Rent-A-Girlfriend (2020)

[彼女、お借りします]

Season 1

Director: Kazuomi Koga
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Starring: Shun Horie, Sora Amamiya, Aoi Yuki
Episodes: 12

Synopsis:
Reeling from a breakup, a college student tries a rent-a-girlfriend service.

Impressions:
So I see a new romcom with appealing character designs and I give it a whirl. This was a mistake. Romcoms tend to be rather formulaic and I generally don't like the formula in either the American or the Japanese takes on the subgenre. There has to be some sort of hook to grab me. In the Japanese case, appealing character designs can get me in the door, but the characters have to at least be likeable to get me to stick around. The thing that kills this series for me is our male lead Kazuya. This pathetic simplord... I've heard manga readers say that about 100 chapters in, he starts to become a halfway decent character. That's terrible. Now, you can have a lead who's a loser, an idiot, a creep, a pervert, etc., but if it's not played up for comedy or for drama, well, you get this series. It's this lukewarm, flavorless mush. There are a few glimpses of what could be redeeming qualities, but they're not fostered enough for us to feel any progress is being made. We get a glorious moment early in the series where one of his friends calls him out. Too bad said friend only has that single moment. And because I don't even care about spoilers, it looks like he's actually going to step up in the last episode, only to backpedal and maintain the infuriating status quo as so many Japanese romcoms do. Our female lead Chizuru is a fairly standard tsundere, albeit toned down to the point of not even being that interesting (big surprise). I had hopes for Ruka, having a cute design and being voiced by Nao Toyama, but she's the clingy sort you know from the start doesn't have any real chance and is only kept around as a love interest because of Kazuya's spinelessness. I appreciate that Kazuya's ex is unabashedly portrayed as a nasty piece of work, but when I see her on the covers of tankoubon well down the line, I can't even imagine how she manages to justify her continued presence in the story (though that has no real bearing looking at this adaptation by itself). Sumi is an exception, but she only appears in the penultimate episode. (I'd be willing to check out her spinoff series, provided Kazuya doesn't feature prominently in it.) So, we've got a love story where I hate the guy and am ambivalent at best toward most of the girls. You can imagine how little my investment is. I only stuck with this to the end so I could write this review. I won't say it's all bad, but there's not nearly enough that's worthwhile to justify watching this. Pass on it.

Rating:
Avoid It