Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

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You can’t be mad at something for being what it is, right? That’s been my philosophy since I started casually writing about anime on Anilist several years ago. I think it’s largely a good one, but it can be difficult to apply when something is working in a space that you’re only a bit familiar with. My Dress-Up Darling is a romantic comedy, and I’m versed enough in those to know what I like and don’t like about them. Less familiar to me is the ecchi side of the series. It’s not like the genre is alien to me–I was a hormonal teenager once, too–but it does put you in a truly weird headspace when you ask yourself what separates a good ecchi anime from a bad one. Is it a certain tone? A general sense of taste? A lack of taste? Maybe it’s better for these things to be totally shameless? I don’t know; I am many things, but I am not a connoisseur of Boob Anime. What I have discovered over the course of watching My Dress-Up Darling is that one thing I do require is for the show’s ecchi and non-ecchi parts to feel like they fit together, and if Dress-Up Darling has a single problem, it’s that they really don’t.

Before I go into detail and risk seeming like a total shrew, let me be clear; I don’t have a conceptual problem with Dress-Up Darling‘s premise. “Guy who makes cosplay outfits and girl who is a cosplayer” is a perfectly fine and cute idea for a fictional couple. I even completely get why one would want to extend this premise into the ecchi genre; it’s a natural fit for it. But Dress-Up Darling is still also a romcom. Gojo is supposed to be our likable everyman lead, and Marin, by all accounts, is way too enthused with cosplay as a craft to really care about how other people might react to her outfits. These are pretty ordinary teenagers, not H-manga characters. What you end up with is a series that occasionally feels like it’s trying to shoehorn fanservice into a show where it doesn’t belong, or, conversely, an ecchi series that is misguidedly trying to be romantic. If it were that simple, it’d probably be easier to dismiss Dress-Up Darling out of hand. Instead, it is somewhat more complicated. I didn’t have a problem with episode 2, because it dedicates to the bit. That episode is almost entirely fanservice. Here, things are more complicated, because it’s trying to do two things at once.

This week’s episode–the ludicrously-titled “It’s Probably Because This Is the Best Boob Bag Here”–centers around the show’s core strength, the simple, infectious joy of two people who share a passion for something geeking out over it. In theory, this should be one of Dress-Up Darling‘s best episodes. And there is a lot to like here! Marin comes up with a hilariously uncreative cosplay alias (Marine. That extra E is really gonna throw ’em off, girl.), and she and Gojo attend their first cosplay event. There, she poses for pics and mingles with other attendees.

In one of the few moments where the episode’s generally horny atmosphere makes sense, Marin is the one who sizes up the other cosplayers while Gojo just stands there feeling generally out of place.

^{Again. Bi icon.}

The “infectious joy” side of things is pretty simple here. And when Marin bounds toward Gojo and the background music swells and the whole thing is just so melodramatic, it makes sense. He’s done something genuinely nice for someone, and it happens to be the person he’s crushing on. You get why he’s happy, and if the episode were fixed more on that emotion, I’d probably like it more.

But Dress-Up Darling is what it is. So, throughout this entire part of the episode–which takes up a good 2/3rds of its runtime–there are constant horny gags, mostly revolving around Marin’s figure. She sweats a lot because the dress’s fabric is heavy. She’s wearing two bras to emphasize her bust because the character she’s cosplaying has bigger boobs than she does. She nearly passes out from the heat and Gojo ends up having to cool her down on a random indoor stairwell, and as he wipes down her back with a cold cloth, she starts moaning in a comedically suggestive fashion. Marin Sexy: Do You Get It?

^{At least we get some Good Faces out of it.}

It’s all just a bit much, isn’t it? The sweat and the jiggling and the leering camera and all? Part of me feels bad for even criticizing this. Dress-Up Darling is lightyears away from the worst offender in this genre, and it does not even speak the same language as some of those manga and anime do. On top of that, Dress-Up Darling‘s original mangaka is a woman, so I should at least be cutting her a little slack, right? Well to tell you the truth I think I have been. Maybe a little too much.

I know how even saying this sounds, but I didn’t hate this episode, and I really liked some parts of it. Perhaps I only feel this way because I’ve been talking about the show a lot today, including with some friends who like it far less than I do, but this was the first time where My Dress-Up Darling‘s flaws prevented me from enjoying the show as much as I want to, and that just sucks. I really hope this is as far into the H Valley as the show ever goes. This doesn’t sink the show for me, and I doubt other people who were enjoying it will be dissuaded for much the same reason, but I definitely didn’t love the episode.

To not make this article an entirely bum note, there were, as mentioned, parts of the episode that I really enjoyed. Marin posing for pics is really cute in a genuine and enjoyable way, and on the topic of things that are horny but don’t bother me, there’s this lady, who seems even more into Marin than Gojo is in the minute or so of screentime she gets.

There’s also the very genuine moment of emotional connection that Marin and Gojo share on the train ride home. Sleep-deprived as hell, Gojo says she looked beautiful, and we get Marin blushing like a dummy. It feels sincerely romantic in a way that most of the rest of the episode is clearly reaching for but just doesn’t get ahold of. I can only speak for myself, but I’d love to see more of that going forward, and less of the egregious leering.

And speaking of egregious, I’m putting this episode’s Egregious Horny Score at a solid 4/5. There’s probably less of it overall than episode 2, but it’s more interwoven into the actual, you know, story, which really pushes up the “egregious” part. Egregious is a funny word, don’t you think? (There was no Nowa this week, sadly. So, no bonus Nowa screencap. Those are also egregious, but in a good way.)

Now, if you’ll all excuse me, anime fans, I have a big event to go prep for. See you next week.

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