Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A Memoir

A pretty easy book to bring in the new year. Really enjoyable recount of what Rental Person has done (through in-line tweets), and overall explanation of his philosophy. A good ‘we turned a twitter account into a book’ book.

What a legendary guy! I love his philosophy and reasons to do nothing.

When he said he feels its injustice to be paid the same salary as another colleague, when for doing the same exact work, he endures and takes mental stress, whereas the colleague enjoys it, I laughed so hard. It makes sense!

Rental person to do nothing is such a fun, bakchod concept. I'd like to try one day, and hopefully meet Shoji in Tokyo this year.

This is really interesting. The multitude of examples Mr Rental Person provides are a good resource to reflect on human behavior in society. Why would someone rent a stranger to just be there and do nothing? I wish there were similar situations elsewhere in the world for us to draw comparisons between different societies. There's really a lot to reflect on in this book.

With all the literary panache of an IKEA instruction manual, begrudgingly written by an author who didn't much like the subject, who resigned himself to doing the bare minimum to get this book off the ground.

But I guess it's in keeping with the anti-capitalist theme of a millennial renegotiating their relationship to the grind. In opposition to hustle culture it's not pro-lazy, just anti-burnout. And Shoji comes by it honestly given his dismissive, bordering on abusive former boss and the fraught relationship to work his siblings have that would eventually lead to a death by suicide for his sister.

Shoji does recount some interesting requests from folks looking for company as they file divorce papers, to have someone wave from the train platform as they move out of Tokyo after ten years, or to simply make a fuss over their dog as they walk in the park. But a page turning manifesto this is not, despite having already been made into a manga and TV series in Japan.

I really, really disliked this. I think I thought, if I kept reading, it would reveal something about human nature. I was curious to to see how popular this idea is in Japan and it seems as if this guy is not well liked. I see why.
Shogi Morimoto rents himself out as a person. That's it. No sex, no advice, he doesn't do anything. In fact the reader kind of gets the impression that he shows up and spends most of his time looking at his phone.
He didn't even write the book (see page 152).
Listen, I'm not a fan of hustle culture, I am not a girl boss, and I don't believe human beings need to be productive all of the time and I think this guy beyond lazy. I think he's just a modern do-nothing.
Supposedly he is supporting his wife and child on his “savings”. What I think is going on here is he had one idea- rent himself out and write about it and now he's going to capitalize on it.
I was highly unimpressed.
Perhaps the tv show is more interesting because I would have liked to have learned more about the people who feel the need to rent him. We get very little of their personalities or motives in the book.

Some books are interesting because of their plot, engaging characters, or because of unique insight the author has. This is not one of those books. HOWEVER, I would still defend it as an interesting read for the thoughts and conversations it sparks about the value of work and how we define it, what it means for someone to have "value" to society, and the complicated obligations that our relationships with each other create. By doing nothing Morimoto becomes a mirror through which we can study each other.

Okay, going into this, you have to realize that this is very much a Japanese book about a guy who does nothing. That literally means that not a whole lot happens in this book, but it's still quite charming. Our Rental Person is an unassuming guy who found himself unsuited for Japanese corporate life, and wondered if 'doing nothing' could have some sort of social significance. Thus, he rents himself out to people who need someone along who does.....nothing. All he asks is for his travel and expenses to be covered, and you have yourself someone who will listen to your problems without comment, who will attend events and do nothing in the audience, who will eat with you at a restaurant without comment, any number of things.

Whether or not you agree with him and his thinking here aside, I actually enjoyed this book. Rental Person seems to be quite conscientious about having as little impact as possible in other people's lives, and yet still manages to be of service. It's kind of a meandering book, where requests quoted from Twitter are posted alongside his social media commentary tweet about the job, and then the author comments on his particular thoughts about the job. There's not a lot of deep insight here, and especially his thoughts on doing literally nothing are reiterated a ton, but as a surface level story about the myriad strange requests someone gets to do nothing, I thought it succeeded well.

Just a short, sweet book about doing nothing.