English Dub Review: Rent-a-Girlfriend “Friend’s Girlfriend”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After finding out Ruka is hired at his new job Kazuya finds out that his college friends know about where he works and pays him a visit. During their visit, Kibe has news on Kuri and how he’s been posting gloomy thoughts on social media, and Kazuya talks to Ruka about Kuri’s situation. After getting his first paycheck decides that he’s going to use it for Kuri and asks Chizuru for a favor. Kuri waits for Kazuya at the station while being tormented by his thoughts on how Kazuya is reacting to his situation. He decides to leave but is stopped when he hears a voice call out to him.

Kuri’s confused with Chizuru’s rental girlfriend mode and realizes that her relationship with Kazuya wasn’t real. While Chizuru gets tickets to the amusement park Kuri ponders on Kazuya’s relationship with Chizuru and how their actions appear from his perspective. The two talk about rental girlfriends and guys for a bit and later Chizuru gives some space to him and Kazuya to talk after Kuri spotted Kazuya hiding nearby. The guys talk about Kazuya’s relationship with Chizuru and Kazuya successfully cheers his friend up. Afterward, Chizuru and Kazuya meet out on the balcony and Chizuru asks him for a favor this time to help a very shy rental girlfriend from her agency.

Our Take:

The secret is out, but not in a way anyone could have expected. After two episodes of Ruka, we get to see the Kuri situation and how Kazuya tries to cheer his friend up, by renting Chizuru out for him. This week’s episode was a surprise on multiple levels. For starters, there were plenty of other ways to have Kazuya and Chizuru’s secret revealed to their friends: a simple search on the web or one of Kazuya’s friends seeing Kazuya pay Chizuru. However, we got this episode and it was surprisingly heart-warming with Kazuya’s motivations to try and do something for Kuri.

Furthermore, for the majority of the episode, we don’t see Kazuya at all on Kuri’s date or from his perspective like in the Christmas episode. It was honesty relieving to get away from Kazuya’s perspective to dig into another character’s perspective and get some thoughts from Chizuru on rental girlfriends and guys. Now from Kuri’s perspective and from what he knows about their relationship during the date, it appears that even to him their relationship isn’t a typical rental one based on Kazuya’s actions.

Admittedly, I was more surprised by Chizuru’s willingness to even go out on a date with Kuri. The show even brings it up and when Kuri asked Chizuru indirectly if she ever fell in love with a client. That moment gives a sliver of hope with her answer to her feelings on Kazuya. Furthermore, that flashback frames her conversation with Kuri from earlier in an interesting way. In the flashback, she appears to be practical with her reason but gives in emotionally to his request upon reacting to Kazuya’s reason for the date with Kuri. Then there’s the balcony scene where she’s the one asking Kazuya for help with the new rental girlfriend at her agency. It’s not often we see her ask for help and it’s a good development because for most of the series it’s been Kazuya relying on her to keep up the charade.

Lastly, there’s Kazuya and his friendship with Kuri. Kazuya uses his first paycheck for Kuri instead of renting Chizuru out for himself like he initially thought. That action reminds me that Kazuya’s a good guy deep down and he’s genuinely concerned for Kuri and his romance life. The animation on his stiff walk to portray his nervousness was a good visual along with Kuri’s trembling at the awkward situation. However, they manage to patch things up and move away from their embarrassment.

Overall the episode was good and now with the secret partially out, it’s only a matter of time before Kazuya and Chizuru really come out with the fake dating relationship. However, with the new girl appearing in the next episode it appears that we might not get the expected ending. Hopefully, this new girl gets a proper introduction and development despite being introduced in the second to last episode, but I’ll lower my expectations just in case.