The following contains spoilers for Episode 1 of Rent-A-Girlfriend Season 2, “Dream and Girlfriend” now streaming on Crunchyroll.
While it has been two years since the release of season one of Rent-A-Girlfriend, no time has passed at all in the lives of Kazuya Kinoshita and Chizuru Mizuhara.Fans last saw Kazuya confessing his feelings to her stating he wants her to be his girlfriend for real, only to then chicken out and explain what she means as a rental girlfriend. This is significant since things could be coming to an end very soon.
Earlier in Season 1, Kazuya stalked Chizuru to discover that she was hanging with an old friend from acting school. She aspires to be an actress herself and uses being a rental girlfriend to hone her acting skills as well as earn income. However, she has a show coming up and if she performs well she will no longer need to be a rental girlfriend to make money and will quit the occupation entirely. This episode is the day of that play and that is where the story of these two pretend lovers resumes.
Shouldn’t The Ninja Do The Spying?
The anime opens with a unique way to briefly recap what happened last season. This is nice since it has been 2 years since the last season aired and makes this anime highly anticipated for many. Rather than a series of flashbacks, the primary female protagonist, and antagonist in the case of Mami, give their perspective of the events which transpired in season 1 while also offering their personal view of Kazuya. Its nice to see how different versions of Kazuya live in the heads of these four girls, but it also paints a picture for how their interactions will go for the rest of this season also.
The new opening plays, and yes it is quite pleasing, and finally the actual episode begins. The show starts with Kazuya dreading the eventual end of his relationship. Today is the day of the play Chizuru will be in that will determine if she can get future roles. These roles will fund her schooling and allow her to leave the rent-a-girlfriend gig. Knowing this play will end their fake relationship he plans to get ahead of the situation and just confess to his grandma that they broke up, but chickens out. No need to rush it, he can mull over how to do it over time. After rolling around the floor of te bedroom in despair, he finally decides to get up and do something about the situation. So he goes to see her perform.
With a mask and hat, our love struck protagonist heads to the theater to witness the performance of his beloved. He doesn’t know her role though and begins to wonder what exactly she will be doing. Kazuya wears this disguise to mask his identity but ends up taking it off a bit too soon, as Sumi spots him sitting down in front of her. It was definitely a surprise to see her here, as she only appeared in one episode of last season and had very few lines, but she is a beloved member of the cast by the fans and its no surprise she would be returning in season 2. What is disappointing is how even in this episode she not only never interacts with Kazuya, but she doesn't even have any lines.
But Chizuru does have lines, and plenty of them in fact. Not just in the episode either, but in the play Chizuru gives a spectacular performance. As expected, she was not the start of the show, however she did play an important character. Kazuya remarks how the portrayal she gives is completely different from how she is usually but the way its done is so natural he could not even tell that it was Chizuru. Chizuru is the comedic relief of the play, a ninja named Nene, who does a series of antics and one-liners. They are a hyperactive silly knucklehead with a can do attitude but lacking the skills to back it up. Quite reminiscent of another popular ninja come to think of it.
30 minutes before the play ends, Nene dies, but before that point, she stole every single scene she was in. The crowd was laughing hysterically the entire time and greatly enjoyed the performance. This should be having Kazuya terrified as her success cements the end of their rental relationship, and yet he cannot find himself laughing and enjoying himself. Just like a boyfriend cheering on his girlfriend from the crowd silently.
Nepotism At Its Finest
After such a stellar performance of course one would assume Chizuru is bound to get the part she so rightfully desires? However, as a shock to nobody watching I am sure, she fails to get the part. While this trope is certainly common within anime, it's also quite essential. After all, if she stopped being his rental girlfriend viewers wouldn’t have a show to watch and there wouldn’t be much as far as entertainment value in season 2. But instead, Chizuru overhears the conversation between the lead and the director who came to watch the show. Turns out the lead's parents and the director have a connection, and thus she was given the part based on that.
Chizuru is heartbroken after this and when invited to the after party, opts to not go. On her way home to sit down and wallow in her sadness, she runs into our protagonist. After a brief exchange, she is quick to deduce and have him reveal the fact he went to the play and watched her performance. Kazuya then goes on to say how well she performed to him and how much he loved her performance, and even though this causes Chizuru to light up, when he asks her if she got the part she desired, she downplays the hurt she received from it going to someone else.
When Kazuya asks why the other actress got the role, rather than telling the truth Chizuru starts to belittle her own acting ability. She acts like its not a big deal and that it just shows how she lacks talent or ability for this sort of thing and should just keep doing the rental girlfriend gig. As Kazuya listens though, he recognizes how she is saying this to hide her pain and sorrow and how it's eating her up inside. This opens up an opportunity for him to be the one to comfort her. Even as he feels relieved to know she won’t have the part, meaning they can continue the charade, he feels guilty for finding happiness at her expense. Then when Chizuru ends it off by saying she’s no different from him by chasing a dream she should have quit long ago, he loses it and Kazuya blesses us with the best monologue we have received in the show thus far.
Kazuya rants about how he is going to buy her each and every week and when Chizuru says that’s ridiculous because of the cost he says he will stop being ridiculous when she stops being stupid. He goes on to say how she is the most down-to-earth, hardworking person he knows and that she is super talented as an actress not just from the play but from the role she gives being a girlfriend. He says he will pay for her every week so that she can fund her dream of being an actress and will work his tail off to do so. He’s shouting, so the rest of the onlookers hear him and thus this causes her to admonish him for causing a scene and respond in true tsundere fashion by asking why she woudl ever need his help. Even with that all said, the episode ends with her going home, looking over her script, which is littered with positive affirmations and tips to help her before finally checking her phone to see that Kazuya has booked her way too many times as tears fall from her eyes.
Conclusion
The episode was a good start to the season and really sets the tone for what we can expect moving forward. Last season was primarily about Kazuya meeting these rent-a-girlfriends and using Chizuru to help him with his own relationship issues. However, this season starts the first episode off with Chizuru’s problems, and for the first time we get to see Kazuya stepping up to aid her. Healthy relationships are meant to be reciprocal so its only fair that after all that Chizuru has done for Kazuya and the way she’s assisted him that he does something to return the favor.
Apart from how this episode develops the relationship between our two primary romantic protagonists, we do have other notable things from the episode that made it such a good watch. The comedy was humorous, which was one of the bigger selling points for the first season, and it managed to maintain a cute aesthetic and charm all the way through, even when touching on the more serious issues of Chizuru’s insecurities and the dark side of the acting world. The only real downsides to the episode are its time being run up with the recap from the girls, two of which did not even appear in this episode, and Sumi's presence being just shy of irrelevant to the episode. While it may not be perfect, fans will be happy the new season kicked off to a great start.