Anime Spotlight #70: My Dress-Up Darling
a.k.a. The Animeister.
Valentine's Day is this Saturday, so the week is more packed than it usually would be (not that I don't just randomly do this to myself when there isn't a holiday reason to do so).
So it's a good thing I'm reviewing a chill, slice-of-life anime to start off the madness. As is usually the case (when I'm not absolutely backlogged with series I want to catch up on and I've actually been watching episodes of things as they come out), I choose which anime I'm going to watch and/or review based on the seasonal recommendation videos of Mother's Basement (and maybe some generic trash that catches my eye after a few episodes), and today's series up for discussion is from way back in January 2022, but I didn't review it then because I and the insane state of the world at the time were too busy making my life suck and I didn't feel like it. If you've been following my content for at least the past five years, you might remember that I didn't post anything on here for six months straight (on account of gambling and drinking myself into the hospital and living through the COVID pandemic and Trump's first term as President Of the Divided States Of AMAGAca) back then, but I think I've complained and indulged in self-justifying negativity for long enough because this is the Month Of Love, and My Dress-Up Darling has plenty of love to go around...if only the characters would gather the confidence to actually say so when it counts.
The two-season My Dress-Up Darling (a.k.a. The Bisque Doll Falls In Love in Japanese) anime is adapted from a finished manga by Shinichi Fukuda that was also published under the titles More Than A Doll and Sexy Doll Cosplay, but is more wholesome than those titles would suggest.
The series follows apprentice hina doll maker Wakana Gojo as he navigates high school life and learns to embrace his true self despite having been ridiculed his whole life for being passionate about having "a girl's job."
Circumstances immediately lead to his talents for makeup and sewing being exposed to Marin Kitagawa, a bubbly and attractive gyaru type (dyed blonde hair, provocative attire and makeup, informal speech—the latter of which is expressed as millennial/zoomer slang in the dub) who is "secretly" (because social media exists) a model and cosplay hobbyist with a preference for characters from ecchi media—though this is just an initial shock value joke and her later cosplays skew more mainstream (stuff like in-Universe, legally distinct approximations of Akame Ga Kill, Dirty Pair Flash, DokiDoki Literature Club But With Nuns, and Gender-Flipped Ouran High School Host Club, among others I didn’t recognize beyond my brain going "I bet that's a reference to something...")—and almost no sewing skill, so she asks him to make her costume for her. Of course, Gojo is too strait-laced (or straight-laced? Like, is it that the described person is so repressed and introverted that it's like they're bound up in a straitjacket? Or are they so uptight that they even keep their shoelaces straightened? I could never figure that out...) to believe what he's being asked to do at first, but the two leads' respective passions start to feed each other, and a business relationship and friendship (that could be more if they would just say so instead of blushing and stammering and tripping over nothing like victims in a slasher movie because that's what almost every romantically involved couple in every rom-com anime ever has done since the dawn of shōjo and seinen media) forms and evolves over the course of the series. There are numerous other male and female characters (some of whom cosplay as the opposite) who get introduced as it goes on, but Gojo and Kitagawa are the main focus as character relationships go, so Dress-Up Darling never devolves into harem trash when it could easily do so. Otherwise, it's basically a slice-of-life tourism guide into the otaku lifestyle and the cosplay community and process with an emphasis on teamwork and providing the viewing audience with industry tips and hacks as a way of building up to a variety of hype visual and emotional Moments. And it's another series that illustrates how far Japanese culture has come, due to its pro-individuality message that it's healthier to be and do what you love and find a supportive environment rather than hiding and conforming based on a history of negative experiences.
My Dress-Up Darling is an anime worth discussing rather than reviewing (except for the animation, because Rascal studio Clover Works brings it with really fluid, dynamic movement, minimal CGI, and a few bits of stylistic experimentation for a series about an odd couple and their friends making costumes and taking pictures of each other) because you'll like it if it's for you, not like it if it isn't, and maybe find things to like about it anyway.
I didn't get "watch every time banger" vibes from the opening tracks by Spira Spica
(maybe in part because I had to skip them to get the series watched in time), but they're candy rock jams that lyrically capture the essence of the story, so they're definitely worth listening to if you like the genre,
Season 1 OP: "Sun Sun Days"
Season 2 OP: "Ao to Kirameki"
and the second season ending theme ("Kawaii, Kawaii" by PiKi) is...kawaii.
That basically means "cute," if you were wondering. But even if you weren't, please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because passion may be healthy but it doesn't always pay, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content, like tomorrow's Heroines Are Made Redeux with a special bonus revieux.
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