Space_Boyfriend

I cannot emphasize this enough, but My Dress-Up Darling is an ECCHI rom-com. Forget the synopsis about the interesting life of a cosplayer and doll-maker respectively, this is a terrible high school slice of life with some of the worst ecchi sequences I have ever seen. I would like to preface at the beginning of this review that My Dress-Up Darling has become one of my most hated anime. Admittedly, that doesn’t excuse me from just trashing the show entirely, so I will still try to be as objective as I can, since this review is meant for potential viewers. I’ve seen many shows and moviesthat focus on high-schoolers. This time, the series mainly focuses on the relationship of a tailor and a cosplayer with the shy introverted boy Gojou Wakana and manic pixie dream girl Marin Kitagawa as our leads. Wakana is a quiet kid without many friends. He is reserved and afraid of expressing himself or discussing his hobbies due to a ‘trauma’ he experienced. That ‘trauma’ was when a little girl Wakana met as a kid said something like “Ewww, your dolls are ugly” and ran away. This 1-minute backstory is supposedly the only explanation for Wakana’s social awkwardness and is never touched upon in the rest of the TV series. Marin on the other hand is a quirky girl who somehow went flying head first into Wakana’s desk; this leads to the contrived beginning of two kids who ‘happen’ to learn about each other’s unique hobbies and each other. You’d think that based on the synopsis of the story, there would eventually be a shift in primary focus from cosplaying to romance-drama, but you would only be half-correct. Occasionally, there are detailed explanations for the requisites of certain cosplay in order for someone to create and dress up in their attire; these moments actually illustrate what exactly it takes to become a cosplayer, as the show had advertised in its PV. Undeniably, when the series decides to offer insight on Wakana’s character, his struggles, and his dreams, it is able to do so very well. Marin, when she’s bearable, can act as a strong supporting character by establishing a fairly interesting contrast between her vibrant personality and Wakana’s insecurity and awkwardness by offering herself as a confident and quirky friend and eventual love interest. Even at its peak, the romance will be very cheesy, but at the very least, it’s a passable experience at that very scene. “Wow, that sounds like a good show compared to the show you just said in the beginning! How are they the same?” Unfortunately, the aforementioned show is only something I wish Dress-Up Darling stays true to. Not only are all the aforementioned good aspects kept to a minimum, a lot of its potential is wasted since the writer had ‘different’ ideas on their agenda. I’m going to start with the ecchi, probably the most controversial aspect of the series. If you’ve never seen a clip of Dress-Up Darling, just know that the number of explicit and uncomfortable shots of Marin, an underage high-schooler, are lengthy and many. Marin is a high-schooler who has kinks such as ‘wanting to be a sex slave like her favorite anime character’ and legitimately strips down in front of a guy she just met since he knows how to use a loom. Particularly in episode 2, a lot of these explicit shots of Marin are also sexual innuendos that are meant to be funny and relatable as Wakana blushes uncontrollably, afraid he’s going to do something wrong. This kind of situation would never believably happen because there’s no girl in existence that acts exactly like Marin does around a guy she just met. If anyone thought that was bad, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sometime in the middle of the series, we are introduced to Inui Sajuna, a loli tsundere character who also happens to be interested in cosplaying. I wish that when the audience met Sajuna, it was going to be a normal meet-and-greet where Marin and Sajuna had a fun conversation about how passionate they were about cosplaying and how Wakana could help both of them out together. Instead, we are delivered one of the most god awful scenes in the show in which Wakana opens the bathroom door and sees a slipping Sajuna fall onto the bathroom floor and reveal…everything. This sequence leads Sajuna to threaten Wakana with blackmail for sexual harassment which eventually becomes ‘consensual blackmail’ when Marin enters the picture, because everyone is friends now! Whoopee, how convenient and forced can you get?! Sajuna’s secondary purpose in this series is as a cosplayer with some of her own unique dreams and experiences, but her main purpose is to act as a second love interest for Wakana while wearing kinky outfits for the audience to see. She’s arguably the worst character in the series and one I hated seeing on-screen. The less screen-time she had, the better off the series was. I know that nitpicking details and cherry picking aspects of any piece of media rather than analyzing everything as a whole is generally looked down upon, but someone needs to warn potential viewers that these awful fanservice portions exist because the jarring shift in scene transitions and tone are just overwhelmingly appalling, even by ecchi standards. The main problem I am highlighting here is that all of these concerning scenes are supposed to be ‘hot’ and ‘funny’. Regardless of context, these types of scenarios utterly fail to provide the appropriate atmosphere for actual cosplayers and instead offer a tarnation hentai plot for a target audience that isn’t likely to give many damns about cosplaying. If anyone thought this portrayal of cosplayers was horrendous as is, the list goes on. There’s an entire episode in which skin darkening, a very racist and unnecessary behavior in the show, is present and even an episode where Marin and Wakana go into a love hotel and lay on top of each other for ‘cosplaying’. It’s so contrived and so frustrating to see because the ecchi is not appealing at all to an adult who doesn’t want to see high schoolers in their birthday suits. I know there is an argument that: ‘Because the show is from the perspective of Wakana, that means his sexual inexperience near girls can appear as what is seen in the show, specifically towards Marin.’ Supposedly, this can be compared to Bakemonogatari which is self-aware of its fanservice hijinks. However, to that argument, I would like to point out that this makes no sense in multiple occasions where a camera shows physically everything about Marin, from head to toe, not in Wakana’s first-person perspective. For example, in the skin darkening episode, the camera is completely in the third-person perspective in which Wakana cannot see, since Marin is in a locked bathroom. In other words, this argument is very inconsistent and in my opinion, not valid. I swear it’s as if every single of these inane situations are an extremely bad excuse for a hentai plot without sex rather than being a character study of cosplayers. On a semi-related point of the writer’s agenda, allow me to discuss Wakana, Marin, and their relationship to one another. There is a fundamental flaw in the creation of these characters. When Wakana or Marin are alone, actually focusing on their passions, their personalities shine. We see the depth of their personas as they express fears of not being good enough and how to showcase their love for their craft and hobbies. However, in an ironic twist of author’s intent, the reason both of these characters are irredeemable is because of the other. It’s because of the romance. Wakana’s personality can devolve from ‘nice thoughtful guy’ to ‘horny teenager’ in a matter of seconds because Marin does something abnormal and hypersexualized. It gets to the point where Wakana can become the aforementioned first person POV for the audience members as they see Marin do whatever the hell she’s doing. It’s not even that this happens for the whole episode; it’s just that this kind of ‘slice-of-life romance’ happens long enough to the point it becomes unbearable every time. On the other hand, we have Marin, in my opinion, the second worst character in the series. I really cannot fathom why people like her for anything except her character design. She is possibly the most idealized waifu animated in 2022. Always ‘attractive’, always optimistic, always thinking of her crush Wakana, always working hard, always so lovable regardless of whatever she does. If speaking objectively, her flaw is that she is quite literally a stalker who found Wakana’s address and trespassed into his home uninvited, even visiting his house at night once when Wakana didn’t respond to her texts. But Dress-Up Darling doesn’t seem to think of that as a problem, because it romanticizes stalking as well as everything about Marin. When Marin is all uWu over Wakana, the writer has no holds barred as they make her pander to everything a lover could want: sexual teasing, sweet-talking, objectification, anything and everything! At this point, you may call me Captain_Obvious, but Marin is NOT a realistic nor believable person, but a caricature of a ‘real woman’. I want to note that Dress-Up Darling is also supposedly a seinen, which means that the target audience is supposed to be young adult males. I want to ask the writer: Why? Can we please have the characters be adults so we don’t have to look at HS kids this way? Even if these characters were young adults, it would still be just as bad because of the fact that Marin is a stalker, that there are numerous contrived scenarios involving nudity, and even blackmail portrayed in a ‘good’ or ‘funny’ part of the show. It’s a fact that none of these awful parts of the show had to happen if the writer didn’t want to cater to a male’s ideal wet dream. I’m not even going to lie, I have seen MORE wholesome and enjoyable H series than Dress-Up Darling. It’s probably one of the biggest disappointments I’ve seen in my life. I hadn’t even hoped that Dress-Up Darling was going to be good until I saw the show peak in episode 4 and 5. But after it peaked, the bar kept dropping one episode after another, until the anime had reached the depths of despair, because Dress-Up Darling doesn’t care about quality. It just cares about its shitty ecchi. I’m not going to deny that the technical qualities of this show are on-par for some of the best of the season. Admittedly, there are occasional still frames. However, if a potential viewer is able to bear with the story, the detailed character designs and overall fluid animation are able to enhance certain elements of the story, character, and as most likely intended by the director, the ecchi. As much as I genuinely hate CloverWorks and most of their works, I reluctantly have to admit this is visually one of their best works. As for sound, the voice acting is certainly serviceable but nothing impressive. The OST is fairly forgettable and not worth mentioning in my opinion. I’m sure there is a lot more to talk about, but I really cannot force myself to analyze more of this piece of shlock that I wish no one the burden of watching through. I’m sorry to fans or anyone else I offended, but for potential viewers, this is not your anime of the season, nor an anime you should watch unless you unconditionally love ecchi rom-coms. My Dress-Up Darling does have some decent moments every once in a while but searching for those scenes are like finding a needle in a haystack. If you want genuinely good, funny ecchi, go watch Ishuzoku Reviewers or Imouto Sae Ireba Ii. At least those characters are definitively adults.

Kyline

*SOME SPOILERS AHEAD* During these past few anime seasons, I've noticed one thing; that's there's ALWAYS that one romance anime where it has one goal in mind - to bait weebs with such a "high-quality waifu" that would boost the anime's popularity. I call this the "waifu bait anime." It usually has the main girl characterized as an "amazing waifu" with colored hair and eyes, and of course a good body that would basically generate more simps to her, and of course a dull, basic, lame looking MC who just hit the jackpot because they have the main girl by his sides because *ahem* p lo t. We've had several "waifu-bait" anime like Nagatoro-san on Spring 2021, Komi-san on Fall 2021, and the upcoming Shikimori-san (and again, Komi-san S2) on Spring 2022. But let's get these anime out of the way, since I'm going to talk about the latest addition to the seasonal waifu-bait anime, My Dress-Up Darling, or simply, Bisque Doll. Oh boy, this show had a wonderful premise but there's something that is ruining it (definitely *not* because it's produced by CloverWorks, no hate on the studio though. They're pretty well known for ruining some well known anime. *cough Wonder Egg Priority.*) Bisque Doll's main objective here is for you to explore the wonderful world of cosplaying and its people who admires cosplaying some of their favorite characters, which is characterized for them of showing love to the character. Sounds like a nice adventure, right? As I said before, Bisque Doll is ruined by something... also known as these shameless fanservice you see on the episodes. Funnily enough, even after ALL of that fanservice, it's not even labeled as ecchi. Yes, I know it's seinen and is aimed for older men, but just imagine all of those boob shots, jiggle physics, (ToT)c u n n y(ToT), there's even poking nipples, then there's that love hotel bullshit, and the absurd amount of horniness of this show, doesn't that kind of made you think that this show really is ecchi? "But that's how the manga goes, Kylinity." Oh uh... what? Uhhh... Okay then... lemme just... put this away for a second... Anyways, it's safe for me to say that FanserBisque Doll is the ecchiest "non-ecchi" anime I have ever seen in my life. I'm trying my best to take the anime seriously but goddamn, these shameless fanservice and generic and cliche ecchi tropes just hinder my enjoyment to this show so much. You might call me uncultured, but oh well, I can thank you for that. How did Bisque Doll start? Well let's go from the beginning. You know, our boy Gojo is a hina doll maker, and he's trying to make his hobby a secret so that he won't get called out for being weird again after that one time where he was mocked by his classmates because they think Gojo making hina dolls is very weird. Then first encounter with Marin was literally her flying on the classroom from one side to another and then hit her head on Gojo's desk. First of all, is Marin okay what the fuck. There's no anime character that can just fly off like that unless she was a part of some secret battle shounen manga and got kicked in the stomach real real hard (okay that was brutal). One time, while Gojo was sewing on one of the rooms, Marin found him and she immediately asked for help to make her a costume so that she can cosplay as one of her all time favorite character (aka Shizuku-tan). As time goes on, their cosplaying talks have become a normal routine, and that's basically how Marin and Gojo met together. Overall, decent start and that's basically letting the viewers know what Bisque Doll is about. Let's talk about Bisque Doll's art. As expected from CloverWorks, it's visually appealing. See, this is the type of stuff CloverWorks is really good at, to produce anime that appeal to the viewer's eye. However though... (ah shit, here we go again.) I have a big problem with fanservice. I've talked to one of my forum threads before, I don't mind fanservice, as long as it doesn't upset me and also to the viewers. This is a bit too much fanservice for a "nOn-eCcHI" anime. I don't need to list them all again, but if this had less horniness and less fanservice, I would accept it. Now to the characterssss~ Gojo - Our boy, our MC, and one of the 2 good characters in the show... *remembers something* Okay. I take that back. Gojo is the most unbased, cringeworthy loser who doesn't even know the greatness of the almighty genre known as Slice of Life aka the peak genre that surpasses overdramatic melodramas and generic battle shounen- haha I'm just kidding of course. I mean, atleast he finally knows about the greatness of SoL now. And that my boys, is why Gojo is a good character- I'm just kidding. I feel like he's fun to be with, but uh yeah, he's slowly getting corrupted by Marin because of the cosplay talks with horny sources. Marin - the main girl, the main waifu material of Winter 2022, a contender for Waifu of the Year. She's meh. I think she's a bit boyish judging from how she talks to our boy Gojo , and for enjoying a harem eroge anime. I mean, she's literally the embodiment of h o r n y, but as a female. She's a big dumdum as well, especially that part where she somehow fucking reserved a room for a LOVE HOTEL thinking it was a studio, like how the hell does someone make a mistake like this? She's nuts man... PLUS sometimes her smiles are creepy as hell. Sajuna - UOOOHHHH (ToT) Our little cunny, the loli high schooler, Marin's idol, Juju-sama. Undoubtedly the best girl of the show, since even our boy Gojo even (ToT)(ToT)(ToT) because of her cunniness (ToT)(ToT)(ToT). And that my friends, I can conclude that Gojo is a lolicon, because he sobbed due to Juju-sama. Okay I'm just kidding, this is turning to a joke review now. Juju-sama is a good brat, since she's a buddy for Marin to like, get better at cosplaying. Shinju - Ah shit, here we go again, another big booba middle schooler. Middle schoolers shouldn't have this big of a booba, but that's anime character designs for you. She's very mid though, since there's really nothing special to note about her. Although she has a passion on cosplaying too, but never did it since you know, *she's basically the cameraman of Juju-sama's cosplay pictures* Not gonna lie, Bisque Doll gave me a few laughs, and I thoroughly enjoyed some parts of it. By the way, I never said anything about this show's sound right? Alright alright.... Let me make this very quick. OP is good, but is kinda irritating as you listen to it more since jesus christ, those vocals are very hiiiiiiigh. ED though is way better, since it's chill and cozy. There you go. That's it for sound... ... ... What? What about voice acting? Eeh, I never paid attention to that aspect. I just think "wow they're good" or "wow the voices fit the characters" on literally 99% of all the shows I've watched. That's how unresponsible I am when it comes to the sound aspect. Yeah... this is no longer a quality review, or maybe, it never was a quality review in the first place. Alright back to enjoyment. Yes, it did give me laughs, I'm not gonna lie, but... that doesn't mean it's always enjoyable. Ah shit, I have to bring this up for the 4th time, but whatever. Fanservice ruined my enjoyment. Just imagine, while you're out there casually watching FanserBisque Doll, then suddenly, boom. boob shot. Fanservice made me dislike the anime more and more as I watch more episodes of it. This show is like a 6/10 right up my alley. -3 for the pointless fanservice. +1 for Juju-sama. Total of 4/10. If you want to know more about cosplaying, Bisque Doll is, at the same time, for you and not for you. If you can somehow fight off the fanservice (or either if you're a costume designer), then good for you, you might somehow learn things within the cosplay world and would provide you some inspiration. But, on the other hand, if you wanna watch this with *some* seriousness, then... goodluck with the fanservice. It will ruin your enjoyment.