Kanojo, Okarishimasu 5th Season

The genius mangaka Reiji Miyajima once again blessed us with the 5th season of his magnus opum, Kanojo Okarishimasu, very clearly the most awaited anime of the year. Given that in the current paradigm of romcoms this one is clearly one of the best, if not downright the best, it means that this season has some of the most awaited scenes, and we have to thank the studio for delivering them in all of their glory.

So, I will refer to the elephant in the room, in the previous season’s last episode, Kazuya was going to confess to Chizuru to make their relationship real, however, Chizuru ... apologizes to him and runs away before he could confess, so he interpreted that as being rejected, leading to probably the most popular scene of the manga, the scene where he imagines Chizuru having sex with another man. When the manga chapter first came out, the chapter was completely ridiculed absolutely everywhere, tons of memes came out from it because it looked ridiculous, and it’s not like I didn’t have tons of fun seeing those memes too, however, this scene seems to be completely misinterpreted in many ways, especially because it’s taken as if it was bad writing, and that makes no sense whatsoever. If you go back to the very first episode of the very first season, you will find Kazuya imagining Mami with another guy after being dumped by her, this makes this scene completely in character, as it is also something that already happened before, Kazuya’s self-esteem is so under the ground it goes down to the center of the Earth, everyone in his life is always putting him down for everything he does, and it isn’t that abnormal that when he gets rejected he thinks “maybe she deserve a better man than me”, it’s not like that thing doesn’t happen in real life.

You see, I remember that back when I was 15, I was invited to one of the girl’s 15 years old party, as was everyone else in the classroom because everyone was invited to every party that my classmates were doing around. I had this friend, he liked this girl, she was cute, clearly out of his league and to top it all she had a boyfriend already, but that doesn’t matter. In that party, she and another one of our classmates were dancing booty shaky reggaeton Bad Bunny shit, and he, for a reason no one could understand, started crying and left the room, and as someone who knew these two guys ever since I was like 6, it was pretty confusing, as I knew they didn’t have anything going on and doing that kind of dances in any party is extremely common where I live. I could just wonder why would he even start doing that, taking into account that they weren’t even close to be in a relationship, but I think that my problem was trying to see it too logically back then.

And that leads me to go back to the theme at hand, in that scene Kazuya thinks he got rejected and starts imagining Chizuru having sex with another man, this made a perfect click to me, as I saw something extremely similar happening right in front of my fucking eyes. This scene is not at all an example of bad writing, it’s realistic and completely in character. The main complaints against it to say it’s bad writing is that it is absolutely pathetic and that Kazuya is a cuck. The first one is not even a valid complaint, because it is true he’s pathetic, but that doesn’t make a scene bad, it’s barely any different from complaining about not liking the color of their shirts, it doesn’t have any substance as a criticism. The other is simply not true, a lot of people use the shitposting definition of “cuck”, which is just a character being cheated on, but that is not even what’s happening in the scene, everything is happening on his mind, so it’s not even real, and Kazuya and Chizuru aren’t dating, so it cannot possibly be cheating either even if it was real. There’s no character in Kanojo Okarishimasu that could be possibly qualified as a cuck, the closest would be Ruka, but she isn’t one either. Everything about this scene gets highly exaggerated, but in reality, it’s completely consistent with everything that has happened across the series. This isn’t even the only scene that caused a ruckus back when it came out in the manga, but it is the most prominent and the one that causes the most visceral reactions, and while I can understand laughing at Kazuya for it, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t justified to exist or that it is badly written.

With that out of the way, I’ll add that this season is essentially the end of all the most relevant plot points that have been hanging around in the series, because almost all the characters are interacting in the same place, so they try their best to not communicate or try to not say anything weird that other characters do not know. If there’s any problem with the series, it’s that every time a lie gets revealed to others, they have to try their hardest to come up with an even bigger lie to make the previous lie not look fake, which can be believable, but it’s something that happens so much, it makes you wonder why didn’t Kazuya and Chizuru discuss what to say in case their secret gets revealed, their entire relationship is built on so many layers of lies that it gets to a ridiculous point, that’s what the series has always being doing and why their relationship looks so dysfunctional, it’s part of the point of the series to see the way they maintain their fake relationship while breaking as many ToS as possible. This season decides that it finally is time to tackle Chizuru and Kazuya’s relationship in front of their family and friends, the problem with the series is that this isn’t even close to the end of the story, the manga keeps going for like 200 more chapters after this when this arc clearly works as a climax that ties everything nicely, the only thing you are left to resolve at this point is Kazuya and Chizuru actually getting together.

One of the most important parts to me is that I find the jokes in the series to be very funny, it doesn’t matter if it’s a girl telling something to Kazuya and him sperging out in his mind about it, it was funny to me even back when I saw the first trailer for the series, I can’t go a single episode without enjoying the things they are doing, I love to see these characters acting like stupid people and having to tango around their relationships. I love the fanservice and how sexy and cute the girls are, I love the outfits Reiji puts them in. Kazuya is fun, a rare example of a romcom protagonist who actually acts like a real person instead of a generic nice guy, and he is definitely an example of what you shouldn’t do or be in real life, and I wouldn’t have him in any other way.

Notes:
- “Cuck” comes from the world cuckold, which is used for a man whose wife is unfaithful towards him. That doesn’t happen in this series ever, so no, Kazuya isn’t a cuck, and on that note no one else is. This series isn’t NTR.
- After 5 seasons they decided to give us uncensored nipples in the anime, thanks.

Thank you for reading.

Another season has passed, and unlike the previous one, which felt clunky, cringeworthy, and genuinely dull, this season is at least more eventful by this franchise’s standards. Even so, it still ends in the exact same place: more breadcrumbs, more hesitation, and more of the same “will they, won’t they” dynamic that is clearly being stretched out for yet another season.

At this point, I have to be honest: the series has gone on long enough that I no longer really care who Kazuya ends up with, whether that is Chizuru, Ruka, or no one at all. The story has dragged this central romance out to ... the point that it has lost much of its emotional impact. It desperately needs a new hook beyond just the main love story, because right now the two leads still do not seem to fully understand their own feelings, let alone what they actually want from each other.

Kazuya remains the same low-self-esteem simp he was in season one. Whatever growth he has shown feels minimal at best. You could argue that this is realistic, since people do not change overnight, but even so, in his current state he still does not seem close to deserving the love and attention he receives from his crush. What makes it more frustrating is that this season seems to reward him anyway. Or rather, the people around him start rewarding this same weak, indecisive behavior, to the point that it almost feels like the story is pressuring Chizuru into liking him. In fact, this may be the worst version of Kazuya I have seen in the past five seasons. It almost feels as if his character development is moving backward. Even his supposed depression arc is handled only superficially, which gives the impression that the author knows the audience does not really want to engage too seriously with that side of the character because it might hit too close to home.

As for Chizuru, her constant indecision does her no favors either, and I can understand why a lot of viewers have started turning on her and placing all the blame on her side. Personally, though, I think that is unfair. If Kazuya were able to show more maturity, confidence, or capability, I imagine Chizuru would be much more willing to genuinely consider him. Instead, it often feels like the story is trying to push her toward giving this pathetic man a chance whether it feels earned or not.

Plot-wise, the first half mostly serves to wrap up material left hanging from season four. As much as the community hyped up certain moments, my reaction was mostly just, “That’s it?” The story barely moves forward. Most of the cast are so passive and so unwilling to challenge the status quo that they cling to whatever lies are available just to keep the situation intact. That makes the entire narrative feel awkward and artificial. Honestly, without characters like Mami and Yaemori pushing things along, the two leads would seem completely incapable of managing either themselves or their relationship.

The animation is also questionable at times. It almost feels as though the production knows it has a lineup of top-tier voice actors and is relying on them to carry the entire show. Some scenes barely move at all and consist of little more than characters talking to each other. There is also a noticeable amount of reused animation from previous seasons, which really captures the spirit of the series at this point: do the bare minimum, because the fans will consume it anyway. I especially feel bad for people watching this weekly, because some episodes genuinely feel like a PowerPoint presentation. I binged the season and still found it irritating, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to wait an entire week for that level of output.

The storyline itself often feels mechanical. You can clearly see the outcome the author wants to set up, and the way he arranges the scenes to get there feels robotic, as if it lacks any real understanding of how people actually behave. Side characters are also pushed aside and only brought back when the plot suddenly needs them. What happens to Ruka this season, for example, feels deeply toxic to me, but because the author does not seem interested in really addressing that, she is left to endure it alone and continue acting cheerfully for Kazuya.

Overall, I still have a lot of thoughts about this show, but the actual experience of watching it now mostly comes down to sunk cost. It is not completely unbearable, but it is mildly annoying, consistently disappointing, and by this point my expectations are so low that I barely expect anything better anymore.

If you're reading this you probably know what happened until now. So why are we still here? Being a completionist or really into stuff like this?

Let me tell you something: There's nothing worse than a story that keeps repeating itself and actively missing points or even dragging stuff into oblivion to make you stay. Inner monologues of the MC are just nonsense to a point where you know this is not about character development or any change whatsoever. It keeps episodes from telling you anything new to the story and you're tuning in every week to get 2 whole minutes of new stuff and 20 ... minutes of intro, outro, reminder of what happened last episode, pictures from the past and inner monologues while seeing static images over and over again.

2 or 3 seasons would've been enough to tell this story. Some other RomCom try to give you a storyline for the couple after they confessed. That might be what Rent A Girlfriend actually needed but instead it's about milking a dead cow and running this whole thing into the ground. I don't know anything about manga or if there's even source material for this show but who the heck thought it's a good idea to create plot twists without a plot?

Very personal opinion from someone who liked this anime: If there's a season 6 and episode 1 is just another recap of the past then it's thrown around and forgotten about like Kazuyas used tissues.