The Paradise Arc came to a close this week. It was, without a doubt, Miyajima’s most ambitious arc yet: the only named arc in the series to go more than 10 chapters (43, in fact, and 44 in total if you count Mami’s backstory). It was Miyajima’s Infinity War and Endgame , a massive collision of multiple plotlines all being brought to fruition over two days in Fukushima, but in the end, we see what it was really all about: Chizuru coming to grips with the fact that she has fallen in love with Kazuya and can no longer ignore her feelings. Love's taken root, but is it bearing satisfying fruit? And… that’s all it was. Chizuru was beaten over the head with a narrative baseball bat until she got it , put under so much pressure that she finally couldn’t ignore her true feelings, but in doing so, Miyajima overlooked or outright ignored the major themes of his series. Kazuya and Chizuru replaced one lie with another, not because it was something they felt they believed in but simply ...
Notes on Rent-A-Girlfriend (Kanojo, Okarishimasu)