(LES) Ryuto (Kimi Zero) is an even worse MC than Kazuya (Rent a Girlfriend)

My problem with Kimi Zero/Our Dating Story is not Luna, the FMC. She manages to win the viewer's sympathy as we get to know her better as the story progresses.

No. My problem is Ryuto, and it doesn't help that the author, Nagaoka, loves to humiliate the poor boy over and over again. And that's precisely why I bring up the infamous example of Kazuya Kinoshita (Rent a Girlfriend) and his relationship with his author, Reiji.

Despite how pathetic Kazuya is, the author gives him several feats of decision and bravery (like when he saves Chizuru from drowning) to explain what girls see in him and to show us that Kazuya does have a good side that compensates for his many flaws.

Ryuto has none of that; he has no feats, not even the typical scene of him carrying Luna on his shoulders. There are no defining moments for him, nothing.

Ryuto started the story as a coward and ended it as a coward —and yes, this makes his decision >!to emigrate to Indonesia in the last novel volume with Luna for work!< looks even worse.

It's almost as if Nagaoka's message was that Luna was so desperate and so far gone that all it took was finding a minimally decent guy to fall truly in love, that the bar was set too low, and that anyone could have met it.

Ryuto is cowardice and mediocrity personified and probably one of the weakest main characters in the last 10 years of rom-com anime and manga. The only positive side is at least he never fell as low as Kazuya did, this is my consolation.