Rental Girlfriend Review — B | Draggle's Anime Blog

Every time I think we’ve hit rock bottom… nope. Love this shit.

https://twitter.com/ABCBTom/status/1310047641221369856

I had been thinking along similar lines but Tom phrased perfectly much of my fascination with this show. Unfortunately I think this is all unintentional on the part of the show. But the show really does pull back the curtain on bourgeous monogamy as a property relation. The show itself is bullshit and so are all the characters. But the entire cultural ideas of dating and marriage are as well.

You see this in the rental girlfriend business— people pay to have a girlfriend. Do these characters genuinely want a girlfriend? Not at all! They just want to impress other people. The girlfriend is a status symbol. Kazuya just wants to impress his grandma (and to have sex, since the only way to determine if it’s true love is through masturbating). But he doesn’t give a shit about having a loving relationship and caring for his partner. Neither do any of the characters. The rental girlfriends pretend to but it’s all an act. Chizuru does it for the money. Mami does it to have power over people. Blue haired girl actually believes in true love and she is truly a fool as the viewer knows from seeing Kazuya’s perspective! Maybe it made more sense back when people had arranged marriages for the sake of property and inheritance rather than lying to themselves about love.

As in grammar two negatives make an affirmative, so in matrimonial morality two prostitutions pass for a virtue. — Charles Fourier

Oh and the layers of misogyny and general disdain for the human race are off the charts. I think my favorite moment is when Kazuya saves his rental girlfriend from drowning. Then everyone is convinced he truly loves her— because why else would you bother to prevent another human from dying?