My Dress-Up Darling

My Dress-Up Darling is a fantastic anime with exceptional voice acting, stunning character design, and top-tier animation that truly stands out. The story is engaging and enjoyable, perfectly fitting its slice-of-life and romantic comedy genres. If a second season hadn’t already been confirmed, I’d have been deeply disappointed by the lack of a more definitive resolution to the protagonists’ relationship in the first season.

Since it’s an adaptation of an ongoing manga, I firmly believe the anime should continue to follow the source material until the story reaches its conclusion. This would not only satisfy fans but also do justice to the narrative’s depth and emotional development.

One of the best Slice of Life Anime I’ve seen in awhile. The build up of friendship and worldly experiences between the two main characters was perfect. Not to mention the witty dialogue was excellent through most of the season. The emphasis on art and animation (with a little Hina doll history too) was wonderfully represented.

This is normally really not my genre, but there is something very charming going on here that just pulled me in. Maybe it's just geeks with no initial shared interests connecting, but somehow it works. Even the ecchi elements are mostly not distracting or stupid like they often turn out.

There are still some flaws though. For example that one shower scene (you know the one) .... WHY? Even if you want the plot point (which you don't, because you forget about it a few minutes later), why make it so explicit??? And they get right outta here with their "She is canonically older than the main cast" nonsense.

Also, Marins side of the story seems very shallow, she lost one parent, and is functionally abandoned by another, and all of that gets mentioned once or twice. Her job is mentioned as existing, but only because she needs a credible source of income to finance their cosplay shenanigans. Her friends basically stop existing after episode one, apart from a mention here or there. Basically, she only exists when observed by or interacting with Gojo, and anything not directly related to that gets ignored.

It really could have been a masterpiece. I like it a lot, but I still wish it were better.

Good story line, adorable characters and amazing animation! I usually find ecchi animes annoying but the the scenes here were naturally worked in so it didn't seem like an out of place at all. The dialogue was a bit cheesy at times but the pacing kept things interesting with little twists and turns.

What really made this amazing for me was the character animation, especially the facial reactions. They were so well done that it was awesome to watch every interaction between the characters.

not sure if it's for everyone, but I think it's definitely worth a watch if you're thinking about it

This was another anime that was overhyped to me, and I really don't see the reason why. Is it good? Sure, but for the life of me I can't understand what people find so special about this. I can appreciate the characters, but the ecchi felt out of place and not very well done

This is growing on me. The little ecchi notes are cute, but Gojo is adorable, and Marin is too. I like that he’s into a traditional art, and she’s into something ‘modern’, and they are awfully cute with each other. I don’t really go for ecchi stories, but this is definitely growing on me. Currently one of only three anime I’m tracking this season.

This was the best anime of Winter 2022. Dialogues were a little exaggerated but the characters were adorable. The scenes where Gojo goes "What did you say?!" with all seriousness were hilarious.
They even kept the entire plot simply about cosplay and didn't add unnecessary elements for the viewers to keep track of.
I'd definitely be hyped if a sequel got announced.