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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Hello, anime fans. I’ve had a bit of a week, as I’m sure you noticed if you’re one of my readers who happens to also follow me on Twitter. If not, no need to worry, as everything turned out just fine. But in recognition of my own good fortune, I endeavored to go into this week’s episode of My Dress-Up Darling as charitable as I could possibly muster. I do feel like I perhaps complained a little too much last week, even if I do stand by what I said.

So, maybe it’s just that spirit of charity that compels me to say that this is one of Dress-Up Darling‘s better episodes. But I think even if I’d had a more ‘normal’ week I think I’d be giving this one due praise. You see, I think I’ve basically got MDUD here figured out. There are episodes more about the geeky cosplay minutiae that distinguishes the show from any other ecchi comedy, and there are those that focus more on that very ecchi comedy. Bluntly, these are the good episodes and the mediocre to outright bad episodes, respectively. This week’s is mostly a good one, may it not be the last.

If I wanted to be rude, I could argue that I’m not even really reviewing or recapping an episode of Dress-Up Darling here. Even moreso than last week’s, a good chunk of this episode is dominated by footage of show-within-a-show Flower Princess Blaze. This is a double-edged sword of course; the very fact that we’re seeing so much of Flower Princess makes it pretty easy to call that it’d be a vastly more interesting series than Dress-Up Darling itself.

^{I’m just saying, it’s even got a lead magical girl whose theme color is pink. It’s hard to argue with that.}

But of course, the series presents the framing device that lets us see any of that in the first place. The very short version is that Gojo commits to making outfits for both Marin and Juju of characters from the series. He decides that to properly get as many references as possible, he should actually watch the series, which a quick peek at an in-universe Wikipedia article(!) helpfully tells us a bit more about.

This is all narrative pretext to have Gojo head over to Marin’s apartment. The initial plan is for Gojo to borrow her box set of the show (of course she has a box set), but things quickly change once he actually gets there, and Marin ends up convincing him to watch much of the show at her place. Once again, we get some actual access to Marin’s perspective here, and it is a nice change of pace from the focus on Gojo’s point of view the anime has had until recently.

Marin, of course, is Dress-Up Darling‘s best character, and it’s genuinely a lot of fun to see her try to “subtly” win Gojo over by cooking for him and watching Flower Princess by his side.

You could conversely pretty easily frame this badly; it does not exactly require a degree in feminist literary analysis to point out that much of this episode consists of a male lead being handed cartoons and food on a silver platter, and it’s pretty inarguable that Marin and her pristinely kept but very nerdy bedroom are embodying a kind of otaku domesticity here. (I am sure many, many snarky people on Twitter have made “this will not improve the declining birthrate” memes about this episode.)

^{As Gojo discovers the merits of the entire magical warrior subgenre, of course.}

Still, I have no conceptual problems with this kind of escapist fantasy, and if the show operated at about this level all the time, I’d probably like it a lot more. Flower Princess Blaze remains compelling, too. Although again, basically any time it was on-screen I couldn’t help but think that I’d rather be watching it.

This is another episode with a lot of cosplay talk. So, if you’re like me, and you find learning about the ins and outs of other peoples’ hobbies always at least mildly interesting, you’ll be satisfied here. There’s a fairly long digression in the episode’s second half about eye taping, a practice I’d not previously heard of, and which sounds vaguely unhinged to me. But hey, that’s subcultures for you.

The episode ends with Gojo and Marin meeting up with Juju and her younger sister, Shinju, who does her photography. (Hina Youmiya, whose career seems to just be getting started. She was in Selection Project last year.) Here, My Dress-Up Darling pivots from a genuinely funny joke–about the fact that Shinju is noticeably taller than her older sister–into a deeply tasteless one. And that is how what is otherwise one of My Dress-Up Darling‘s better episodes ends on a noxious crack about a middle schooler’s boobs being “hilariously” big, something that causes actual stress to no small number of young girls who are actually in middle school.

I could feign being angrier about this than I am, but at this point I have come to expect as much from Dress-Up Darling. It has its charms, and it definitely has its flaws. A general lack of taste is very much one of the latter. (And to give it more credit than it probably deserves, the original manga was written by a woman. Maybe this is meant to be Relatable rather than just meanspirited and gross, who knows.)

There are a few other things about the episode worth discussing. The translators continue to ride a fine line between clever and just slightly obnoxious. The use of the term “wuv” both in the episode title and in at least one line of dialogue might push it a bit over the edge, but I found Marin’s giggly, wordless “I have a crush” noises being subtitled as keysmashes legitimately hysterical. I suspect opinions will differ.

^{Yet more evidence for my “Marin is bi” theory.}

And finally, after an absence that felt like a century, we can mark the return of the Bonus Nowa Screencap. She appears briefly toward the very end of this episode.

As for the Egregious Horny Score, which I feel an obligation to continue doing for some reason, I’ll slap this one with a solid 3/5. There isn’t actually much horny here, but what we do get feels more out of place than ever. The gag about Shinju’s chest being the most obnoxious example of the lot. Some of the posters in Marin’s room are contributing to that score as well.

And that’s about the size of it, anime fans. I hope you’re continuing to enjoy My Dress-Up Darling. If not, I hope you’re at least enjoying these columns. There won’t be a Frontline Report tomorrow, since I’ve been sick, but I’ll see you all again on Monday for Sabikui Bisco.

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