Winter 2022 Anime: My Dress-up Darling

Synopsis

Wakana Gojou is exceptionally skilled at making clothes for Hina dolls but is also a reserved high school freshman without friends. His finesse with the sewing machine is soon discovered by his beautiful classmate Marin Kitagawa, whose boldness and honesty Gojou both admires and envies.  She likes to cosplay as characters from erotic video games but cannot sew her own costumes, leading her to seek Gojou’s expertise. Thus, although polar opposites, their relationship slowly blossoms through their aptitude in helping each other. (Source: Bstation, with some adjustments)

Comments

Dany Muhammad (The Indonesian Anime Times)

I feel that My Dress-up Darling has been treated on parts of the social media as a “horny” show. In a sense, it is true that there are scenes that may not be suitable to be watched in public. However, that also feels unfair, as while My Dress-up Darling may be sexy, it is also a show about the creative process. Here, we are invited to the headspace of a creator and see their thought process, insecurity, and reason to work hard. Still, the sexual tension, that is mostly created by Marin’s outgoing characteristic, is also a part of its narrative. 

Honesty seems to be the main theme of the show. This is also Gojou’s personal conflict: he can’t be honest with his feeling. He felt that a boy shouldn’t like Hina dolls, a type of doll that is usually displayed in the Japanese Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day) festival. His meeting with Marin challenged that. Marin is an otaku who never hides her interest. For her, honesty is important, and you have to be honest with what you like. For Wakana, Marin’s honesty gives him a reason to be honest with himself.

Another of the main appeal of this show is definitely how it shows the creative process of a cosplay costume maker. The anime shows how Gojou and Marin choose their costume material, the creation process, and how a cosplay session looks like. This could be a good insight because while cosplay is something that we normally see in our fandom, not many stories actually try to explain the creative process behind it. It gets into how hard cosplaying can be when Marin had trouble moving and almost had a heatstroke, showing that the choice of the material is also important. For those who have cosplayed before, maybe they can relate to Marin’s struggle.

Admittedly, how the show portrays the characters’ sexual tension would not sit well with some viewers. However, I found myself learning a lot about cosplay from this anime. The animation is also a plus point here. In the end, I don’t think this anime should be regarded as less than a show like Shirobako or Blue Period simply because it has many fanservice scenes.

Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times