My Dress-Up Darling

Anime that are equal parts horny and wholesome have been plentiful this year with such shows as More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers, A Couple of Cuckoos, and Love Flops. While all of these animes’ disparate Venn diagrams share the quality of having a gyaru among its main cast members, My Dress-Up Darling far outshines its peers.

My Dress-Up Darling follows a schoolgirl named Marin Kitagawa who indulges in her secret cosplay hobby alongside her classmate, Gojo Wakana, who just so happens to be a fledgling dollmaker. Hence the name. Seeing as how most of the episodes depict the introverted Gojo sweating bullets while taking measurements of the painfully attractive Marin, this anime is jam-packed with flirting and the like, but what makes this show special is that it’s about unabashedly loving one’s hobby no matter how weird it may seem to outsiders. Throughout the show’s will-they-won’t-they romance between Gojo and Marin is a multitude of meaningful conversations where the two discuss their respective passions and recognize where their ambitions overstep the other’s boundaries. It’s a show with “well-animated plot” and a great story with likable characters to boot.

My Dress-Up Darling is streaming on Crunchyroll