Renai Daikou

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Japanese: 恋愛代行

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 4

Chapters: 39

Status: Finished

Published: Apr 27, 2023 to Jun 6, 2024

Genre: Comedy

Theme: Romantic Subtext

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Jump

Authors: Akasaka, Aka (Story), Nishizawa, 5mm (Art)

Statistics

Score: 6.83¹ (scored by 3,262 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #11252²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1944

Members: 10,620

Favorites: 49

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6.83

Ranked #11252Popularity #1944Members 10,620

MangaYoung JumpAkasaka, Aka (Story), Nishizawa, 5mm (Art)

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Volumes: /4

Chapters: /39

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Synopsis

Half-Japanese Half-Swedish Mari Maria Winter Nanase has everything in life. She was raised in a well-off family in Scandinavia and America, she is popular among the girls, and she has good looks. However, she is missing one thing: she can't talk to boys!

After picking up a book on love in the library, she found a suspicious-looking ad on the back. The ad was for Love Agency, a service promising a "pro in love" to handle your love for you. When she scans it, an agent called "Kon-chan" pops out and promises to help her fall in love with her crush. However, her crush, Masaya Seki, isn't so innocent in his ways either and is also using this app to get with her. How will this pair of hopeless lovers turn out?

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Characters

Winter-Nanase, Mari Maria

Main

Aikawa, Kokon

Main

Seki, Masaya

Main

Matsuda, Kengo

Main

Nobuko

Supporting

Nanto

Supporting

Tesshi

Supporting

Shinozaki

Supporting

Reviews

Jun 15, 2024

Telos5742

Recommended

Do you sometimes have the feeling that somebody's work is celebrated for the wrong reasons? Do you feel that people tend to misunderstand their work?
That's how I feel about Akasaka Aka as a writer.

Looking at the rating and considering the hype around this manga died down nearly immediately after release, it's easy to understand what happened. Renai Daikou suffered greatly from the comparison with this author's other romcom manga, Kaguya-sama. And it's easy to understand why. Kaguya-sama had it all right from the beginning: an interesting premise, a loveable cast, some of the best comedy out there, and most importantly, a profound engagement of the ... community.
Which brings me to the second reason Renai Daikou suffered from the comparison: the anime. Most people discovered Akasaka through the Kaguya-sama anime with all the implications this had. The first one is that the anime took considerable liberties. While the manga is more standard, the anime used all the means it had at its disposal to elevate the comedy with things like the narrator or the use of creative animation and directing. We can see traces of this with a lot of people being disappointed by the later arcs of the manga: while it certainly is different for each reader, it's easy to make the link between people discovering what the manga wad really like without all the additions of the anime and the weakening of the hype.

But what about Oshi no Ko, then? Even though it's a very different series we could see the same thing happen as with Renai Daikou. With the release of the first episode, the hype was considerable but it quickly dropped afterwards. In general, hype dies down with time or because people don't receive what they were expecting anymore. And how was it branded back then? A new series by the author of Kaguya-sama with a surprise at the end of the first episode. So when said surprise occurred and it happened that it was quite different from Kaguya-sama, a lot of people quit.

But Oshi no Ko is still very popular so why did Renai Daikou fall off so hard? As I said before, when you think about a romcom by Akasaka Aka, you immediately think of Kaguya-sama. Even more when you consider that the premise of two people who are in love with each other, but too insecure to admit it is the same with the two mangas. So basically the readers were served the same stuff twice without all the things they liked for the first one.

And the thing is that Renai Daikou is actually closer to what you can expect from Akasaka. Akasaka, as he admitted himself and can be seen if you look deeper than the surface of his works, isn't an author of comedy. He is great at it, okay, but he always reverts back to drama at some point. We see this with Oshi no Ko being quite the heavy dramatic manga, a big portion of Kaguya-sama (mainly later chapters which also corroborates why people didn't like it as much as the beginning), and most importantly, his most important work to date, Instant Bullet.
But Renai Daikou isn't a drama, right? Well it most likely should have been if it had more time to develop its story. The main reason I say this is because of the main character, Mari Maria Winter-Nanase (I love this name it's so dumb). Everything in her character screams deep rooted mental disorders as do the best characters Akasaka has written before and it's what makes me love his work so much.

The Akasaka style of writing and the reason I like his manga so much is all about talking about very serious matters in-between lighthearted moments. This, the fact that a lot of elements are not what they seem to be (like Seki's personality being the opposite of what he looks like) and his sort of educational approach of featuring some trivia and explaining the notions he uses are what I would call the Akasaka formula. This is for me what you can really expect from an Akasaka manga without needing to compare them looking for which one is more like Kaguya-sama and Oshi no Ko.

So if that formula sounds like something you'd like, I'd greatly encourage you to read any of his manga, Renai Daikou and Instant Bullet in particular due to their relative unpopularity.

And to wrap this review up, I'd like to talk a little about what not to expect. Obviously, having been axed, you can't really go into it expecting the most distinguished story-telling. So if you really need for a story to have a satisfying conclusion to all its elements without it being rushed, you can go on your way, it's not for you.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that expectations are a double-edged sword that can kill an interesting work in the egg. So instead of just following the hype, find your own reasons to follow a creator and learn through their work what they really want to create. This way I'm sure you'll be able to find media that will really resonate with you personally.

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Jun 19, 2024

unspecified-user

Recommended

Love Agency had a difficult road to walk, as the followup to the legendary romcom Kaguya, from the esteemed author Aka Akasaka. It made a rough first impression, with a convoluted premise and jokes that didn’t quite land. At the time, I kept up with it for a few chapters before dropping it, disappointed that one of my favorite mangaka seemed to be phoning it in.

I was wrong. Once it finished, and I got around to binging it, I found myself unable to stop reading it. Love Agency is a hilarious and heartfelt romantic comedy, and while it’s not at the heights of its predecessor, ...

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Jan 21, 2024

Huang-Teizan

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (24/39 eps)

6.8/10

Alright, this manga is really bad. Like, I’m not even kidding, each chapter makes me want to pour bleach in my eyes… HOWEVER, I just can’t take my eyes off of this piece of trash; the plot is such a mess that you can’t help but want to see the ending.

The plot, probably some of the most disorderly junk to exist, is incredibly inconsistent in its logic and pacing; there are so many “obvious” routes that the plot can take, but it somehow chooses the worst ones available. Because of this, not much of a connection to the actual story or characters form, but ...

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Apr 14, 2023 12:19 AM by Vindstot | Discuss (30 comments)

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Poll: Renai Daikou Chapter 39 Discussion ryzxgum - Jun 6	15 replies	by Shirabana »» Aug 1, 9:53 PM
Poll: Renai Daikou Chapter 38 Discussion ryzxgum - Jun 2	4 replies	by Tamer2002 »» Jun 24, 7:45 PM
Poll: Renai Daikou Chapter 37 Discussion MegamiRem - May 26	4 replies	by Tamer2002 »» Jun 24, 7:37 PM
Poll: Renai Daikou Chapter 36 Discussion MegamiRem - May 13	1 replies	by Tamer2002 »» Jun 24, 7:00 PM
Poll: Renai Daikou Chapter 35 Discussion MegamiRem - Apr 27	3 replies	by Tamer2002 »» Jun 24, 6:51 PM

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