Mari Maria Winter-Nanase is seemingly the perfect girl. There's only one problem: she can't talk to boys, which is kind of a problem when you fall in love. Fortunately, she has the help of the mysterious Kon-chan of ProxyAgency.Com Inc to help her. And thus, the war of love begins...
Renai Daikou (恋愛代行, "Love Agency") is a seinen romantic comedy manga written by Aka Akasaka (Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Oshi no Ko) and illustrated by Nishizawa 5mm. It began serialization in Weekly Young Jump in April 2023.
This work contains examples of:
- Attention Whore: Pon's attitude, at least when it comes to Kon, turns out to be this. He was rejected by her in middle school, but when they reunite in the love agency his personality annoys her. He leans into this hard, because any attention from her, even if it's negative, is still better than the nothing he got in middle school.
- Author Appeal: A number of cast members fit Akasaka's preferred characterization of girls and guys; that is, to have more "wicked" and cruel women and cowardly men. While Mari is nice on the surface, she has a very cynical view of love and deliberately tries to befriend Pon because she does not acknowledge him as a "real" man. Seki is confident, but he's very insecure about how to come off in front of Mari, and the two boys of the manga development club are anxious otaku who are easily swayed when Seki gives them compliments.
- Cannot Talk to Men: Mari attended an all-girls school prior to attending Aoshiba High School in addition to her parents' messy divorce, her father's death and her mother telling her to be wary of charming men, and as a result she seizes up whenever boys try to talk to her. This is the primary reason why she has to rely on Kon-chan in order to confess to Seki.
- Changing Yourself for Love: Pon eventually starts on a diet specifically to slim down to a physique that Kon's attracted to. Within a few weeks, he goes from fat with muscles to toned and pretty like Seki, which successfully charms her. Too bad she catches on after she puts two and two together later.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While Seki fully admits to Kengo that he's attracted to Mari because of her body, he's otherwise shown to be completely respectful towards both her and any other girl he interacts with.
- Continuity Cameo: Frill is mentioned by name in Chapter 1, establishing the series as taking place in the same universe as Oshi no Ko (and, by extension, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War). Abiko, the author of Tokyo Blade from the same series, is also indirectly mentioned in Chapter 14 as having been a former member of Aoshiba High's Manga Club.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Mari and Seki both serve as counterparts to Kaguya and Shirogane from Aka Akasaka's previous romance series, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War.
- Mari is set up from the beginning as Kaguya's opposite despite sharing her basic mold as an affluent, popular girl unable to confess to the boy she likes. Appearance-wise, Kaguya was a traditional Japanese beauty, while Mari is admired by her classmates for her more Western features. Socially, Kaguya tended to only hang out with a small group of friends despite her popularity, and Mari is shown to be a social butterfly that regularly interacts with every girl in her class. In terms of family, Kaguya was a Heroic Bastard who lost her mother, while Mari was a legitimate child who lost her father. And when it comes to love, Kaguya had no trouble regularly interacting with Shirogane but couldn't even admit to herself that she liked him until almost halfway through the series, while Mari Cannot Talk to Men but is fully open about her crush on Seki even with a complete stranger. Even their methods are opposites, with Kaguya constructing elaborate plans to force a confession, while Mari is literally paying someone else to do the thinking for her.
- Similarly, Seki pretends to be an unassuming guy so as not to overwhelm Mari and wears glasses despite not needing them as part of his persona. Shirogane on the other hand pretended to be a confident intellectual so Kaguya wouldn't ignore him and avoided wearing glasses out of fear of looking nerdy despite really needing them. Seki's attraction to Mari is presented as being physical in nature, while Shirogane was attracted to Kaguya because of her personality. It's also mentioned in Chapter 4 that he was raised well by his mother, a stark contrast to Shirogane given that most of his issues could be traced back to his mom.
- Decoy Protagonist: Similar to how Kaguya labels their leads as "protagonists" and the love interests only as "hero/ines", Seki and Mari have the initial focus but are labeled a Hero and Heroine respectively; while the real protagonists are Pon and Kon.
- First-Episode Twist: At first glance, the series seems to be a simple case of Playing Cyrano, but it's only at the end of the first chapter that it's revealed that Mari and Seki are both relying on the Proxy Agency for help in their love story.
- First-Name Basis: Kengo accidentally calls Mari by her first name while talking to her since that how he's been referring to her while helping Seki. He's initially worried that he's made her uncomfortable (since assertive guys tend to make her nervous), but the fact that she grew up in a country where calling people by their first is considered normal rather than intimate means that she doesn't see it as a big deal.
- I Can Change My Beloved: Quickly becomes this after the first few chapters. Seki does think Mari is hot, but he eventually wants to save her and protect her after hearing about her family life. Mari meanwhile thinks she can apply this trope to herself, hoping that being in a relationship will make her less broken inside and allowing Kon to puppeteer her to get that outcome.
- I Never Told You My Name: Played with. Kon-chan knowing Mari's name isn't the suspicious part (since Mari had to give her name to sign up for her services), but rather everything else she knows about both her and Seki right off the bat, which foreshadows the fact that Seki is also using the company's services and already gave all the relevant information.
- Lighter and Softer: Played With in when compared to Kaguya-sama, with the two series sharing the same premises (differences be damned). With Oshi no Ko, however, it's played VERY straight, and outright forgoes the tragedy elements in that series. However, Kaguya-sama took a darker tone in its second half, while Renai Daikou gets darker by... chapter 8.
- Loving a Shadow: When asks to list off all the things she likes about Seki, Mari talks about him being cowardly and unassuming. It's shown shortly afterward that this is merely a persona that he put on in order to win her affection and he's actually quite the extrovert. In reality, this is because she's not actually looking to get together with Seki; it's because she's trying to latch onto the first good relationship she can find under the belief that love can save herself and her multitude of problems.
- Playing Cyrano: Proxy Agency is basically this turned into an entire business model.
- Production Throwback:: Kokon's first job working with Mari was helping her exchange Line IDs with Seki, which also happened to be the plot for the first Kaguya-sama chapter published in Weeky Young Jump. The narration at the end of the first chapter also refers to the story as a "War of Love".
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Kon's need to be loved and her natural beauty made her the focus of every boy in school, but made the girls despise her for that very reason. In addition, because she deliberately built her persona around things most boys would like, many were unable to see her in anything but a romantic/sexual light and developed a toxic obsession with her.
- Stepford Smiler: Mari's smile adds to her charm, but she suffers from her parents divorce and her father's death, for which she culpabilizes.
- Stylistic Suck: Seki's manga for the Maga Creation Club is almost comically terrible. His art is barely above an elementary schooler's, he makes his fanservice scenes blatant and unattractive, and he gives his main heroine comically large and unflattering breasts.
- Tanuki/Kitsune Contrast: Kokon and Kengo respectively use a Kitsune and Tanuki as their avatars when on the job.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Seki's first manga is a very run-of-the-mill romcom, but he based the plot on how Pon came to fall in love with Kon and the heroine's appearance on Mari.
