Fans Discover Rent-A-Girlfriend Manga Reused Its Own Plot

Readers of Rent-A-Girlfriend experienced a strange sense of déjà vu while reading recent manga chapters and discovered that the author has been reusing certain plot elements. Well, he’s only been caught once so far, so who knows how many times this might have happened.

A fan posted a comparison between chapters 316 and 397 — a difference of 81 chapters!

Fans Discover Rent-A-Girlfriend Manga Reused Its Own Plot

Let’s compare: on the left is chapter 316, and on the right is chapter 397.

We start with Kazuya asking Chizuru out on a date.

After asking, he gets nervous and blushes, and then Chizuru responds briefly with a “yes,” causing him to react the same way.

Chizuru, with a serious face, agrees to go out with Kazuya.

Shortly after, she says she’s “looking forward to the date.”

Kazuya freaks out after Chizuru accepts, then collapses from the stress of asking her out.

Then he starts laughing and crying with joy.

Chizuru also smiles after agreeing to go out with him.

And there it is — we lived through the same situation twice while reading Rent-A-Girlfriend.

Let’s see how fans reacted. The Reddit post gathered a total of 77 comments!

• “He thought we wouldn’t notice… but we did.”
• “He even used the exact same panel, wtf. Someone already wrote a 100-paragraph essay trying to explain the difference. This isn’t some deep classic romance you have to analyze word by word. It’s just a cheap romcom manga going in circles.”
• “I think the outcome will be quite different this time. The overall tone feels different. Why would it end the exact same way as before?”
• “Parallels and recurring structures are legitimate storytelling techniques. They’re a way for the author to highlight differences between echoed events and evoke familiarity and repetition.”
• “I’m trying to understand your point here. What you’re showing is too specific to be treated as lazy recycling. It just shows how things have changed since those earlier chapters.”
• “It’s now known that he moves the story in the same cycle, with small differences and improvements each time. For example, the last date was uncertain about many things, but this one has new developments to support it.”
• “This isn’t new — Reiji does this all the time, but sometimes the results and endings differ.”
• “Oh yes, can’t wait for 20 more chapters of Kazuya planning the NEXT date.”
• “Who’s gonna sue me for reusing my own work?”
• “Hey, the characters have a life of their own now, right?”
• “We were fooled.”