My Dress Up Darling‘s second season continues the slice-of-life romance among Wakana Gojo, Marin Kitagawa, and their love for cosplay. The season divides into various arcs that develops Wakana’s character and goes into Marin’s realization that she loves him in addition to the stories of several of the supporting cast. This discussion will spoil the story.
First, My Dress Up Darling offers a good example of how fan service can improve a narrative. The fan service surrounding Marin’s cosplay, in particular, deepens her character and her relationship with Wakana. During one scene, Marin and Wakana are eating lunch together in a stairwell of their school. They discuss an upcoming cosplay, and Marin is suddenly struck by how Wakana has her measurements memorized. The camera pans from her thighs up to her face to emphasize her body language and realization. She’s struck by how much of her body he–and the audience–has seen. The measurements are now off–she had gained weight by overeating Wakana’s cooking. This creates a situation of Marin feeling ashamed for gaining weight as a model and as a cosplayer while realizing how much she trusts and appreciates Wakana. The fan service surrounding Marin and friends’ cosplays also serves to express their enjoyment for the hobby. It becomes a way to express themselves freely. And the fan service is equal opportunity with the introduction of the male crossplayer Amane Himeno. The fan service also shows practical problems with cosplaying, such as the case when Marin’s underwear shows from under a costume.
My Dress Up Darling is a playful phrase. It prefers to both Wakana’s growing perspective of Marin, and Marin’s perspective of Wakana. But it also extends to the sisters Sajuna and Shinju and Akira’s girl-crush on Marin. Characters sit in the center of the story, which is why I’ve enjoyed the anime and the manga. Each scenario aims at developing the characters, pushing them toward differing realizations. Sajuna realizes she enjoys cosplaying with her younger sister, Shinju, when before she was a solo cosplayer. Shinju gets to explore cosplay, when previously she hesitated because of her tall, busty stature, with her beloved older sister.
Seasons 2 divides into a few interconnected arcs. The high school culture festival story beat begins in this season. This one has a crossdressing beauty pageant. Marin decides to enter it to cosplay as Rei, the student council president of an all-girls school who dresses as a host, from The Student Council President is the No. 1 Host. Wakana’s job is to create her costume and handle her makeup. But he also struggles with the idea that he needs to contribute to the festival by helping everyone decorate too. His classmates confront him on this, telling him that his role is to make the costume and to leave the rest to them. Wakana struggles with relying on others–a character beat that also appears in the first season. The experience of the festival helps him become more comfortable relying on others for help. This is a character development that leads him to work with Akira, a cosplay propmaker, and accept the help of the other supporting cast during the later Coffin group-cosplay scenario. This scenario also sets up Marin deciding to kokuhaku to Wakana after the group cosplay. The Coffin storybeat ties many different elements together, such as Sajuna and Shinju’s sister story, Akira’s girl-crush on Marin (misconstrued as dislike), and Amane’s acceptance as a crossplayer.
Amane’s story arc is mostly complete by the time we meet him. He enjoys crossplaying as female characters. When his girlfriend discovers this, she dumps him, calling him a pervert. Amane feels mixed about his hobby. It’s more acceptable for a female to crossplay as a male character, as Marin does during the culture festival. Wakana and Marin immediately accept Amane. Both of them pepper him with questions about how he makes himself look so feminine. He shows them some of his techniques, including how he “equips boobs.” During the Coffin cosplay arc, the crew doesn’t hesitate to invite him to cosplay has a nun. Wakana’s job is to assist with props and photography instead of making Marin’s costume. They opt to buy a pre-made costume for this shoot.
Amane’s sidestory brought the current gender identity discussion (more like a screaming match than a discussion, really) to mind. Drag has tangled with the LGBTQ+ topics and child safety. Drag has been equated with being gay, lesbian, and transgender with some drag performances causing justified concerns about sexual content and children. A few Pride parades, drag shows, and other events have had overt sexual performances with children in the audience or even directly involved. The concern about this is valid, but it is also conflated. Both can be true at the same time. Drag isn’t the same as being gay, lesbian, transgender, or, on the child safety side, a pedophile. Drag and crossplay have deep histories in theater, including traditional Japanese arts like noh and kabuki and old Christian moral plays back in medieval Europe. Crossplay, in other words, shouldn’t be conflated with gender identity as it is. Amane is straight, well adjusted, and enjoys crossplay. His girlfriend’s reaction points to how crossplay is conflated with gender identity or perversity. Of course, My Dress Up Darling doesn’t dwell on any of this. And I am bringing in an American political context that is absent from the Japanese context. That context centers more on failing to conform to the norm. Amane fails to conform just as the gyaru Marin does.
Speaking of Marin, her go-get-’em attitude is balanced by her moments of realization and hesitation. She goes after her cosplay passion only to have moments where she stops to consider the benefits and consequences. She does this with her growing feelings for Wakana. She, briefly, considers how her love confession would change their friendship, but decides to push forward anyway. She ends up getting cold feet and softening the confession when she thinks on Wakana’s possible reactions. Wakana, for his part, still can’t believe an attractive, fun, extroverted go-get-’em girl like Marin could be interested in his reserved, shy, hard-working self. But they prove good balances for each other throughout the story. They cover each other’s weaknesses and improve their strengths.
Acceptance sits at the center of My Dress Up Darling. Wakana accepts Marin as she is. She reciprocates. The side characters also center on various types of acceptance. Akira worries about Marin not accepting her fan-girl crush on her. She also deals with how her parents failed to accept her love for anime, manga, and the fandom. Even as an adult, she still struggles with this, which is another reason why she tries to hide her nerd-out tendencies around Marin. Amane’s enjoyment for crossplay is an acceptance story. So is the side story with the sisters Shinju and Sajuna. All the characters find acceptance with each other and within the cosplay community.
On the romance side, Wakana and Marin’s relationship remains fun, supportive, and, most of all, healthy. They look out for each other and encourage each other. Both love to learn more about their shared cosplay passion. The manga and anime also show research and care for details along with the reality of how cosplay can be an expensive hobby.
My Dress Up Darling is a great romance and slice-of-life, especially if you also enjoy cosplay. I’m not a cosplayer, but I enjoyed seeing all the products and techniques peppered throughout the series. Some may find these details distracting from the rom-com aspect of the story. The interweaving of cosplay tips and character development, especially with Marin and Wakana, are well done. My Dress Up Darling shows how fan service, of both the ecchi type and the costume type, can develop characters and add realism to the story. Marin has to wrap her breasts to cosplay as a male character, for instance. And Wakana has to adjust the cut of the suit he makes to further hide her chest and hips. The fan service scenes also deepens Wakana and Marin’s relationship by adding sexual elements to it in a way that feels natural rather than fully contrived or bolted on as so many fan-service scenes tend to be. My Dress Up Darling has many details that appear later, such as breast wrapping ties into Shinju’s body shape concerns and cosplay character arc. Many elements and details return later. The story has more sophistication than it first appears.
I enjoyed my time with the anime and manga versions of My Dress Up Darling. Marin and Wakana are great characters, and the English dub is fun with the contrast in their speech patterns. Recommended.
Off-topic, I know… Just curious about the third image. Most of the text looks food-related. But the partially hidden line (behind Marin?) with the flower on top reads, “Russian roulette”. Hidden message?
No hidden meaning in the image this time. I selected it because of Marin’s expression to show some of the design range of the season. The characters were brainstorming their class’s culture festival offering.
To other readers: as Kumi suggests, I will sometimes add images with hidden meanings or references in relation to the article’s topic.
I was wondering if the creators were perhaps hiding something pursuant to the story line. Is she contemplating some form of a “Russian roulette”? Perhaps the kokuhaku? Just seemed suspiciously hidden and out of context relative to everything else on the chalkboard.
Ah. I misunderstood. It’s possible Marin’s kokuhaku could be linked to the Russian roulette. It’s the only story beat that fits. Marin sees it as a bit of a gamble, but she wants to push through anyway. Unlike many anime protagonists, her love confession isn’t a matter of if but of when.