The rented
romance lasted less than a date from Kazuya. Roblox decided to quietly remove Rent-a-Girlfriend
(Kanojo, Okarishimasu) from its official catalog of licenses for
creators just two days after announcing its arrival as part of a deal with
publisher Kodansha.
It all
started when the platform introduced an update to its licensing system to allow
developers to sell official items within their games. The initial announcement
included four Kodansha franchises: Fairy Tail, Knights of Sidonia,
Ghost Encyclopedia and the popular work starring Chizuru Mizuhara. However,
the inclusion of the latter sparked immediate doubts in the developer
community.
The
creators were quick to point out the clear contradiction between the premise of
the series, focused on girlfriends for hire and paid relationships, and
Roblox's community regulations, which strictly prohibit suggestive content,
nudity or the use of the app to seek romance in real life. After a series of
questions about how such a license was approved, the company edited the
original publication to reduce the list to three franchises, removing any
mention of Reiji Miyajima's story without giving direct public explanations.
Despite the change, the overall agreement with Kodansha remains active for the
rest of the titles.
Written and
illustrated by Reiji Miyajima, the Rent-a-Girlfriend manga has been
published in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine since July 2017, with 47
compilation volumes in the Japanese market. The plot follows Kazuya Kinoshita,
a university student who, after suffering a painful breakup, resorts to an app
to rent a temporary girlfriend, crossing paths with the brilliant Chizuru
Mizuhara. The play has an animated adaptation on air that has already confirmed
its sixth season.
