Highlights
- Rent-a-Girlfriend Season 3, Episode 7 shifts focus to new possibilities for Kazuya, as Chizuru remains distant and Ruka makes her claims on him.
- Kazuya reluctantly goes on a birthday date with Ruka to fulfill her wishes, but his true feelings for Chizuru make him uncomfortable throughout.
- Ruka's advances reveal her desire for a special birthday experience, challenging Kazuya's assumptions about her and making him question his own intentions.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Rent-a-Girlfriend Season 3, Episode 7, "Kazuya and Her," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
With the movie-making project out of the way, Rent-a-Girlfriend’s narrative has become erratic once more as new possibilities for Kazuya open up. Despite Chizuru being vulnerable under the stars, Kazuya hasn’t made much progress on that front. Ruka, on the other hand, has risen up to the occasion to make her claims on her trial boyfriend.
Keeping his promise of giving Ruka whatever she wants on her birthday, Kazuya is stuck on a romantic field trip through the city to satiate his clingy girlfriend's wishes. However, the date might open up new possibilities for Kazuya of finding his true love as he begins to feel differently about Ruka. Considering the fact that this is possibly the only episode in the entire series where Kazuya and Chizuru don’t get a chance to interact, it's likely that Rent-a-Girlfriend may put up a serious contender for Chizuru.
Birthday Date at the Pool
Since Kazuya promised Ruka he would fulfill all of her wishes on her birthday, she had complete reign over him and his actions. To make the date as steamy as possible, Ruka chose the pool as their first destination. Despite getting to see his “real” girlfriend in a swimsuit, Kazuya remained distraught the entire time. The date was clearly against his will since he never wanted to go out with Ruka in the first place, a fact that became apparent by his uneasiness during the date.
Kazuya’s erratic behavior mostly stems from his feelings for Chizuru, since he wouldn’t want her to witness the two on such a steamy date. However, Ruka’s explicit advances further made matters worse for Kazuya as he could barely control his physical urges. If seeing Ruka’s petite body in a swimsuit wasn’t enough, Kazuya had to rub sunscreen all over her body as well.
Ruka’s advances clearly worked on Kazuya, albeit only physically as he still couldn’t shake off the thought of betraying Chizuru. While her intentions were to make Kazuya’s heart race and force him to feel the same sentiments as her, Kazuya assumed it was simply the pressure of Chizuru as a contender that made her jealous. The stark contrast in their thoughts further made matters worse as the date kept on becoming more erratic.
Ruka’s True Intentions With the Date
Kazuya initially assumed that Ruka’s aggressive advances stemmed from her jealousy of Chizuru and their weekend getaway. He even apologizes for making her feel like she had to one-up Chizuru since the trip mix-up was his fault. To his surprise, however, Ruka opens up about the actual reason for her advances, revealing that it had nothing to do with Chizuru.
She reveals that going out on her birthday and being taken care of by a boyfriend has always been a dream of hers. She further explains that she didn’t care about Chizuru or the trip, and the reason behind her direct advance was her desire to feel like a princess on her special day. Her explanation may seem a bit odd at first, but considering Ruka’s childlike behavior throughout the series, it's clear that she truly wanted to feel special for once in her life.
Her reasoning further made Kazuya question himself since he was rather harsh in his assumptions about Ruka. Even at the end of the date, she wanted one last favor – being able to call Kazuya casually by his name. However, he assumed she would ask for a kiss or something explicit. Instead of fulfilling her desires and being happy for her, Kazuya kept on doubting her intentions. While the date certainly didn’t sway him away from Chizuru, it still made Kazuya see Ruka in a different light, one that isn’t tainted by her tiresome and childlike antics.
Kazuya’s Progress With Chizuru
This may be the first episode where Chizuru and Kazuya don’t get to interact at all, but it's impossible for her to be missing altogether since the series isn’t complete without her. She gets her own scene with her grandmother at the hospital, telling Granny Sayori about the movie and all of Kazuya’s antics. She even finds herself fully immersed in talking about Kazuya, realizing her own fervent emotions for him.
After the trip to Madarao and the intimate moment under the stars, Chizuru and Kazuya are closer than ever. However, Chizuru’s resistance to fully accepting her sentiments for him isn’t going away anytime soon, keeping Rent-a-Girlfriend’s premise with the same unpredictability as before.
The events of this episode put Ruka as a contender to be Kazuya’s final girlfriend, especially since he saw a completely different side of her. However, Chizuru’s place as the central character in the series makes it rather difficult for any other girl in the harem to dethrone her. While it's true that only time will tell who Kazuya eventually ends up with, it's quite clear that he isn’t going to stray away from the path of making Chizuru his one and only girlfriend.