My Dress-Up Darling

After watching the first two episodes, I find it a guilty pleasure. The story is the common concept of a shy socially awkward person becoming friends with a good-looking popular person. The guy is a shy doll-maker and the girl wants to cosplay, so she recruits hm to make costumes for her. There are plenty of opportunities to show her body and for them to get embarrassed. The artwork is good and it has the potential to be very popular.

My Dress-Up Darling is a genuinely heartwarming slice-of-life show with some strong romantic undertones.

It's best asset are most definitely the two main characters: Gojo is a loner whose lifelong dream is to paint Hina dolls. Unlike most male anime protagonists, he actually does have a personality and comes across as genuinely likeable instead of off-puttingly passive. Kitagawa is his almost perfect opposite: an outgoing free spirit not afraid to show her passion for cosplay who doesn't care what opinion others have of her. It's nearly impossible not to love the two main characters, especially since they're pretty quirky and not the stereotypical anime fare.

Another very strong asset of the show is the amazingly well done English dub. Not only are the translations perfect, filled to the brim with character-appropriate slang (instead of teenage girls saying "However!" every second sentence), but Paul Dateh and AmaLee are possibly the best voice actors I've ever heard in the dub of an anime.

What I also liked about the show is that all the fanservice is perfectly sensible. There's no nudity out of nowhere, no creepy harem girls throwing themselves at the male protagonist for no apparent reason. It's perfectly in line with Kitagawa's personality and naturally meshes with the plot. I wish that more series would approach fanservice in this wholesame way.

That being said, the show is not an absolute masterpiece. I highly enjoyed the first five episodes, centred around Kitagawa's first cosplay, and the final two ones, which had a more romantic focus. The five episodes in between introduced two more characters that (at least to me) felt a bit tacked on; while not bad, I'm mostly ambivalent about that part.

I very much hope that the second season will come soon and keep up the quality! I really can't think of many shows (both anime and other) that managed to bring a smile to face this easily.

Story: It is a pretty basic premise: a loner boy with a fascination for designing Hina dolls, meets a gyaru who wanted him to make her a cosplay outfit of her favorite character from an eroge video game series. Besides that, I really love the interactions between the two main characters, and I find some of the information on clothing and textiles interesting. With both characters being so likable, you'd want them to both succeed in their goals.

As for fanservice. It's definitely there considering the premise, but I'm not really too bothered by it. In fact, the fanservice goes hand in hand with Marin: she is depicted as a free spirit who does not care what others think about her and demonstrates clearly her passion for what she loves. But I also love the show because of how Gojo feels like a fish out of water. You can easily tell he was never exposed to anything like anime or pop culture which makes Marin the perfect outlet for Gojo to see through. For a story about an eccentric girl gradually pulling a boy out of his comfort zone, I think it is purely wholesome.

Characters: The characters are portrayed as being people instead of filled with anime rom-com clichés. Gojo starts off as being awkward and introverted, but there is nothing creepy about it. On the contrary: Gojo is a very endearing character who at first did not want to be despised for his interest in Hina dolls due to some traumatizing experience from his past. Because of Marin, he is able to feel validated in what he loved and open up more. I also commend him for being a true goat when he thought that the deadline for Marin's outfit was coming soon. He can be very determined when he wants to be.

Marin, to be frank, is the main reason I can see why several people watched the anime. Far from being a stereotypically cruel popular girl, she is instead kind and understanding not to mention patient with Gojo even when he tried avoiding her in one episode. She was fascinated by Gojo's hobby rather than creeped out by it and is so contagiously optimistic and preppy, it will rub off on you.

Supporting characters are also pretty good for the most part. I love Gojo's Grandpa and his reactions are hilarious. Sajuna, another cosplayer who is Marin's idol, off the top of my head, I do not like her. She establishes herself as bratty and even resorts to trying to blackmail Gojo in order to get a cosplay outfit off him. Normally in a lot of these shows, what keeps them from being masterpieces to me is when a third wheel is introduced oftentimes to combat with the other potential love interest in a Betty v. Veronica fashion a cliché that is overused and should die in a fire.

Animation: I love the attention to detail when it comes to designing the clothes or gathering the materials needed. The shading is also vibrant and lovely. The only minor nitpick I had come with a frontal view of a character: they have a noticeable black spot in the middle of their face. It is there to represent the tip of the nose, obviously, but it is distracting.

Sound: The opening and ending themes are bops, and everyone does a good job with the material they are given.

Ultimately, if you like anime about cosplaying and cute character interactions, this could be a show for you.

I've almost completed the manga and it's really good. The story is simple but heartwarming and the characters are really likable particularly Marin & Wakana. The cosplaying cloths are superb. 8.3/10.

High school student Wakana Gojo is an orphan who is being raised by his grandfather who makes traditional Japanese hina dolls. He works in his grandfather's shop and is learning to make the dolls himself. At school he is shy and doesn't advertise the fact that he is involved with the dolls. One day Marin Kitagawa, an attractive, popular, extrovert, who he rather fancies, learns what he does... he expects to be teased but instead, having seen the doll dresses he makes, she asks him to make her a cosplay costume. He agrees and they become friends and makes more costumes for her; she starts developing feelings for him but will either of them pluck up the courage to tell the other how they feel.

When I started watching this I didn't know what to expect; I certainly didn't quite expect what I got. The hina dolls don't take up too much of the plot; the making of Marin's costumes is far more important. While there is some fan service it isn't offensive as it doesn't feel unjustified. The characters are a lot of fun and the series looks great; especially the costumes Wakana designs. The romance is gently played out in a way that has one rooting for Wakana and Marin; while there are other important female characters the series never feels as though it might stray into the cliché of becoming a harem show. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to any anime fan looking for something sweet, romantic and genuinely amusing.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.