The most hated narrative device in romance anime in 2026 and Rent-a-Girlfriend uses it more than anyone else

A viral publication on Japanese networks confirmed what many fans had already felt for a long time but had not fully articulated: there is a specific narrative resource within romance anime that is generating an increasingly widespread rejection within the fandom, and Rent-a-Girlfriend (Kanojo, Okarishimasu) became the most cited example of why it no longer works.

What is the most hated narrative device in romance anime?

You know the scene. The heroine walks down the street, enters the living room or appears in any public space, and suddenly an endless line of anonymous secondary characters, the so-called “mobs” or extras, begin to comment out loud how attractive she is, describing her physical characteristics in detail and expressing out loud their desire to go out with her.

It's such a common trope within the genre that many readers take it for granted. But a viral discussion on Japanese networks revealed something that the fandom has been feeling for some time: that specific resource, when used repetitively and as a substitute for real narrative development, becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate.

Why is Rent-a-Girlfriend the most cited example?

Rent-a-Girlfriend appeared in virtually every comment in the debate as the most extreme case of the problem. According to several users, the series devotes considerable segments of screen time to scenes where anonymous secondary characters react to Chizuru in ways that are implausible within the context of the story, even in its fifth season, with the series advanced and the character already established, the work continues to resort to the same mechanism to remind the reader that the heroine is attractive.

What is striking is that the criticism does not point to the visual design of the character, which several comments praised as one of the best in the genre. The specific problem is the overuse of this device as a narrative tool, when the story should already be able to convey the appeal of the character through his development and actions.

Why is this resource used so much if it generates so much rejection?

Several comments within the debate pointed to a technical explanation that makes a lot of sense: in contemporary anime and manga, the visual quality of character designs is so generally high that it is no longer possible to convey the exceptional beauty of the heroine simply through visual contrast with the extras. All the characters, even the most secondary ones, have careful designs.

Faced with this difficulty, the authors resort to an alternative method: instead of visually showing why the character is special, they make other characters say it out loud, functioning almost as an explanatory narrative addressed to the reader. The problem is that when this mechanism is applied repetitively and without variation, the result feels forced and unreal.

Why is it so unbelievable?

One of the most repeated arguments in the debate is that this behavior has no equivalent in real life. In everyday life, even when faced with extraordinarily attractive people, most people do not comment out loud on the physical characteristics of a stranger or express a desire to go out with someone they have just passed on the street. When manga or anime reproduces it in such a systematic and exaggerated way, it breaks the verisimilitude of the world it is trying to build.

Another point noted is that these types of scenes are not only unbelievable, in some cases they end up generating the opposite effect to what was intended: instead of transmitting the exceptional nature of the heroine, what they communicate is the low moral quality of the world around her, where the secondary characters seem incapable of behaving normally in front of an attractive woman.

What this debate says about current fandom

That such a specific criticism of a narrative device generates this level of conversation speaks to an audience that is increasingly demanding of the quality of writing in the romance genre, beyond the visual design. Japanese fandom no longer settles for a well-designed heroine, demanding that the narrative demonstrate why that character is special, rather than simply stating it through the mouths of nameless extras.

For creators of romance anime and manga, the debate serves as a clear signal: showing is always more powerful than telling, even, especially, when it comes to the heroine.