Fans getting enraged by Rent-A-Girlfriend Chapter 380 is fully justified

It has been years now since the Rent-A-Girlfriend series began, and with 380 chapters published, I was hoping that the story would reach a moment where the narrative would have a turning point. What we received instead, as loyal readers, was nothing but utter disappointment.

In all honesty, Kazuya Kinoshita isn’t the most lovable protagonist. I feel like he has been a mess for most of the story. But despite all his flaws, I kept watching him chase something real.

He grew, albeit painfully slowly. He got more honest, more vulnerable, more determined. I wanted to believe that if I stayed patient, Rent-A-Girlfriend would give him a meaningful payoff.

But all we got was the plot dragging him back down. When Chapter 379 dropped and Chizuru finally confessed, many readers like me finally felt like the plot was going somewhere. That confession took a sudden turn when she said she wasn’t ready for a relationship.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much second-hand embarrassment and emotional whiplash from a romance manga in my life. This isn’t about being angry with her choice, but how it was delivered. But every time the creator teases us with some type of character development, it backpedals. And for those of us who have read every chapter, it’s starting to feel like the joke’s on us.

To add to fans getting enraged about this plot is how popular the series still is. But at the end of the day, just because a series is popular should not be the reason behind the story being unnecessarily stretched out.

One of the biggest reasons I got into Rent-A-Girlfriend was for the promise of a messy, complex, but ultimately rewarding love story. But after 380 chapters, I’ve realized something: this is a romance manga that doesn’t want romance.

And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Just scroll through Reddit, Twitter, or any manga discussion thread. Fans are livid. People are dropping the series en masse. Some are even going so far as to call it the School Days of rom-com manga, except that at least School Days had an ending.

If this rejection was always meant to happen, if the entire narrative arc was built to end here, then it’s one of the worst examples of long-form storytelling I’ve ever seen. You don’t make readers sit through nearly a decade of emotional build-up just to pull the rug out at the finish line.

Similar to how I felt, many fans initially tried to empathize with the story of Rent-A-Girlfriend. But after everything that’s unfolded between her and Kazuya across nearly 400 chapters, this moment felt hollow and out of place to a large portion of the audience.

Finally, from the fan perspective, the situation paints Chizuru as emotionally indecisive, and in the worst interpretations, even manipulative. Regardless of whether that was the author's intention, it leaves readers feeling misled.

The creator’s obsession with Chizuru in Rent-A-Girlfriend

Fans have observed that the creator of the series has an overwhelming fixation on Chizuru in Rent-A-Girlfriend. Fans have long noticed that Miyajima draws Chizuru in real-world scenarios, refers to her as if she were a real person, and even posts about her on X (formerly Twitter) like she’s his idealized girlfriend. It’s gone beyond normal character affection; it borders on obsession.

Many fans genuinely believe Miyajima doesn't want Chizuru to end up with Kazuya, and not because it wouldn’t make sense narratively, but because doing so would mean giving her away.

Final Thoughts

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At this point, I genuinely don’t know if I can keep reading Rent-A-Girlfriend manga. Chapter 380 didn’t just frustrate me, it made me question why I ever invested in this story to begin with. And it’s not just me. So many fans are echoing the same sentiment.

Social media is flooded with readers who feel betrayed, not just by Chizuru’s rejection, but by how cheaply it was written. People who’ve followed the series for nearly a decade are furious. Maybe Reiji Miyajima still loves Chizuru. But after Chapter 380, a lot of us aren’t sure we love this series anymore.

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