The 5 Biggest Controversies Proving You'll Always Be My Rental Girlfriend Is The Most Stressful Rom-Com

The phrase "You'll Always Be My Rental Girlfriend" perfectly encapsulates the agonizing central tension of Rent-A-Girlfriend (Kanojo, Okarishimasu), a series that has dominated the romantic comedy landscape for years. As of December 18, 2025, the manga continues its sprawling narrative, pushing the boundaries of what fans can emotionally endure, especially with recent, highly controversial chapters like 383 and 404 sparking intense, often heated, discussions across the global community. This story of Kazuya Kinoshita and his relationship with the professional rental girlfriend Chizuru Mizuhara is less a simple rom-com and more a deep dive into self-worth, emotional maturity, and the crippling weight of a persistent lie.

The series, created by Reiji Miyajima, has become a cultural phenomenon, praised for its detailed character art and complex emotional drama, yet simultaneously criticized for its excruciatingly slow pacing and Kazuya's perceived lack of progress. The core question—Will Kazuya and Chizuru ever transition from a paid, professional relationship to a genuine, romantic one?—remains the biggest hook, and the recent manga updates have only twisted the knife, leading to a new wave of fan theories and critical analysis.

The Core Cast: A Complete Character Profile List

To fully grasp the current state of the Rent-A-Girlfriend discourse, one must understand the main players whose intertwined lives create the series' signature chaos. Each character represents a different facet of Kazuya's journey toward maturity and finding real love.

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• Kazuya Kinoshita (木ノ下 和也): The protagonist. A 20-year-old college student in Tokyo. Emotionally shattered after a breakup, he starts renting Chizuru. Despite his initial cowardice, he has shown moments of genuine selflessness, especially in supporting Chizuru's acting career (The Movie Arc). His primary conflict is his self-loathing and inability to confess his true feelings.
• Chizuru Mizuhara (水原 千鶴) / Chizuru Ichinose (一ノ瀬 ちづる): The main heroine and professional rental girlfriend. She maintains a perfect, professional facade as Mizuhara but is secretly a hardworking, aspiring actress named Ichinose. Her internal struggle is balancing her professional boundary with her growing, but guarded, personal feelings for Kazuya.
• Mami Nanami (七海 麻美): Kazuya's ex-girlfriend. She is the catalyst for the entire series. Her sweet exterior hides a manipulative and complex personality. Mami's re-entry into Kazuya's life is always a source of drama, often threatening to expose the central lie.
• Ruka Sarashina (更科 瑠夏): The energetic, self-proclaimed "trial girlfriend." She is a fellow rental girlfriend who suffers from a heart condition that prevents her from experiencing a normal heartbeat. Kazuya is the only person who makes her heart race, leading her to aggressively pursue a real relationship with him, viewing Chizuru as her rival.
• Sumi Sakurasawa (桜沢 墨): A shy and introverted novice rental girlfriend. She is often rented by Kazuya to help her gain confidence. Sumi is universally loved by the fandom for her genuine kindness and is often seen as the purest potential love interest.
• Mini Yaemori (八重森 みに): Kazuya and Chizuru's neighbor and a popular cosplayer/streamer. She is the first person to learn the truth about their "relationship" and actively tries to push them together, acting as the fandom's voice within the story.
• Nagomi Kinoshita (木ノ下 和): Kazuya's grandmother, who is the primary reason the Kazuya/Chizuru lie has continued for so long, as she adores Chizuru.

Controversy Explained: Why the Manga Keeps Fans on Edge

The series' longevity—now over 30 volumes and hundreds of chapters—is fueled by its ability to generate intense emotional reactions. The most recent and significant developments have centered on the long-awaited potential confession, only for the mangaka, Reiji Miyajima, to pull the rug out from under the readers, leading to the "You'll Always Be My Rental Girlfriend" sentiment.

1. The Chapter 383 Rejection Bomb

The "Paradise Arc" and its aftermath led to what many fans believed would be the definitive end of the lie. The buildup was immense. Then came Chapter 383, which became a flashpoint for the fandom.

After years of Kazuya’s pursuit and Chizuru’s slow, subtle development of feelings, a significant moment occurred where Chizuru seemed to definitively reject Kazuya's implied confession or advance.

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This rejection, coming after so much emotional investment from both the characters and the readers, was viewed by many as a narrative regression, making Kazuya's two-year-long romantic pursuit feel pointless and reinforcing the idea that Chizuru would remain professionally distant—hence the "always be my rental girlfriend" frustration.

2. The "Toxic Relationship" Discourse

The continuous cycle of emotional highs and immediate lows has led to a major critical theory: that the relationship between Kazuya and Chizuru is fundamentally "toxic."

The lie itself is the root of this toxicity. It forces both characters into emotionally stunted roles: Kazuya as the desperate, paying client, and Chizuru as the emotionally unavailable professional. The rejection in Chapter 383, where Chizuru seemingly chooses her professional boundary over her real feelings, only solidified this view for many, suggesting the story is trapped in its own premise.

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3. The Chaotic Event of Chapter 404

More recently, Chapter 404 reignited the conversation in a chaotic and uncomfortable way. The chapter's title, "The First Time with My Girlfriend 3," hints at a major development, but the execution was described as "insane" and "hilariously sad" by commentators.

This chapter focused on an incredibly embarrassing moment for Kazuya, involving a highly awkward and chaotic situation that ultimately undermined any serious romantic progress, replacing it with cringe comedy.

The continuous deployment of these "will they/won't they" stalls, especially in highly anticipated chapters, has led to accusations that the mangaka is simply extending the series for financial gain, prioritizing engagement over plot resolution.

Fan Theories: How the 'Rental' Contract Will Finally End

Despite the endless stalling, the community is awash in theories about how the series will eventually conclude. The complexity of the characters and the length of the narrative make predicting the true ending a difficult, yet compelling, task. LSI keywords like Manga ending prediction and Anime Season 4 are constantly trending as fans search for answers.

The "Chizuru Chooses Career" Theory

One prominent theory, fueled by the rejection in Chapter 383, suggests that Chizuru will ultimately choose her career as an actress over a relationship with Kazuya.

For her, the rental service was a means to an end—funding her dream. This ending sees her stepping back from the lie and the service to fully commit to acting, leaving Kazuya to find genuine love elsewhere, perhaps with Ruka or Sumi. This would be a tragic, yet realistic, ending for the romantic comedy genre.

The "Truth and Acceptance" Theory

The most desired ending for many is one where the central lie is finally exposed to the family (especially Nagomi Kinoshita), but instead of anger, the family accepts the genuine feelings that have developed between Kazuya and Chizuru.

This theory posits that Chizuru cannot bear the pain of continuing the lie and that only by admitting the truth can she and Kazuya start a real relationship, finally transitioning from a rental girlfriend service to a true couple. This would validate Kazuya's long pursuit and provide the romantic closure the series is built upon.

The Ruka/Sumi Theory

A smaller, but persistent, faction believes that Kazuya will eventually realize that his feelings for Chizuru are based on an idealization and that one of the other girls, Ruka Sarashina or Sumi Sakurasawa, offers a more genuine and less stressful relationship.

Ruka offers immediate, passionate love, while Sumi offers unconditional, quiet support. This would be a shocking twist, especially after the depth of Kazuya’s emotional investment in Chizuru, but it remains a possible outcome to break the "rental" cycle.

Whether you find the series a masterful slow-burn romantic drama or an infuriating example of narrative stalling, the conversation around Rent-A-Girlfriend shows no signs of slowing down. As the manga continues to release new chapters, every update is a high-stakes event, proving that the question of whether Kazuya can ever truly own the heart of his Mizuhara Chizuru will keep fans hooked until the very last page.