My Dress Up Darling｜Anime

2023.06.11

“My Dress Up Darling” is a Japanese manga series by Shinichi Fukuda, serialised in a youth magazine from 2018.
An anime was broadcast on TV from 2022.
The story is about a shy high school boy, Wakana Gojo, who aspires to become a ‘kashira-shi’ (a doll maker who makes faces for dolls), and a beautiful otaku gal, Marin Kitagawa, who is popular in her class, two seemingly unlikely mates who develop a love through making cosplay costumes.

Synopsis

Wakana Gojo is a high school boy who aspires to become a kashira-shi, the head craftsman who makes the faces of dolls. While he is serious and single-minded about making dolls, he is unfamiliar with the trends of his generation and has trouble fitting in with his class.
For her, the popular Marin Kitagawa, who is always at the centre of the class circle, is like a different world.
One day, however, an unexpected incident leads to Wakana and Marin sharing a secret.
Their worlds, which were never meant to intersect, begin to move.

My Dress Up Darling | Recommendations

The highlight of this anime is that it tickles the ‘otaku mind’ from the story’s setting. The theme of ‘cosplay’ makes this work irresistible to cosplay enthusiasts. Many fans can be seen cosplaying the characters and costumes in the story and uploading their cosplays on SNS.

Furthermore, they show their maniacal side not only in cosplay but also in ‘making clothes’. From how to use a sewing machine to how to choose fabric, there are many unique highlights!
The two main characters have also been talked about for their wonderful expressions. While the combination of Umumu, who is a gal on the outside but an otaku on the inside, and a gentle and kind boy who grew up in a hina doll shop and is good with his hands, is quite unrealistic, the emotional portrayal they have is convincing and easily accepted because there are no lies, and the expression of such a love story is definitely a highlight! The expression of these love scenes is definitely one of the highlights.

Furthermore, the artwork is also a topic of discussion. It has been said that “the details of the drawings are divine”, and from the first minute and a half of the first episode, when the characters’ hair is shaking, you can already sense the extraordinary cost of the drawings. The artwork is also very detailed, such as when a high school student overtaking on the way to school walks backwards, turns around and runs. Not only are the close-ups of the eyes beautiful, but the drawings are also carefully drawn.
I thought that the number of drawings would be too large if the main character had to move around in detail, but in the scene where the main character is lying at home thinking in a daze, almost the only movement is around his mouth. However, it is inevitable that there is little movement in this scene, so you do not feel the lack of movement throughout the story. In other words, the author is very good at creating a transition between scenes that cost a lot of money to draw and those that do not.
In this way, this is a work with many highlights.