Lets get straight to my rant immediately: I hate RentaGirlfriend. Four seasons in and this is still one of the worst mainstream anime series out there. The series is filled with car crash after car crash with characters who stay absolutely stagnant and refuse to learn from the mistakes they constantly make. We have Kazuya Shun Horie whos a disgusting characterhe literally jacked off in the first three minutes of the Season 4 pilot and once his postnut clarity hit he said I need a girlfriend signaling that he desires one only for his sexual satisfaction which was already obvious back in Season 1. Sure he had his momentsespecially in Season 3s arc where he helped Chizuru achieve her dreamsbut the weight of Kazuyas disgusting mischief drastically outweighs any good traits he might have. Most of the girls in the series are rather okay if you just look at them on paper but they get tons of minus points simply for being associated with Kazuya. Chizuru Sora Amamiya for instance is absolutely dense when it comes to Kazuyas moves. But since were stuck watching this series from Kazuyas POV we only get his unreliable narrativesand that frustratingly persists in Season 4. This is especially true in Episode 2 during Kazuya and Chizurus date where any tension is constantly ruined whenever Kazuya thinks or speaks making Chizuru look absolutely horrible. Even when Kazuya speaks deep words toward her it doesnt come off as sweet at allbecause knowing Kazuyas character its all just fluff. This goes for the other girls in the series as well. Yaemori Yuu Serizawa is basically just there to move the plot along faster and yet fails miserablyshe only creates even more unnecessary side plotlines that drag the series further down. Ruka Nao Touyama is basically just there to be another annoying nuisance obstacle. Sumi Rie Takahashi is now reduced to a Facebook emote. And Mami Aoi Yuuki is way too invested in Kazuya for reasons that are beyond comprehension. Season 4 of RentaGirlfriend is the worst the series has ever beennot only because the shenanigans have gotten worse but because the unattractive unromantic and unfunny vibes of Seasons 1 and 2 have been carried over with diminishing returns. From what Ive ranted above this series is just not a great time. Each episode fuels my anger button to the core and yet here I amfour seasons laterstill watching this. Im not paid to watch it so theres no point in me sticking around and yet I still find myself clicking that next episode button. For four seasons worth of downward spirals RentaGirlfriend still manages to keep me at arms length. I asked myself Whats wrong with me?why am I still sticking through this garbage? And all of a sudden I remembered the word: Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word that refers to the act of finding pleasure in someone elses suffering. It might sound like a word reserved for psychopathswhich honestly isnt too far offbut in essence its about the satisfaction we get from watching others especially fictional characters like Kazuyas crash and burn. Kazuya an undeniably flawed and almost irredeemable human being at this point in the series constantly finds himself in degenerate thoughts embarrassing mishaps and ugly scenariosand rightfully so. We get a kick out of it because it reassures us of our own superiority. It comforts us to displace our own pentup frustration onto a hopeless fictional character. This is the same formula that makes trash reality TV so addicting. And thats rightfour seasons in were still watching RentaGirlfriend because we have hater energy within us. But now in its fourth season the cycle has gotten far too repetitive. The trashy chaos no longer hits the same. Even though there are still moments that ignite that familiar hatefueled high most of this season has become a repetitive borefest. Maybe Season 4 is where the trashy formula finally loses its charm. Maybe its time for meand for all of us sane peopleto finally tap out and let the YouTube reels deliver the only parts worth watching.