No longer lonely... and now with even more to lose (Rent-A-Girlfriend's cohabitation arc, chs. 256-261)

One of the things I think useful about looking back an entire sequence of chapters now, instead of the weekly breakdowns, is the ability to put things in perspective. We sat through 6 chapters of Rent-A-Girlfriend doing its best slice of life comedy impression, and now we’re back in soap opera mode, raising the opportunity for a higher-stakes clash now that we see what Kazuya and Chizuru have to lose.

Chizuru can now smile about this situation, with no regrets. (261)

Accepting Kazuya closer to her heart

We saw back in ch. 250 how Chizuru felt alone and disconnected, having had to move away from Kazuya and into the empty house her grandma left behind. That sense of isolation led her to contemplate reaching out to Kazuya, to go out past her bedtime to see him when given the slightest reason, and to accept the opportunity host him at her home—at least for the next month. Chizuru has emerged from the first few days of their new arrangement all the brighter for it. She explicitly acknowledges her sense of loneliness and how it has greatly abated (261). Combined with how she was in tears back during the “Move” arc at one point, this is the sight of Chizuru putting those feelings behind her, at least for now. Kazuya (and perhaps Mini) being in her home has surrounded her with accepting people and brought warmth to her life again.

But it’s still baby steps

It deserves to be said that Chizuru’s idea of closeness is, at times, pretty far from romantic. Like her actions when she was still acting as his rental girlfriend, Chizuru continues to show affection and care through conscientiousness rather than explicit sentiment. She’s there to make sure he isn’t locked out and says, “Welcome home.” (256). She spends all of chapter 257 going over an elaborate living arrangement plan to ensure there are no accidents to make anyone uncomfortable, and she tops it off with a fish keychain, knowing he likes fish. She makes him tea for after his bath (259). She tells him he doesn’t need to be so considerate of hogging the sink (260). Warm gestures all, but also all pretty well short of, “I love you.” As much as we can see she is trying pretty hard to make it all work, to make Kazuya comfortable, and so on, it also misses the point of what Kazuya really wants and needs. Kazuya wants a commitment. He wants to know he truly matters to her. Here, he knows she’s considerate of him, and it’s sometimes astonishing how Kazuya derives so much joy from being fed so little affection from her. But none of that is any different from before: Kazuya has been known to say (more than once) Chizuru is “so cute” when her expression is still all business.

It is disappointing that, despite the unique situation, Chizuru continues to be Chizuru and doesn’t really move beyond her usual demeanor to try to meet Kazuya’s feelings, one way or the other. In many ways, Chizuru continues to act like the perfect wife, as if wanting to skip past the phase of being head-over-heels in love. She even works to keep her physical attraction toward him bottled up. Ah well, at least we know that’s there. And going forward, the question of whether to give in to her longing or keep it bottled up seems to be front and center in her mind.

Kazuya, comic relief

Kazuya being Kazuya. (261)

When in doubt, PANIC! Kazuya undergoes no transformation in these chapters, big or small. When there is conflict, we are along for the ride of Kazuya’s Big Time Doom Gloom. For better or for worse, Miyajima sees Kazuya as the primary comedic engine of the story (I know, many of you will say for worse). His silly and bizarre daydreams, his imaginings of the fish mocking him… they are all meant (however poorly they land!) to be funny. (People will probably say Mini is the one who’s actually funny, but I’d also point out that the few times we get Chizuru’s point of view, she turns up gems like looking cat-eyed at a cat.)

To be fair, I would say it actually works in “…and the Cat” (261) precisely because Kazuya overreacting to a cat, and not overreacting to some kind of stress between him and Chizuru, is actually pretty funny. “The creature remains!” Calling it senpai. Kazuya’s reactions to a harmless neighborhood cat are a sight to behold. But it would also be nice for Kazuya to have a plan to get closer to Chizuru; he spent all of 45-102 doing pretty much nothing to even try. Kazuya continues to try to leave the ball in Chizuru’s court as much as possible, and Chizuru hates serving it back to him. This is the least romantic way to keep the game at “love-love”.

Nevertheless, while Kazuya has been settling in and having adventures, the story has subsequently moved on to Chizuru’s birthday, and Kazuya will not be sitting back for that. Kazuya’s unsettled position has now given way to a position in which he must, and seems determined to, act.

Miyajima has used this formula before… just to give weight to a threat

We’ve been through this sort of downtime before. It’s actually rather rare. (116)

This sequence of mainly slice-of-life chapters reminds fairly heavily of the early movie arc, from chs. 112-122. These chapters did not feature any particularly long arc, including several one-off chapters like meeting the director, choosing a script, and a visit to the hospital to see Sayuri, but in doing so, they established the new relatiionship between Kazuya and Chizuru—working together, instead of one being hired by the other. This dovetailed naturally into the threat posed by Umi in “The Girlfriend and the Final Day”.

To be fair, I don’t think we needed 6 whole chapters establishing this new situation. It probably could’ve been done in 3 chapters, but I don’t think 5 is out of the question, either. (112-122 had a few digressions, particularly with Mini, that didn’t amount to much initially but would end up having a great deal of impact later.) Spending the time to establish a new status quo allows for a more compelling plot to threaten it. Now, we know Mami is back in the picture, and Sumi has Chizuru’s birthday circled on her calendar, too. Things look to be getting spicy once again.