With the beginning of summer season, fans have a list of some highly anticipated anime adaptation and one of these manga is romantic comedy Rent-A-Girlfriend. With the increased hype for the anime adaptation of this manga Kodansha publishers released the series in West. This is the review about the first Volume of the series to see if it’s really worth your time and money.
The story starts with a 20 years old boy, Kazuya Kinoshita who goes to college who is satisfied with the million yen, his parents bestowed upon him and living his college life to fullest but one thing that doesn’t seem to go well in his life is his relationship as his girlfriend broke up with him after 1 month since he started dating her. She broke all ties with him which also includes blocking him on all social media platforms.
Devastated with his failed relationship and spending two sleepless nights while crying, he discovers an app called ‘rental girlfriend’. Since he had nothing to lose and he was already distressed due to the thought of his ex-girlfriend dating someone else, he give this app a try.
Chizuru Mizuhara is the girl that Kazuya selects to be his girlfriend and turns out to be a perfect girlfriend. But after going on a date with her, he finds out that he is not the only person to whom she has been a perfect girlfriend and discovers on the internet that it’s just a role play that Chizuru plays for her customers. This piece of information increases his rage to high level and he leaves her a bad review but he is not aware about the consequences that he will have to endure later.
Kazuya finds himself renting her one more time inorder to ask her about her level of dedication and efforts for just few hours of dating someone. While Chizuru argued that it’s her job and she intends to be as good at her job as she can and the bad review he gave to her is not justified, Kazuya gets to know about his grandmother being in hospital in the middle of the argument.
Kazuya runs towards the hospital alongside Chizuru. His grandmother misunderstands Chizuru as his girlfriend and it makes her happy so Kazuya doesn’t disclose the true relation and gets stuck with her being his girlfriend in front of his family. Chizuru is not happy with this arrangement as she was already angry at him for giving her bad review.
The concept of renting a girlfriend may sound bizarre to many people but these kind of rental services are very common in Japan. Services for rental partner, friend and even parent or sibling are available to fulfill certain void for a short period. In case of Kazuya this service is regulated by strict rules as he is not allowed to be physical with Chizuru or spend time alone in private with her.
Kazuya has no clue about these services and so the audience can relate to him in this regards as they come to know about it as Kazuya learns more. The manga is romantic comedy and it goes a little further to teach the protagonist about this particular service, the series mostly shows some absurd situations that our protagonist get himself into.
The manga is set in a unique se-up and it became entertaining as Kazuya’s life gets more troubles and chaotic with the progression of the story. Volume which consist of 5 chapters is enough to build-up the story and catch our attention with its humor and intriguing plot.
Reiji Miyajima has written a few other manga but none of them has been translated into English. This is the first manga of this author that enters the West market but surprisingly, the story is well-written and the illustration is eye-catching.
Although the male protagonist is somewhat shady and immature, the female protagonist is a well-written character with the traits of a strong woman. She knows when to show Kazuya and is not ready to play along in his game. There was much room for uncomfortableness in the series but their chemistry is enough to ease that.
Despite of the attractive art-work, the design of Kazuya is a little off. It sees a little pout of proportion as compared to other characters. Miyajima has done a great job with the art-work and character design and hopefully it will get better with the continuation of the series.
Kodansha Comics has brought the series to the West and has been translated in English by Kevin Gifford. The translation seems to be flawless and reads smoothly. There is also a translation note in the end. Rent-A-Girlfriend is still in continuation in Japan and is currently at Volume 16. While Kodasnha will release the second Volume of the series in August.
Rent-A-Girlfriend is an enjoyable story. Those who like to read or are fond of romantic comedy that could go for a long time. You can also replace it with Domestic Girlfriend which ended recently. It’s worth reading for rom-com fans and worth our time. A lot of things seemed to be happening in the next few volumes and I’m waiting to read more to see how things will move forward.
