Kanojo, Okarishimasu (Rent-a-Girlfriend)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: I'd like to Borrow a Girlfriend, Kanokari

Japanese: 彼女、お借りします

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 11, 2020 to Sep 26, 2020

Premiered: Summer 2020

Broadcast: Saturdays at 01:25 (JST)

Producers: Mainichi Broadcasting System, Kodansha, DMM pictures, DMM Music

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: TMS Entertainment

Source: Manga

Genres: Comedy, Romance

Themes: Adult Cast, Harem

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.02¹ (scored by 611,101 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #4042²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #159

Members: 957,558

Favorites: 8,270

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@kanokari_anime

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ANN

Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

7.02

Ranked #4042Popularity #159Members 957,558

Summer 2020TVTMS Entertainment

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Episodes: /12

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Synopsis

Kazuya Kinoshita is a 20-year-old college student who has a wonderful girlfriend: the bright and sunny Mami Nanami. But suddenly, he doesn't. Without warning, Mami breaks up with him, leaving him utterly heartbroken and lonely. Seeking to soothe the pain, he hires a rental girlfriend through an online app. His partner is Chizuru Mizuhara, who through her unparalleled beauty and cute demeanor, manages to gain Kazuya's affection.

But after reading similar experiences other customers had had with Chizuru, Kazuya believes her warm smile and caring personality were all just an act to toy with his heart, and he rates her poorly. Aggravated, Chizuru lambastes him for his shameless hypocrisy, revealing her true pert and hot-tempered self. This one-sided exchange is cut short, however, when Kazuya finds out that his grandmother has collapsed.

They dash toward the hospital and find Kazuya's grandmother already in good condition. Baffled by Chizuru's presence, she asks who this girl might be. On impulse, Kazuya promptly declares that they are lovers, forcing Chizuru to play the part. But with Kazuya still hung up on his previous relationship with Mami, how long can this difficult client and reluctant rental girlfriend keep up their act?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kanojo, Okarishimasu
Other:	Kanojo, Okarishimasu Petit, Kanojo, Okarishimasu: Date Movie
Sequel:	Kanojo, Okarishimasu 2nd Season

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Ichinose, Chizuru

Main

Amamiya, Sora
Japanese

Kinoshita, Kazuya

Main

Horie, Shun
Japanese

Nanami, Mami

Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi
Japanese

Sakurasawa, Sumi

Supporting

Takahashi, Rie
Japanese

Sarashina, Ruka

Supporting

Touyama, Nao
Japanese

Kibe, Yoshiaki

Supporting

Akasaka, Masayuki
Japanese

Nakano, Umi

Supporting

Ishikawa, Kaito
Japanese

Kinoshita, Nagomi

Supporting

Nozawa, Yukari
Japanese

Ichinose, Sayuri

Supporting

Sadaoka, Sayuri
Japanese

Flea Market Saleswoman

Supporting

Kowaka, Wakana
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Aoi, Hiroyuki

Producer

Simone, Jamie

Producer

Terao, Yuri

Producer

Matsuzaki, Yoshiyuki

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Centimeter (センチメートル)" by the peggies

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Ending Theme

	1: "Centimeter (センチメートル)" by the peggies (eps 1, 12)
	2: "Kokuhaku Bungee Jump (告白バンジージャンプ)" by halca (eps 2-6, 8-11)
	3: "First Drop" by halca (eps 7)

Reviews

Nov 29, 2023

MxS7HGS

Recommended

Rent-A-Girlfriend is a comedy series centered around a college student named Kazuya who is going through a rough patch after breaking up with his girlfriend, Mami. To alleviate his loneliness and depression, he decides to rent a girlfriend. As fate would have it, he ends up introducing his rental girlfriend, Chizuru, to his grandmother, who becomes enamored with the young woman. To keep up appearances, Kazuya and Chizuru continue to pretend to date. Despite being paid for her services, Chizuru agrees to help Kazuya gain confidence until he finds a real girlfriend.

The show capitalizes on its improbable premise to incorporate various tropes, including Christmas, ... hot springs, and beach episodes. As the story progresses, additional female characters enter Kazuya's life, forming a dysfunctional harem of sorts. However, this is not your typical harem. One woman wants no part of it, another wants it without herself, a third wants everyone else out, while the fourth is simply trying to figure out where the harem is.

The show features a good amount of fan service, using certain tropes and unique camera angles to grab your attention. However, despite some questionable scenes, it never goes overboard with ecchi content. As with most teen comedies, it tells a story about relationships in a way that is uniquely anime.

Like many anime, Rent-A-Girlfriend starts off with comedy and gradually becomes more serious and emotional. The protagonist, Kazuya, struggles to believe in his own self-worth and endures mistreatment from his ex-girlfriend without protest. Even when Mami shows her true colors as a manipulative and abusive person, Kazuya relies on Chizuru to defend him. He allows her to use him because he doesn't think he deserves better.

Kazuya's inability to be honest with himself or anyone else is the main source of the show's drama and humor. Although Kazuya often treats the women in his life poorly, he knows he should do better and tries to improve himself. He's simply a foolish young man trying to find himself and avoid the stigma of being single throughout college. His behavior reflects this.

I didn't find many downsides to the show. The animation is on par with other popular shows and complements the fast-paced humor that they were going for. The intro song is catchy and enjoyable, and it's easy to get it stuck in your head. The writing really leans into the absurdity of the show's premise and keeps the jokes coming at a rapid pace, so you don't have time to question it. My only complaint is that Sumi, one of the girls, doesn't show up until very late in the season and doesn't really do much except be cute and shy. She appears in the intro and outro animations and only appears in one episode this season.

Overall, The show Rent-A-Girlfriend was able to captivate me with its simplicity. The small cast and straightforward plot allowed me to become fully immersed in the story. Kazuya's constant string of mishaps kept me entertained and eager to see what would happen next. Watching the characters develop throughout the series was also satisfying. The show's pacing was just right - not too fast or too slow - and left me feeling content with the conclusive ending.

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Aug 29, 2023

xBadxApple

Mixed Feelings

This one's a bit of a headscratcher. I was discussing the anti-popularity of the series with my girlfriend and we couldn't come up with a solid reason why 'Rent-a-Girlfriend' gets SO MUCH flak.

Don't get me wrong - it's a flawed and rather generic series. The characters are meh, the visuals are great, and the premise is just alright with its edginess. 'Rent-a-Girlfriend' can be summarized as a gorgeously animated rom-com with a shitload of clichés, chronically dumb characters, and rather cheap drama.

That applies to so many other series, though. And by some law of contradictions, it's exactly these hilariously bad aspects that make the series ...

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Nov 25, 2023

BadGuyBoog

Not Recommended

This is a show I get surprisingly passionate about. I honestly thought about putting it higher simply because of how much of a reaction I get out of watching it. Unlike many other shows on this list, it’s not boring and there was never a dull moment. I wouldn’t say I was invested in it, but it always had my full attention when watching it and I plan to continue watching it because of masochism or something idk. That being said, what sounds like a complement in actuality is what I hate most about this show. This is a dumpster fire that I simply cannot ... stop watching. This is a show that makes me irrationally angry. It’s not even ironically good either, this is a pain to watch through and through. I despise everything about this show. Nothing else has made me more upset than watching this shit. I have thrown my phone or things at my phone at least 15 times throughout its runtime. I have audibly yelled at the screen, fantasized about beating the ever living shit out of the characters (no joke), and it makes me want to commit unspeakable atrocities. This is everything I hate about anime (especially anime Rom Coms). Before we get into the meat of what makes this show so bad there are a few things on a technical level that really rub me the wrong way. The first is the music. The love motif isn’t bad, however it is excessively overused. The characters don’t even have to do anything, they can just be in the same room and the theme would play. The other music is annoying and distracting. Like most rom-com anime, there is nothing visually interesting to latch onto. It’s as boring as the camera can get. The anime noises are annoying and excessive, the dialogue is written incredibly unnaturally and the fan service (also annoying and excessive) is obviously where most of the effort was put in animation-wise. All of the anime trademarks are there: the ‘in-love’ sparkling background, the annoyed tick mark, the overexaggerated sweat, the simplified chibi drawings for humor etc. It’s as basic and lazy as it gets. Even Uzaki, which I consider to be the blandest, most copy and paste modern romcom I ever saw, wasn’t as excessive when it comes to these anime trademarks. But this is all trivial compared to what comes next. “Half of romcom anime problems could be solved if the characters just explained the situation”. This sentiment has never been more true than in this anime. These types of shows thrive on contrivance, coincidence, and stubborn misunderstandings but this show takes it way the hell too far. In fact the premise of the show is based off of these. This guy goes to visit his grandma in the middle of his fake date and the Rental Girlfriend goes with him but surprise surprise, her grandma is also there to, is best friends with his grandma and now both families think they are a couple and will probably commit terrorism or something if it turns out they're not (other than them being disappointed I really don’t know why they can’t just tell them). First it off, coincidence on how their grandmas are best friends, contrivance on why she went with him in the first place and misunderstandings that they refuse to clear up. This drives the plot and it all happens in the first episode. The coincidences are way too forced and they happen all the time. This man could move to America in the most desolate town that isn’t even on the map somewhere in the desert in Arizona and he’d still somehow be neighbors with one of the girls. And I wouldn't be surprised. They just appear out of nowhere with no rhyme or reason for no other purpose than to misunderstand something and/or spawn even more bullshit. The plot is nonsensical and even worse, it never progresses. The problems keep piling up and get more complicated but it never feels to get any worse or better. Things just happen and his situation never actually changes. If someone is trying to say something to break the lies, you can bet your ass some unbelievably convenient coincidence is going to stop it. If he confesses he’ll just cover it up. If something happens the next episode will resolve it in two seconds. So much shit happens but none of it matters because the situation stays the same anyways rendering it all pointless. It’s repetitive, it’s tiresome and it’s frustrating. And it doesn’t help that the stuff that does happen is stupid as shit.As far as the episodic ‘plots’ go, this show’s drama is: Should I add her as a friend and get her contact info? (been together for a year). Should I make her wear a cute outfit? Should I tell her I went to her play? This girl forced herself to come over, how do I not get raped by her and then how do I convince other girl that I did not have the sexy time? Wow my friends or family are about to find out I’m a fake and get no bitches, how do I dig myself into a deeper hole and/or hide like Solid Snake? All this dude does is lie and he’s not even good at it. These fuckers are just gullible and def. It’s just as bad as it sounds. And it’s all held up by the truly worst part of the show: The characters. These are the most annoying and terrible people in anime. Kazuya is the worst protagonist of any show. Beta male is not low enough to describe him. He is the world's first Omega Male. And he doesn’t need to be an Otaku to do it. He is the lowest of the low. This is the guy who jerks off to his ex’s instagram. Everytime Chizuru is on screen he talks about how attractive she is. He gets excited way too easily. Literally she was just taking out the trash and this dude made a huge deal out of it, blushing freaking out and probably got a hard on. He is so fucking pathetic. And that’s not to say you can’t make a pathetic character interesting. Shinji from Evangelion, Onizuka from GTO, Sato from NHK. These are all pathetic but interesting characters. Kazuya is just frustrating and creepy. He at one point stalks Chizuru and he finds out he’s in love with her through, I kid you not, a jerk off scene (fuck this show for making me watch that). I want him to get better but he never will. Why do any of these girls like him? Speaking of the girls, let's start with my favorite character of the show, Sumi. She’s shy, quiet, cute, but most importantly, completely fucking pointless. She’s in about 3 episodes total. She literally cannot speak and has about 2 lines throughout her entire runtime. That’s why she’s my favorite. Because she doesn’t do anything to annoy me. She’s automatically the best girl only because she’s not an outright bitch. That’s all it takes. She’s not even a good character, and I’m afraid if they give her more screen time they will make her a bitch. Some other decent characters include the grandmas, who cause 30% of the problems but are the only source of decent humor, and Kibe, who had a great scene that made him seem like a chad but then they remind you that he’s friends with Kazuya. Chizuru wouldn’t be so bad, she’s hard working, kind and doesn’t like complications. But she is way the hell too distant. Like you’ve been wrapped up with this guy for about a year, can’t you at least consider him a friend? I mean I get it, he’s Kazuya, I wouldn’t want to be friends either, so then you should be finding a way out of it. Either admit to yourself like him and talk to him like a normal human being or stop leading him on. All this ‘professionalism’ bullshit just gets annoying after 2 episodes, much less the entire runtime. I don’t mind her setting the ground rules and explaining it’s never going to happen but she can at least show him human decency (not that he deserves it but when he’s the protagonist that means we have to deal with it too). That coupled with the fact that she goes on fake dates for a living (they try to justify this and it’s stupid) and you got yourself a certified bitch. Though she’s not nearly as bad as Mami. Mami is Kazuya’s ex who dumped him for apparently no reason (not that he doesn’t deserve it, it’s just they never explain it) and is now meddling in his life for no apparent reason. She goes out of her way to ruin his relationships and investigates his situation and for what? She has no motive. If the motive is she still likes him then that is just stupid and she certainly doesn’t act like it. She does nothing the entire show except pop up out of nowhere and question everything and to be a bitch. She is a nuisance meddling in her ex’s affairs whilst being condescending the whole time, all without a reason. But she still isn’t as bad as Ruka who is by far the worst character in the show and it makes me mad when people defend her. Ruka is the girl who is most actively trying to get with Kazuya because he was able to raise her heart rate (it’s as dumb as it sounds). She is loyal, devoted, obsessive, manipulative, scheming, selfish, jealous, near-psychotic, entitled, creepy and of course, a certified bitch. Reverse the roles and think if a dude did this to a girl and tell me if it’s alright with you. Ruka becomes his “girlfriend” through blackmail even though she knows he is in love with Chizuru. She’s trying to convince him to have sex with her and forcefully kisses him and forcefully stays at his house. At every opportunity she attempts to sabotage his relationships and ruin his life. This dude is having a family dinner with Chizuru and she stalks him and introduces herself as his girlfriend even though she knows, that’ll ruin his relationship with his family. She is a selfish entitled brat who doesn’t give a shit about Kazuya. People defend her by saying ‘she’s loyal’ but Rem from Re:Zero is also loyal but she respects Subaru's feelings and accepts her loss. She supports him nonetheless because she cares for his happiness. Ruka doesn’t give a shit about Kazuya, only herself. She is a selfish, certified bitch. Everyone in this show sucks. This show sucks.

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Kanojo, Okarishimasu

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Ichinose, Chizuru

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