for a second season since it leaves a few unanswered questions for people to anticipate what’s going to happen next. I wasn’t expecting this anime to be that deep since most harems aren’t, and I think that’s why I keep coming back to it. Rent-a-Girlfriend may have it’s awkward and cringe moments, but the heartfelt and serious moments do uplift the anime from the standard harems. The camera work and voice acting really set the story and tone of specific scenes for this final episode.