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.

Oshi no Ko – 05 – My Love With a Star Begins Now

Ruby and Kana are like two cats who for whatever reason just don’t like each other. Yet Kana is Ruby’s best chance to become an idol ASAP, so Aqua agrees to help set up a meet. Kana’s preferred junk food comes in the form of positive online buzz. When she reads a comment that, like her, has all kinds of feelings about the creepy hot guy, she can’t help but blush,

Then she gets a text from that very guy, and it sounds like he wants to confess. Kana’s disappointment over it being a meeting for Ruby’s sake is overcome by her fascination with Ruby. Kana’s been around long enough to know when someone has “It” in the way Ai did, and Ruby has that same “It”. Remember that Kana has no idea Ruby and Aqua are Ai’s kids.

That promise she sees in Ruby, combined with Aqua reading her like an open book and picking the proper method to persuade her, results in Kana signing on the dotted line to become a Strawberry idol beside Ruby. With that settled, Kana at least looks forward to having more opportunities to see and work with Aqua. Then she asks Ruby what Aqua is up to.

Ruby pulls up the reality dating show bearing the title of this article, and features six gorgeous entertainers looking for love. The Aqua who appears and introduces himself bears no resemblance to the boy Ruby and Kana know, but as Miyako points out, he’s putting on the performance he needs to in order to make the show a success.

Ruby and Kana’s reactions to Aqua flirting with other pretty girls are fun, but Miyako snaps them out of their initial resentment and gets them to remember it’s all an act. But even if that’s the case, Kana is disheartened by the prospect of Aqua actually ending up in a relationship with one of those girls…even kissing her.

But as Miyako says, that comes with the territory. Aqua is doing this for vital intel on Ai’s male companions he can’t obtain by any other means, so he’s going to give it his absolute all. Even if the bubbly YouTuber Mem-Cho is a tremendous bore, he’s going to smile feign interest.

It’s when he ends up beside the pretty first-year model Sumi Yuki that a bit of small talk ends up becoming a conversation about the complicated love he’s “trying to get over”. Sumi is intrigued and digs deeper, eventually drawing in close to say they’ll just have to get him over that old love.

It’s just ambiguous enough whether Sumi is putting on a show for the cameras she only later reveals to Aqua (a rare case of not minding his surroundings brought on by her charm), or she’s being genuinely open and friendly. It’s probably a bit of both truth and lies, like so many real interactions! In any case, Aqua scoffs internally at her self-professed timidity.

Back home, Ruby tells Aqua she’ll be choosing the girl he should go out with, and ends up picking Sumi. What a coinky-dink! As for her nascent idol group, they don’t have any songs or even a name, but Miyako jump-starts their notoriety by having them collaborate with Strawberry Productions’ top earner: a muscle man in a chick mask named Pieyon who is super popular with the kids.

I shared Kana’s bewilderment with what young people are into these days and how that reflects on how warped society has become, but when Pieyon tells her how much he rakes in a year, she immediately apologizes for negging him. Pieyon offers pointers on quick ways to gain lots of subscribers, like having him pull a prank on them. But Ruby wants their very first gig to be bereft of lies.

While she’ll soon learn that always being honest in show business is literally impossible, she and Kana do a fine job keeping up with Pieyon’s hour-long workout dance. He was fully prepared to edit the video to make it seem like they danced for the full hour, but between Kana being a regular runner and Kana being full of youth and determination, there’s no need for movie magic.

Then the big moment comes when they get to remove their chick masks and reveal true faces and names. Ruby gives the camera the old Hoshino charm, while Kana is a little more self-conscious, which is actually fine: demonstrating different personalities will help them cast a wider net of fans, the first group of which will come from Pieyon’s followers.

When Pieyon asks what the name of their unit is, Kana leaves it to Ruby, who goes with the nostalgic choice of B-Komachi. That’s right, from these humble, goofy, swole beginnings, Ruby aims resurrect her mom’s legendary group, for which Strawberry retains the rights.