Rent-A-Girlfriend Season 2

Episodes 22-23

Y'know, it figures. All the up-front horny shows like Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World or World’s End Harem get their deeply unsexy tongue kissing scenes covered up by error messages or unearthly voids of pure darkness, so the chumps reviewing those series get to laugh at an ASMR slideshow and move on with their day. Meanwhile I pick the relatively restrained harem series and wind up having to sit through thoroughly animated sequences of Ruka and Kazuya playing tonsil hockey without so much as a light beam to obscure their meticulously illustrated collective saliva. Now I have to carry those sounds and images with me until I die. I see how it is, RAG.

Unnecessary oral articulation aside, episode 22 also provides a very swift step back from the mildly engaging drama/comedy of the previous episode. It stands to reason that after dragging its feet for weeks, this season could only sustain momentum for a short time. So once Ruka puts her tongue back in her mouth and Kazuya wipes the lipstick off his uvula, it's back to interminable scenes that promise eventual progression but just...don't. Uh oh, Kazuya's grandma is giving her old engagement ring to Chizuru. Is Kazuya finally going to grow up and come clean instead of letting this farce continue? Nope! But wait, now Chizuru's grandma is really sick, and it looks like she's going to die soon. Will this push our characters to reassess their actions, and come to a hard but important decision about lying to their loved ones to save face? Also nope! Instead we get another in a long line of excuses to keep the central fake relationship going, with neither plot really developing outside of confirmation that yes, all the hints we've been dropping about Granny Chizuru dying are going to be paid off eventually.

It's a shame, because there could be something here. Like I dunno, maybe Kazuya recognizing how hard a time Chizuru is obviously having, and offering to be there for support – not as a fake boyfriend or a client, but just as a friend to help shoulder that burden. Instead everything has to be filtered through the show's central gimmick, so instead they just agree to keep the lie going until Grandma bites it, so she can die believing a happy lie from her only remaining family. Which is another part of this show that's just quietly sad in a way I don't think it's really willing to grapple with. It may be well-intentioned, but Chizuru is keeping whole swaths of her own life secret from her closest loved one. There's some real human drama to be mined there, but I have no reason to believe this show is actually interested in or even capable of recognizing it. Because much like Kazuya himself, the series is content to gloss over harsher drama for easier, pettier harem bullshit, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

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Especially not when RAG Parte Deux spends most of its penultimate episode on a second school uniform date, this time with Sumi. And hey, I'm not going to complain about more Sumi time, but it just seems questionable to spend your eleventh (half-)hour with the main character putzing around an aquarium. Like, yeah, sure, you're very cute and sweet, Sumi, but literal lives are on the line over in the A Plot, so maybe you could postpone this belated birthday not-date to be a sidestory OVA or something?

Questionable placement notwithstanding, I did actually enjoy this episode a lot. Much of what I've said about Sumi before remains true here – she's endearing, active, and altogether has the best chemistry with Kazuya – and by having her purposefully take Kazuya out for a personalized date, she ends up bringing out his most positive aspects. I'd honestly forgotten Kazuya had an abiding love for marine life, with how little it ever gets brought up in the actual story, but seeing him geek out over sawfish and manta rays was genuinely charming. What's more, because he's not romantically entangled with her, Kazuya actually relaxes around Sumi and just lets himself enjoy their date rather than getting stuck in his own head about everything. He's still a bit too horny for his own good at times, but that's a pretty standard harem lead trait, and at least he wasn't the one who requested his date dress up like a school girl this time. In all, they actually have a pretty fun date, and it's exactly the kind of material I'd been wanting out of this show for over a dozen episodes.

And by god, the closing scene actually, seriously works! Sumi offers the sort of sincere, unconditional emotional support you would actually want from a romantic partner, rather than the idealized Girlfriend Experience the show so often espouses. She pushes to overcome her shyness and be the understanding friend Kazuya has somehow managed to be for her, and it lets him vent all that built-up pressure. There's a real sense that these two characters have grown for the better and forged a closer bond through their time together, which may very well be a first for this entire series It is honestly, unironically touching and the first time in ages that RAG's characters have felt the least bit human. Combined with the comedic stuff earlier it feels like peering into an alternate universe where this show actually embraced its strengths as a harem series, rather than spinning its wheels for eternity.

How well it maintains that and sticks its seasonal landing is anyone's guess. It wouldn't be the first time that I hoped for RAG to find its feet only to wind up with my face buried in the mud. But at least for now, I can honestly say I had an uncompromised good time with this show, and I'm very thankful for that.

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Rent-A-Girlfriend Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.