My Dress-Up Darling (2022)

[その 着せ替え人形 （ ビスク・ドール ） は恋をする]

Season 1

Director: Keisuke Shinohara
Studio: CloverWorks
Starring: Shoya Ishige, Hina Suguta, Atsumi Tanezaki
Episodes: 12

Synopsis:
A shy aspiring dollmaker catches the attention of an outgoing classmate who wants him to make costumes for her to cosplay in.

Impressions:
If you've been following my coverage of the manga of this series, then I'm going to be covering a lot of the same ground here. The series had my eye for a few years now, but I wasn't ready to add another series to the pile. However, when I heard it was getting an anime adaptation, I figured that would be a good way to test-drive the story and see if I wanted to commit to it. It took just one or two eps for me to go out and spend nearly 5000 yen on all eight volumes that were available at the time. I love this series to bits. If you have any interest in cosplay, then you'll appreciate to work that's gone into detailing all these different aspects of the hobby. Even if you're not all that interested in cosplay, the character work is outstanding. Gojou and Kitagawa make for a great complementary pair with each one bringing out the best in the other and helping with their weak points. Normally a gyaru type character is fairly shallow, either simply vapid or set up as a bully, but with Kitagawa, we have a character who's bubbly and rather flighty but is also deeply invested in her hobbies and supportive of other people's passions while also being quite empathetic. Gojou resonates with her passion and throws himself into everything with great earnestness. The comedy can often veers into ecchi territory (and the animation can go to great lengths to support it), but even if you're not a fan of that sort of thing, don't let that keep you away. This is a great series and absolutely deserves a place in your collection.

Rating:
Own It