Rent-a-Girlfriend – 36 (S3 Fin) – Close, But No Sparkler

Well…Kazuya doesn’t light Chizuru’s sparkler. In fact, even when he knows she’s crying, she laughs it off as smoke in her eyes, and the fireworks continue with her making innocuous small talk while Kazuya gets lost in his head.

I’ll give him this, though: before she can slip away with a thank you and good night, he does manage to do one thing: Tell her what his ideal girlfriend is. He goes on to perfectly describe Chizuru, including the fact that she can sometimes let her mask slip and cry.

And cry she does. Given everything Kazuya tells her, she recalls another memory with her grandparents, and the waterworks start gushing out all at once. Kazuya isn’t sure what exactly he said or why he said it, but it ended up being a very effective cathartic moment.

At the end of the date Kazuya hoped would cheer her up, instead he made her cry, but it felt like a good cry, a necessary one. And that she feels she’s not only able to cry in front of Kazuya (despite the fact she’s technically still “on the job” at that moment) but cry in his arms, says a lot about how far they’ve come, even if his description of her doesn’t count as a true confession.

That said, their date ends with her shrugging off the tears and returning to her bubbly Rental GF self as they part ways for the night (which in hindsight is odd since…they’re neighbors headed to the same place). Kazuya doesn’t his usual overthinking thing—even wondering if she was acting—when Mini teleports into his place to hear his report. She tells him he definitely made progress, but can’t stay still: the next step is going on a real date, with no money exchanging hands.

Of course, Kazuya puts his hands up and reverts to his whole “I’m just a client” spiel, which has at this point become absurdly tiresome. He and Chizuru also share an awkward moment on the balcony where she settles on what to wear for the screening in a week’s time. When we finally get some time in her head, she’s talking to her grandparents at her shrine to them. She knows they now know the truth, but also that Kazuya’s a good kid, and that she feels better after crying to him.

So yeah, there are clearly still a few more steps that need to happen before these two can consider dating for real, but groundwork that didn’t exist at the start of the season has most definitely been laid. Rent-a-Girlfriend is a marathon, not a sprint, and isn’t for the weak-hearted or impatient….or, I suppose, those intelligent enough to steer clear from this wheel-spinning fiasco!

Because at the end of the day, and the episode, and the season, Kazuya and Chizuru still can’t really imagine each other as boyfriend and girlfriend even if they have developed some feelings for one another. That Kazuya was able to get a movie produced with Chizuru starring in it should not be discounted, but in addition to their own remaining hang-ups, Ruka still exists and thinks she has a chance with Kazuya, and Mami is now hanging out with his granny, which can’t be good.

All this sets up a fourth season of this, presumably with a lot more Mami, and perhaps with Sumi and Mini in diminished roles (though not sure how much more you diminish Sumi!) Mami may be the most loathsome member of the cast (other than Kazuya himself of course), at least she’s voiced by a very game Yuuki Aoi. Right now I’m not that eager to dive into the fresh mess her last-minute appearance portends, but the fact is I won’t have to…not until next summer!

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 35 – Renting Is Insufficient

Kazuya’s mission is to take Chizuru on such an amazing date it totally cheers her up and makes her forget her grief, at least a little bit. Kazuya has it on authority from both Mini and Sumi that this is something he can do and something Chizuru will appreciate.

While we end up in Kazuya’s head as he fawns over how pretty and perfect Chizuru is far more than I’d like, something else also happens. Kazuya has his typically nervous and neurotic moments, but he’s also thoroughly enjoying himself.

I should hope so, considering the cash he’s throwing down. After a shopping trip (he happens to picks out a perfect fall outfit she likes, so she wears it the rest of the date) they hold hands to the next leg of the date: the kind of auteur-y highbrow film he knows she’ll geek out about.

Then it’s off to a fancy Italian trattoria for lunch, and Chizuru, who has been in Rental Girlfriend Mode this whole time, puts her elbows on the table to make sure Kazuya isn’t doing all this for her sake, because honestly, she’s fine. Kazuya insists he’s doing this because he wants to.

After lunch they head to the rock-climbing center, which he knows she enjoyed last time. Not only does he get to see Sporty Chizuru in all her splendor, but she insists that they stretch together, resulting in far closer contact than Kazuya was ready for.

So exhaustive was his research on this date that he’s able to give her advice to reach the top of the intermediate wall, which gives both of them a shot dopamine from the victory. Then he takes her to an even fancier crab restaurant for a crab dinner.

On the way to their table, Chizuru spots a little girl with her grandmother, and for a few moments while Kazuya isn’t looking, her Rental Girlfriend mask drops. That it really didn’t take much for it to happen speaks to how emotionally vulnerable she still is…which is only understandable!

Chizuru never lets Kazuya see the face she made at the entrance, but instead demonstrates how she’d make the perfect traditional Japanese wife, taking command of the dining table, preparing plates, pouring his beer, etc. Despite designing this date to make Chizuru happy, Kazuya finds that it’s making him just as happy.

As a fortune cookie fortune once said: “As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.” All the extra shifts Kazuya pulled were more than worth it, because not only did all the cash he made help make Chizuru happy, but seeing Chizuru happy makes him happy. He also has a relatively inexpensive way to close out the date: fireworks!

While he was initially worried they’d be too childish, Chizuru is all up for it, and wants to light a sparkler first, since that’s how her gran used to do it. But as he leaves her side for the second time to fill a bucket with water, the sparks fizzle in Chizuru’s eyes, she recalls a vivid memory of lighting sparklers in the yard with her grandparents, and finally can’t help but break down.

When Kazuya returns, even though Chizuru’s back is to him he can see her trembling, and that’s where the episode wraps: with a vital decision to make. Kazuya can’t worry about his date to make her happy suddenly being ruined or something because of the sparklers. When her sparkler goes out, all he needs to do is what her grandmother did years ago: re-light it with her own sparkler. That’s all he needs to do!

Chizuru is, and has been, able to grieve as she sees fit, of course, but her lapses this week show that perhaps what she needs is space and time to let out the emotions she’s clearly keeping bottled up. Just as he picked the perfect outfit for her seemingly out of instinct, so too has he created that space and time for her. I hope she gets to use it, and that he can simply be there for her, and show her that she isn’t alone.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 34 – Sea Breeze

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The show knows its audience would riot if we didn’t get at least another scene or two of Sumi before closing out the season, and lookie here, we get a whole episode of her being awesome as always! Sumi is and always has been RAG’s Bestest Girl by dint of her caring nature, her emotional intelligence, and above all her selflessness.

She may have feelings for Kazuya, but accepts that they’re not requited, and instead does everything she can for him and for Chizuru, whom she considers her dear friends. When Kazuya books her for a fleet 30-minute date and tells her about Granny Sayuri passing, she knows those dear friends are in pain, and takes immediate steps to alleviate that pain.

Kazuya is in a bit of a bemused daze in the early parts of the episode, as at the end of their date Sumi leads him to Shinjuku in order to board a train to the beach. They’re no longer on the clock at this point; Sumi verbally tells him they’re going as friends, and Kazuya, moron that he is, is astonished she considers her a friend. Of course she’s your friend, ya dope!

After a quick trip to the beach, Sumi is on the move, walking with speed and purpose up the stairs to an observation tower above the hill where they can get an even better view of the ocean. In the process, simply by being herself, Sumi attracts the attention of all the other guys there, and makes all of their dates jealous.

But Sumi isn’t just a cuteness WMD; there’s a method to her madness. When they return to the beach, off come her shoes and socks and she wades into the surf to do the splashies. Kazuya can’t help but join her, and when he trips on a sand castle and gets soaked, he starts to finally let loose and embrace the youthful calming energy of the sea.

This is what Sumi wanted: to reset Kazuya’s stressed-out brain and give him a place to lay down his worries. She also communicates to him, mostly by “texting” in the sand, that while she can’t know what’s in Chizuru’s head, she knows that she, Sumi, would want to be cheered up by him if she was in pain. She ends up making a great case by cheering Kazuya up thoroughly.

Even Ruka, who is a lot more emotionally intelligent than her clingy behavior would suggest, basically concurs with Sumi that under these circumstances, what Chizuru needs is to be cheered up by a friend. While she tosses out a lot of lip service about Kazuya never being able to “bridge the gap” between himself and Chizuru, that’s just wishful thinking on her part; a last-ditch defense mechanism.

On some level, she probably knows her days as Kazuya’s boyfriend may be numbered. But like Sumi, she’s too good a person to give Kazuya anything but the correct guidance. As for how to cheer Chizuru up, that’s up to him. He throws himself into his work, taking every open shift he can to save up so he can rent Chizuru for an entire day.

The two haven’t spoken or seen one another since her grandmother’s wake, but that she accepts his ambitious appointment says a lot. At this point in her and Kazuya’s relationship, she can probably gather why he booked an entire day at great expense. He’s not doing it for him. He’s doing it for her. She’s worked and struggled and grieved so hard. She deserves the best date ever, arranged by the guy she’s grown fond of. He’d better not screw this up!

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 33 – 99 Lies

I’ll admit it, like I always do: this episode got me. I was lucky enough to know all four of my grandparents when they were strong and full of life, but also when they were weak and passed on. Anyone who has experienced a grandparent (or anyone, really) passing away would be able to relate to Chizuru’s situation.

Just when she felt like she wasn’t quite “good enough” to shine on the screen for her granny, Kazuya barges in, but only to silently set up a projector and laptop so Granny Sayuri can watch, or at least listen, if she can hear. Chizuru was mired in the depths of despair, but Kazuya gave her one last chance to fulfill her dream.

Sayuri is incredibly weak at this point, but she’s still able to open her eyes for about ten minutes of the film. However much else of the film she’s able to hear, we’ll never know, but we do know that she hears Chizuru crying as she’s suddenly unsure whether to tell her the truth or not.

Part of Chizuru knows she’ll regret telling Sayuri, as it feels like she’s only doing it to make herself feel better, and it would let her down in her final moments. But she’ll also regret not telling her. She’s stuck in a state of indecision, but in one more show of strength, Sayuri lifts her hand and places it on Chizuru’s cheek to comfort her.

When Chizuru comes out and says she lied to her, Sayuri says she’s similarly unsure of whether she wants to know or not know. But she wants Chizuru to know that whether she tells her or not, she’ll accept it. She says that our lives our 99% lies and 1% truths, but she’s proud of what a strong and fine young woman her granddaughter has become; a woman capable of searching for those rare truths.

In the end, Chizuru doesn’t come right out and say she and Kazuya aren’t a real couple. Instead, she lets her gran say the things she needs to say with her final breaths: she was so beautiful in the film, and she loves her very much. Chizuru reciprocates, and embraces Sayuri as she passes away. Folks, this scene wrecked me. Many tissues were spent.

We transition to the next day or so, when Kazuya informs Mini of Sayuri’s passing. Mini’s cartoonish bawling almost felt out of place, but she’s genuinely grieving. She also rejects Kazuya’s feeling that perhaps Chizuru is strong enough to get through this and live her life all alone. She may indeed be strong, but as Mini says, “No woman is an island.”

Kazuya’s last interaction with Chizuru was to ask her if she was okay, after she told him to go home and rest up and walked away. She only turned around once, with her brightest Rent-a-Girlfriend smile, and said “I’m fine.” But she really wasn’t fine, and Kazuya should have known that.

Kazuya cleans up for the wake, to which his own grandmother accompanies him, as she and Sayuri were best friends. She addresses Chizuru on behalf of Kazuya and formally offers her condolences for her loss. Chizuru is calm, collected, and keeping it together, but one can still sense the searing pain just below the surface.

Kazuya’s gran doens’t spend long in front of Sayuri’s grave, surprising him as he assumed she’d make a bit ruckus bawling. She says she doesn’t want to be a bother, and will also see Sayuri again before long. She then tells Kazuya to figure out what it is only he, her boyfriend, can do for Chizuru.

They leave without speaking to Chizuru again, but back home, Kazuya wrestles with his dilemma. He assumes Chizuru only sees him as just a neighbor, especially now that the film production is over. But he’s selling himself short. He’s become much more than that to her, even if they’re not “officially” girlfriend and boyfriend. Hopefully he heeds Mini and his granny’s words and realizes that soon.

CERTIFIED GODDAMN TEARJERKER

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 32 – The Sad Reality

After a week off, RAG chooses to start up with the strangest scene: Mini buying snacks at the store with an extremely focused face you could even call troubled. The next we see her she’s back to her normal self as she’s come to celebrate Kazuya losing his virginity to Chizuru. Is that what that face was about…does she have feelings for him?

In any case, Kazuya doesn’t let her in, because no virginity was lost. As she and Mini continue whispering, they’re interrupted by Chizuru, who scolds them for being discourteous to their neighbors. Then Ruka shows up, shoos Mini and Chizuru off, and pulls Kazuya into his apartment to “shower with him” (not happening). While watching her laundry, Chizuru softly utters Kazuya’s name, then blushes and chastens herself.

After getting approval from the hospital, Chizuru takes Granny Sayuri out to see the theater where her film will be shown to a crowd of 200. Why exactly she takes this risk so close to the actual showing is beyond me, but even the empty theater brings tears to Sayuri’s eyes as she imagines Chizuru up there.

After seeing Sayuri’s intense reaction, Chizuru excuses herself so she can have one of her own, flashing one of her biggest smiles in the whole run. It’s the smile of someone who was able to achieve her dream and make her granny—and late gramps—proud.

While alone with Sayuri, Kazuya continues to be troubled by the fact he and Chizuru are lying about being a couple. But rather than say anything it’s not entirely his place to say, Kazuya simply tells Sayuri that Chizuru is “more important” to him than labels like girlfriend. He wants to remain by her side no matter what, even if he isn’t her girlfriend.

His words don’t give up the ghost, but do remind Sayuri of her departed husband. Specifically, she remembers yelling at him for getting Chizuru’s hopes up. But Katsuhito is as stubborn as Kazuya: dreams do come true, and he believed until the end that they would for Chizuru. Now that it’s come to pass, Sayuri admits she was wrong to doubt it.

Chizuru stops Kazuya outside the bathrooms and once again thanks him for everything he’s done, and how happy it made her granny. They go to grab some coffee, but find that Sayuri, whom they left alone, has collapsed and fallen out of her wheelchair. As they drop their coffees to rush to her, Kazuya sees a face of abject panic in Chizuru that he’s never seen before.

At the hospital, Chizuru tells Kazuya that the doctors don’t expect Sayuri to recover, and that tonight will be “make or break.” Chizuru adopts a stiff upper lip and “oh well” attitude, a brave face that makes Kazuya’s heart hurt. He wipes away his own tears, because this is not about him, but in trying to put Chizuru’s feelings first and foremost, he brings up an uncomfortable topic: telling Granny Sayuri the truth about them.

Chizuru remains of the mind that hurting her granny with the truth in her final moments accomplishes nothing. But Kazuya is thinking of the future, when Chizuru may come to regret never coming clean about the lie, because after Sayuri dies she’ll never be able to. Still, Chizuru remains firm: to hell with “the sad reality.”

As Chizuru heads back in, Kazuya laments that there’s nothing more he can do for her. But then he gets a text from the editor, no doubt reporting the completion (or near-completion) of the film. If Granny Sayuri wakes up, and if he can obtain a copy to play in her room, the dream isn’t dead yet.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 31 – The Ruka Line

It’s August 26th, Ruka’s birthday. And for her birthday she wants to go on a date with Kazuya, so on a date they go. Her goal is to make her heart race as well as his, so she has Kazuya take her to the pool, she dons her first bikini, and she asks Kazuya to apply sunblock to her back and legs. It turns out to be an overload of stimulation for the both of them.

After the pool, ice cream, and a sumptuous hotel buffet feast, Kazuya and Ruka head to the beach, which both note is a place where several other couples are getting frisky. Kazuya feels guilty for continuing to lead Ruka on as her “trial” boyfriend, and tries to lay the groundwork for gently extricating himself from the relationship.

Naturally, he tries to make it about him not deserving a girlfriend as angelic as Ruka, and apologizes to her for making her go out of her way for his sake. The tack doesn’t work. She slaps his shoulder and tells him he’s not doing this for her sake, or to get one up on Chizuru. She simply had a dream of going on a fun date with her boyfriend on her birthday…that’s it!

Kazuya really is a cad for not so much as bringing a physical birthday gift, but Ruka forgives him even for this, because she wants a gift he can give her right there and then. She wants to drop the honorific and call him simply “Kazuya”, he agrees, and makes her happy beyond belief.

We’re now past the halfway point of this third season, so it made sense to re-introduce Ruka as a legitimate threat to Kazuya and Chizuru getting together, and they don’t encounter one another in the whole episode. Instead, Sumi comes with flowers for her gran, along with some much-needed words from a third party.

Sumi tells Chizuru that Kazuya worked so hard, and how many times he almost gave up, only to get back on his feet each time, all for Chizuru. She says Chizuru’s desire combined with Kazuya’s support to make something amazing together. The sentiments bring tears to Sumi, and Chizuru’s genuine smile shows that she appreciates them.

After Sumi departs after shyly saying hello, Granny Sayuri notes how Chizuru seems to have made more friends since meeting Kazuya. Unbidden, Chizuru starts talking about Kazuya, initially with irritation with how little he knew about filmmaking at first and eventually with admiration and fondness, her whole face lighting up as she remembers him falling in the drink and having to cross dress.

Watching Chizuru go on like this about someone brings a smile to Sayuri’s face, and she tells Chizuru that true love begins when you’re having the time of your life talking about them. Chizuru insists it’s not like that, as is her wont, but her blushing face suggests otherwise.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 30 – Pillar of Support

Kazuya is constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown thinking going off alone with Chizuru will be some kind of huge disaster, but Chizuru pushes past the awkwardness on the train and is legit pumped when they arrive at the picturesque off-season ski resort.

That said, she’s as shocked as he is to learn that Mini only booked one room for the two of them, but she accepts this and moves on, citing the need to save money. But also, if Mini is right about her (and I think she is) Chizuru doesn’t actually mind sharing a room with Kazuya.

After some location scouting and test shooting during the day, Kazuya pores over the footage and storyboards as Chizuru returns from her bath, resplendent in her yukata, which she insists she wears whenever she’s at an onsen.

She legit asks Kaz if it wouldn’t be best if he take a breather, but when he says he’ll rest after they film the post-midnight final scene, she’s again reminded of her stalwart late grandfather. It’s under the light of the starry sky that she finally gets around to saying what she struggled and failed to say before.

Kazuya is worried a confession is forthcoming, but I knew better. There was no way Chizuru was going to confess her love to him. That said, she tells him about how her dream of becoming an actor was originally tied to her gramps, and only after she died did she transfer that dream to her gran.

She doesn’t tell Kaz this, but as we know, her gramps was the one who told her to follow her dreams and one day she’d find her pillar of support. And Kaz seems to be that pillar. Before filming her scene, she makes sure he knows how happy it made her when he suggested they make a film, and how grateful she is for everything he’s done since.

They film the scene, and to Kazuya, after hearing those words, Chizuru has never shone brighter to him under those stars. Later in the men’s bath, he contemplates how this is all coming to an end soon, and how they’ll likely grow apart after the film is made.

But rather than stew in despair over that, he embraces how lucky he was to have been able to finish this project with her, even if he never puts as much of himself into anything else.

He returns to their room to find Chizuru already asleep, and unlike the first time they slept in the same room, he finds himself able to doze off almost immediately. Sure, they worked their butts off all day, but no doubt her words gave him comfort.

Ironically, this time it’s Chizuru who is having trouble sleeping, and wasn’t really asleep when Kaz came in. I always love it when we get her inner monologue, and I loved her characterizing this situation as “sucking”. Girl both wants and needs to sleep after such a full day. But something’s keeping her awake and that something is her steadily growing feelings for Kazuya, her pillar.

The next morning, they check out, and when the attendant refers to them as a couple, Chizuru doesn’t freak out or deny it; she’s simply silent. On the bus ride, Kaz tries some small talk about how great the resort was, and Chizuru comments that it would be a great place for him to take his “real” girlfriend.

Talk then turns to Ruka, and to his credit, Kaz actually puts it out there that Ruka isn’t someone he truly loves. Chizuru then asks about Mami, but Kaz assumes she’s already found someone else. We know better, but in any case who cares about Mami?

Through her pointed yet gentle questioning, it’s clear to Kaz that Chizuru actually cares and worries about him. The one thing that continues to hold Kazuya back is his insistence on losing his damn mind whenever Chizuru gets too close, either emotionally for physically. Case in point: when she nods off onto his shoulder while he’s expressing his gratitude to her.

She stays there asleep on his shoulder until they arrive at Iiyama…where to their horror, Ruka has come to put an end to what she deems to have been a night of carnality. Kazuya insists nothing happened, but when he asks Chizuru to back him up, she heads off to the bathroom, apparently disinterested. That said, it’s clear from her reaction upon remembering she woke up on Kazuya’s shoulder that she’s very much interested.

But Ruka remains Kazuya’s “trial” girlfriend until he dumps her, since she has no intention of leaving him. In perhaps one final attempt to maintain her grasp on him, she demands that he promise to do “whatever she desires” on her birthday. While I’m sure a virgin like Kazuya would like nothing more than to fulfill whatever that desire may be, I hope it never comes to that.

Kazuya needs to get real here: even if he still deems Chizru unobtainable and uninterested (and I fail to see how he can still feel that way), he needs to end things with Ruka, before he does something he can’t undo, for the simple reason that he knows full well that he prefers Chizuru.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 29 – 4 Da Film

Summer break is here, and with it comes the start of the college film crew making Kazuya and Chizuru’s film. The director makes a little speech to the crew, and Chizuru proves she’s a pro by giving her own.

But Kazuya isn’t used to this kinda thing, and isn’t even sure he knows what he’s doing or whether he can. But when he does manage to get some words out, they have a childish idealism that the crew responds to, especially after Chizuru begins clapping.

This episode had some very beautifully composed and lit scenes and close-ups, but it also featured some extremely janky animation and off-model characters a bit more often than I’d like. The first day of filming is also presented as a sequence of stills.

But as I said, it’s not all bad, and Chizuru’s experly acted sunset scene, made possible after Kazuya nearly gets himself killed shooing a cicada off a bridge, looks really nice and packs a punch by dint of the lighting and palette.

Kazuya is also moved by Chizuru’s performance; so moved, in fact, that he descends back into a downward spiral of insecurity and self-consciousness. He can’t help but put Chizuru on a pedestal higher than the Burj al Khalifa, and feel like she’s a different species he has no business being anywhere near.

This depressive state causes Kazuya to unconsciously avoid Chizuru as they film, and when they end up alone together outside during a break, she thankfully calls him out on it. He also comes clean about how he feels so inadequate, and she tells him his life is just as wonderful as hers, and there’s no need for a hierarchy. The sun happens to come out as she breaks him out of his mood with a smile nearly as bright as the sun.

After she does, both she and the rest of the crew notice how he’s become more upbeat and energetic, no longer hung up on how awesome Chizuru is or how trash he is. Chizuru likes this focused, competent version of Kazuya.

When the director tells Kazuya he’ll be unavailable to film the final scene of the movie, which takes place in Madarao, he finds himself facing a scenario of going on a trip along with Chizuru, which he doesn’t think he can handle.

Mini agrees to come along and also organize their accomodations, if Kazuya contacts Chizuru and Ruka. Chizuru, for her part, is all in; she’ll do anything for the movie.

But the morning the four are supposed to meet and board the Shinkansen, it’s just Kazuya and Chizuru. Mini calls him and says she arranged it so she and Ruka wouldn’t be a third and fourth wheel, and her shisho has a real chance to get closer to Chizuru.

Mini tells both Ruka and Chizuru that she has the flu, so whether he likes it or not, Kazuya is alone with Chizuru on this trip. When the alarm for the closing door sounds, the two find themselves aboard the train when it sets off. They’re in new territory.

Chizuru does her thing where she shuts one eye as she says Mini has the idea that they like each other, then heads off to the bathroom. While there, she drops the cool act, and we see her for the flustered mess she is.

She and Kazuya are the same in this regard: yes, this is supposed to be for the movie, but in the moments Kazuya is able to let go of his anxiety, he actually really enjoys just naturally interacting with Chizuru.

As for Chizuru, when they get off the train and head to the next leg of their journey, she seems ready to say something to Kazuya, but can’t quite get the words out. Kazuya takes notice of this, but he doesn’t press. He may need to sooner rather than later.

Whatever those words were, they’re important to these two figuring things out, both now and beyond the movie. Because it’s increasingly starting to look like their relationship won’t just end when the movie is finished—or, at least, neither of them want it to.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 28 – Chin Up

Chizuru says it’s “ridiculous” to have a conversation about Kazuya being in love with her without Kazuya there, reiterates that he already told her his feelings, and steers talk back to photographing the rewards. When they part for the evening, Mini tells her merely wanting to see her succeed as an actress or helping her grandmother isn’t enough motivation to do all Kazuya is going.

There’s more there, and she believes true love can start even from something fake or on borrowed time. When Chizuru reacts to that, Mini snaps a photo and bids her goodnight. Right after that, Kazuya comes home, and Chizuru is too embarrassed to face him, and so retreats to her apartment without talking with him.

The next day, Chizuru meets with her actor friend Umi-kun, asking him to spread the word about her upcoming film. He agrees to retweet (re-X?) her crowdfunding page to his 200k-plus followers, but asks for something in exchange: that she go see a play with him. The date of the play happens to be July 28, which is not only today IRL, but the last day of the crowdfunding window.

Chizuru agreed to hand out fliers that day, but if she turns Umi down it will be awkward considering she asked him to promote the project. She relays this info to Kazuya and Mini, and despite Kazuya’s misgivings, Mini gets him to agree that Chizuru going on a date with the hot famous guy is the right move. He’ll have to lose this battle to win the war.

Kazuya is concerned that anyone who wants to go on a date with Chizuru either has designs on it going further, or just naturally arrives at that point because she’s so amazing. Unfortunately, he turns out to be correct in his assessment; Umi immediately struck me as someone who didn’t just ask a friend to fill in for his girlfriend.

Kazuya is down in the dumps about Chizuru going on the date, but snaps out of it when he realizes that both Ruka and Mini are still helping him. He tells Ruka he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has without her and thanks her for everything (which makes her blush).

After the play, Chizuru is brimming with joy and giddiness about the performance she and Umi saw—just as Umi expected. He admits to her that he actually broke up with his girlfriend a week ago, and decided he wanted to pursue someone who was more serious about acting…someone like her.

Frankly, it’s a bit shitty for Umi to drop this on Chizuru, especially right after she just had a bunch of fun at the play. At the same time, I have to respect him for not settling and going after who and what he wants. When Chizuru declines his offer of a fancy dinner at an exclusive restaurant, he asks her if she’s in love with Kazuya.

He asks her this because he noticed the change in her demeanor around the same time she started spending more time with him. It’s not just Mini now saying this to her: Umi is convinced she likes Kazuya. All she can tell him there and then (after some smarmy school kids walk by) is that she doesn’t like Kazuya…but she doesn’t not like him either.

I don’t think that’s a cop-out, either; it’s as close to the truth as she can get right now. But the fact she didn’t stop at “I don’t like him” is huge. Despite being turned down by the girl he likes for someone he likely deems as far inferior in almost every way, Umi still follows through and retweets the crowdfunding page. That clinches it for me: Umi’s a good kid!

That retweet isn’t the only reason Chizuru and Kazuya not only meet the funding goal before midnight, but exceed it by 30,000 yen. But it is most definitely the push that was needed. I can’t imagine how demoralized the team would be if they’d come up just short. In the end, Umi chose Chizuru’s happiness and success over resentment or jealousy.

And when Kazuya shows Chizuru the met goal on his phone, her reaction of pure unbridled joy is even more powerful than after watching that play. They’ve got their script and their film crew, and now they’ve got their budget. It’s Go Time!

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 27 – Operation 203

Take it from someone who made a student short film: making one can feel like an endless checklist. But one thing Kazuya and Chizuru are able to check off relatively quickly this week is the script: they found a good one. Kazuya also managed to get their college’s film club to film it. Progress!

When Kazuya and Chizuru meet up for a meeting with the club president, she levels a joke at Kazuya about charging him for their “date” that gets him hook, line and sinker. It’s a little thing, but it says so much about how far they’ve come that she can mess with him.

At the end of the meeting it’s raining, and Kazuya runs off to buy an umbrella. The club prez tells Chizuru he had to meet the actor with whom Kazuya was so smitten he prostrated himself before the entire film club to get them to film his movie. Kazuya putting all this effort in motivates Chizuru to work just as hard in her role.

But while production logistics are taking shape, the crowdfunding page has stalled, with no new backers in the last 24 hours. While dropping in to ask her shisho about his progress with Chizuru, Mini catches a gander at the page, and offers her expertise and experience in crowdfunding and marketing.

Despite being a “zoomer” who pauses every two minutes to take a selfie, Mini proves she’s serious and diligent in her offer of assistance. This isn’t just apparent to him, but Chizuru and Ruka, when the two of them are summoned for a strategy meeting. Ruka identifies Mini as another threat, but she’ll do anything to help Kazuya, even if it means making a movie starring Chizuru.

While not doing producer work, Kazuya is pressed into service handing out fliers with Ruka, but when she can’t be around, he isn’t able to pass any out. Who should happen to cross paths with him than Sumi, making her first appearance this season.

While Kazuya puts on a brave face, Sumi is determined to help him out, because she’s an abominably good girl. She even delays dinner with her dad and overcomes her fear of speaking out loud to help him hand out fliers, and because she’s so goshdarn cute she has no trouble doing so. It’s not nearly enough Sumi Time, honestly, but I’ll take what I can get!

Finally, Mini visits Chizuru’s “main heroine” apartment for the first time, and is rightfully impressed. Chizuru made a good start in gathering some personal items she can offer as tiered rewards for backers, but Mini insists they have to take things further. Chizuru may see no value in a 100-yen scrunchie, but Mini says the fact it touched her skin makes it priceless to a potential backer.

Even though Mini knows she shouldn’t go through Chizuru’s unmentionables, instinct compels her to try anyway, resulting in a brief tussle with a Chizuru who has to draw the line somewhere. But the end result of the evening is an impressive haul of Ichinose Chizuru effects to use on the site.

Mini uses her time with Chizuru to try to get more of a sense of how she feels about Kazuya, starting with asking if she has a boyfriend, then asking if she’d ever considered him for the role. She acknowledges his good qualities—honest, kind, straightforward (most of the time)—but insists that his interest in her is “just as an actress”, and he wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for a rental GF.

Mini makes clear to Chizuru right then and there that neither of those things Chizuru is so certain of are true at all. Kazuya does have romantic feelings for her, whatever he may have said in the past. Not only that, Mini is certain most if not all of Chizuru’s clients dreamt at one time or another that she’d become their real GF. The line in the sand between rental and real is just that: all too easy to cross, or wipe away entirely.

This information from Mini, a new but not altogether untrustworthy source, may well be the catalyst needed to move the needle on the Chizuru-Kazuya impasse. It’s more than a pact, and has been for some time. That doesn’t bode well for Ruka or Fumi, but hey, there can only be one. I was skeptical of Mini at first, but I’m really enjoying competence in marketing strategy, as well as in her self-appointed role as matchmaker.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 26 – One More Mug

Ruka’s arrival at Kazuya’s door after dark instantly makes things 100% messier, especialy from his other neighbor Yaemori Mini’s perspective. And considering she is still officially kinda Kazuya’s girlfriend, she demands an explanation for why Chizuru is with him, and why his apartment looked like they were having a grand old time.

This is where Chizuru and Kazuya are of one mind: they need to tell Ruka the truth about their project and even let her in on it. Once she calms down from her initial tears, Ruka proposes that she help out with the production. They’ll get help they’re in dire need of, and she’ll get more time with Kazuya. Her last dig at Chizuru is to get Kazuya to say her curry was better.

When Chizuru wordlessly agrees that’s what’s best and quietly leaves, he admires how mature she’s being. But outside, it’s clear she didn’t like hearing Kazuya say Ruka’s curry was better than her omurice.

The next day, now armed with actual photos of his star (what a concept!), Kazuya gets approval from the crowdfunding site, and they’re off to the races. Meanwhile, Chizuru visits her Granny Sayuri, whose initial reaction to hearing her granddaughter is making a movie about her is laughter…but not to mock.

Rather, Sayuri is happy Chizuru cares so much that she’s willing to make sure her gran gets to see her in a movie. And when Chizuru asks what she initially thought about Kazuya, Sayuri says she was initially worried whether he was a decent guy. But now she’s convinced: no one’s a better match for Chizuru than Kazuya.

This is a serious endorsement from someone Chizuru loves and cares for more than anyone, and she tries to keep her cards close to her vest when she and Kazuya bump into each other and he gives a report on the funding so far. She’s quite right that they can’t be too optimistic too fast, especially with no script yet. But she still flashes him a smile and tells him he really is a good guy before going inside.

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And for all his foibles and maddening choices, Kazuya really is the decent guy Granny Sayuri assesses him to be. Like Chizuru, I trust her judgment implicitly. He just needs to get his fuckin’ shit together. Ruka, as good a kid as she is, and as legit helpful she is with finding a source for scripts, shouldn’t be his girlfriend right now. And yet, she remains so, and now that she’s in on the movie project, she’ll remain so for the time being.

That’s when Kazuya is pulled into Mini’s apartment, in what he initially thinks is some kind of passionate liaison. Instead, Mini shows him video she took of him arguing with Ruka and Chizuru the other night. He tells her everything, and because of the way Mini’s Zoomer Otaku brain is wired, she is absolutely fascinated by his situation, to the point she declares him her shisho.

While her screen time prevents us from seeing Mami or Sumi this week (and let’s be honest, they’re side characters and have been for some time) I’m still loving her frank meta energy as an audience stand-in. While Kazuya is always going on in his head about how much trouble he’s in, the fact is, he’s living a life straight out of an anime that Mini deeply admires and even aspires to.

At the same time, while she has way too many stuffed animals and is way too online, Mini is also an impartial voice of reason in one arena: telling Kazuya that yes, Chizuru most definitely has some feelings for him. Why else would she keep interacting with him, a “problem customer”, for a whole year (or, in our case, two-plus seasons)?

Kazuya is so dense that he never considered for a nanosecond that Chizuru felt anything like this, but Mini gets him to imagine it, and that’s important progress, because the scene she sets of her alone in her apartment thinking about him turns out to be fairly accurate.

She’s clearly enjoying this new opportunity to achieve her dream and spend more time with the boy her grandmother says is the perfect match for her. So much so that she ignores her bedtime alarm for one more cup of tea on the balcony, thinking about how this whole movie thing is going to go.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 25 (S3 E01) – The Best Omurice in the World

The third season starts with the realization that however difficult Kazuya knew making a movie starring Chizuru would be, it’s turning out to be a lot harder. Kazuya’s “pitch” page to the crowdfunding guy is pathetic—no photos? Really?—but failure is the greatest teacher, right?

The third season also shakes things up by introducing the fifth girl who moved into Kazuya and Chizuru’s building. And I love how they introduce her, almost as a meta audience surrogate telling them to keep the balcony chat down or start dating already!

The girl is actually a first-year student at Kazuya and Chizuru’s college, named Yaemori Mini (and voiced by Serizawa Yuu). While curt on the balcony last night, Mini proves she’s actually quite warm and friendly when not “making her position clear”, which is always good way of doing things! She’s also an anime mobile game otaku with seasonal waifus. Aren’t we all…

When Mami, up in the top of the frame, overhears Kazuya’s friend mention how their boy is focused on his laptop all the damn time. They joke about him watching porn in public, but Mami clearly suspects something else and is clearly going to dig into it because yes, she has no life! At the same time, I love Mami’s potential to unleash chaos at any moment.

When Mini (not to be confused with Mami) makes Kazuya and Chizuru both self-conscious about the balcony talks, and perhaps how they came off as a bickering couple to a stranger, the talks end, and Kazuya is morose. His inner monologue is at its very most insufferable when he gets a text from Chizuru asking if she can come over.

I’m more willing these days to give Kazuya the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this monologue. It’s pure uncut cringe, but it’s supposed to be. These are his deepest, darkest thoughts amplified for our displeasure. What’s important is that he doesn’t act on them.

Kazuya is a horny-ass college student, but when he thinks of his promise to Chizuru—and to her Gran—he’s able to settle into a “grown-up” gear. Yes, Chizuru is in his apartment, they need to meet about the movie. About her dream.

Kazuya is convinced he’s pretty much in love with Chizuru, but as for Chizuru? That remains complicated, and I like that too because it increases the tension; creates a little discomfort in what has otherwise become a comfort food.

Is she hanging out with Kazuya, sending him cute photos, and making him omurice out of pure obligation because he made such a serious promise to make her dream come true? Or is she also doing all of that to get a little closer to him, perhaps to learn more about him?

Kazuya probably slammed way too many Monster energy drinks, and neglected his college studies way too much, but I gotta give the bastard credit where it’s due: he did offer a very detailed and realistic budget, and also doesn’t budge on the question of Chizuru not being paid to act in the movie.

She’ll be paid, and in order to get this $12,000 budget off the ground, he’s prepared to invest his own savings (all of $700), because this isn’t just her dream any more, it’s his too. They exchange some very complex expressions before Chizuru gets up to leave.

Of course, she opens the door just as Ruka shows up at Kazuya’s doorstep. Love. It. So damn messy. Kazuya can feel his relationship with Chizuru changing, but that’s happening organically, not as a result of his scheming. And while we can’t read her thoughts to the same extent as Kazuya’s, Chizuru must be feeling that change.

But will RaG let this change continue? Kazuya getting used to meeting with Chizuru in private? Kazuya making it clear to Ruka ( and to a weirder extent, Mami) that he loves Chizuru? An actual goddamn movie being made? Look, I know grannies, I had two of them. They don’t care if you never star in a movie. To them, you were perfect the moment you were born. Even so, Chizuru wants to make this happen, and I want to see it happen!

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 24 (S2 Fin) – Dream On

All of Chizuru’s aspiring acting peers marvel at how hardworking and dedicated she is, but the truth is she’s a surging ball of doubt and anxiety. If she doesn’t pass auditions and get this next role, her dream of having her grandmother Sayuri see her performing on screen before she dies is in serious jeopardy of never coming true.

One night, she gets one more friendly rejection text, cries in her dark apartment, and asks the picture of her late grandfather Katsuhito to stop smirking and tell her what she should do. We then go seven years into the past, to when Chizuru was a surly seventh grader with no real driving force except “men are idiots”.

Chizuru’s gran was once an up-and-coming actor, and when Chizuru watches a rented DVD of her performance, that’s it: the dreamless kid suddenly has a dream: she wants to be an actor too. Her gran starts warning her just how goddamn difficult that will be, but her gramps is all optimism and gumption…remind you of someone in her present day life?

Chizuru spends her years of middle school and high school learning how to act, and seems well on her way, until Truck-kun claims her gramps’ life. Remembering how her grandparents told her the name “Chizuru” comes from a thousand paper cranes and that she was meant to be a talisman of good luck, she runs up and down the local shrine one hundred times to pray for Katsuhiro’s recovery.

He doesn’t make it, but he is conscious long enough to say his last words to her: dreams always come true. He knew this would be the worst moments of her life, and wanted her to know that she couldn’t give up no matter what; no matter how much frustration and tragedy and pain got in the way. But now, faced with yet another rejection for a role and her gran growing frailer by the day, Chizuru is wavering once more.

Enter Kazuya, who blessedly had no screen time or lines for over half of this episode, the better to make this all about Chizuru and not him (for once). He comes to her door with a proposal: crowdfunding a movie for them to make and for her to perform in. It technically would fulfill her dream, and there’s actually a better chance of pulling it off than of her getting a role in the same two-month time frame.

Chizuru retreats to her dark apartment to mull it over while Kazuya returns to his and wonders if he just made a huge blunder once again. Naturally, Chizuru sees in Kazuya the same idiotic optimism as her grandfather, but also realizes that his gramps happened to be right: dreams only truly die if you give up on them, and now life is offering her a chance to revive it just when she thought it was all but dead.

Kazuya hears Chizuru’s door open and close, her footsteps in the fancy shoes of her rental girlfriend outfit she has yet to change out of, and then a ring on his doorbell. She has one question: Can you really do it? And after thinking about it and saying that he, that they can, Chizuru has to cover her face to hide the flow of emotion. Her dream, now so cracked and fragile by the rigors of reality, is suddenly mended into something she can carry once more.

Kazuya, who took a suggestion of Sumi’s and rode with it, fully understands the hard work he’ll have to put in. When her gramps was injured, Chizuru knew she could do more for him than sitting around and crying in the hospital, so she ascended the shrine stairs one hundred times until her feet were scratched and black with dirt.

And in the end, the result of that effort was only fleeting—her gramps woke up for only a moment before expiring. Whether she’s conscious of it or not, the same qualities in her gramps are apparent in Kazuya seems like big part of why she’s falling for him as a romantic partner. But it could also be why she’s so hesitant to go down that road: what if she gave her heart to Kazuya, only to lose him? Truck-kun is still out there…

Getting a movie funded and actually making it is sure to make that running up and down the steps barefoot seem like a gentle walk in the park. Kazuya knows it. Chizuru knows it. It could end in failure too, but failure is all but assured if they give up. Kazuya (via Sumi) gave Chizuru the “loophole” she needed to scale down her dream into something more manageable than becoming a movie star before her gran dies.

Will that cause the already nascent feelings she’s developed for him to grow? Will they merely maintain the increasingly sturdy friendship they’ve forged this season? Whither Ruka, Sumi, and above all Mami, the last glimpse of whom is her smirking and asking herself if she has a life (she doesn’t)?

Will Kazuya get them involved in this “let’s make a movie” venture? Finally, who is that fifth girl, apparently moving into the same building as Kazuya and Chizuru? (At first I thought it was Ruka, but this person has an ahoge, and the blue in her hair is color, not a bow.)

We’ll have to wait for a season 3 to find all this out. Until then, I’m glad the focus was on Chizuru for this final episode, learning the full story of her dream, and that the Kazuya we get is a man who proposes strong and achievable action, not moping or fumbling about with his myriad romantic prospects in his head.