Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Ladies, gentlemen, nonbinary folks of the jury, our long national wet dream is finally over. Yes, it’s been a long twelve weeks, but here we are, at the season finale of My Dress-Up Darling. Before we even talk about this episode at all, let’s go over some facts of the prior eleven. Some of MDUD’s episodes have been spectacular, others have been pretty bad. This is an inconsistency not rare among anime or, honestly, among linear TV shows in general. Evaluating a run of episodes that includes both the former and the latter is difficult, especially since the “good episodes” aren’t entirely devoid of flaws and the “bad ones” aren’t entirely devoid of merits. Such are the limits of purely qualificative criticism.
One thing it has undeniably been, is successful, and while this is certainly the season finale I would not be at all surprised if the series were hastily renewed. An anime does not simply put an extra two million copies of its source material into circulation and not get a second turn at the plate. To argue that a second MDUD season is unlikely would be to argue that capitalist businesses aren’t actually that interested in making money. Things just don’t work that way. So, to put aside my own–and our own–collective biases for a minute, this is clearly a series that has connected with people in some way. Is it because Gojo is just really that relatable? Maybe it’s because something about Keisuke Shinohara‘s directorial style really resonates with The Youth. Or maybe people just want to wife Marin that badly. (Given the show’s target demo, probably at least some of that.) Maybe it’s all of these. But the point remains; MDUD is here, and it’s probably not going away any time soon. If you care about the current anime zeitgeist, it is at least worth consideration.
So, for the final time–at least for now–let us consider it. My Dress-Up Darling‘s 12th episode, its season finale, also called “My Dress-Up Darling”, begins with a heavy summer night hanging over Japan. A small breeze clinks a windchime as Gojo focuses on his first passion, dollmaking. He gets the sort of text that would send just about anybody–age, gender, whatever, aside–into a bit of a panic.
It is, of course, not actually that serious. She wants help with a costume thing and to vent about her dad not letting her go to a festival. Normal teenage girl stuff. Things happen, and our heroes end up A) working on summer homework and B) watching a scary movie. Also, somewhere in here Marin casually reveals that she has a side job as a model.
The horror movie itself is a real treat. We don’t see much of it, but, in keeping with MDUD’s prior visual ambition in this area, it’s animated totally differently from the rest of the series. The character designs are more grounded and realistic, and in general the visuals look like something out of the Boogiepop franchise. It’s pretty cool! Marin is scared witless by the film while Gojo nerds over costuming details, which, yeah, that sounds about right.
There are a lot of great character moments here, in fact. Gojo and Marin later end up needing to run to their high school to pick up some over-summer math homework that Marin left behind. (And, really, props to them, there. I don’t think you could’ve made me enter my high school over summer vacation if you put a gun to my head.) There’s a scene here where, after falling into a pool(!), Marin muses on how she loves going to the beach even though she can’t swim; to watch the Sun set and make the ocean’s surface sparkle, to talk with friends and eat tasty food. It’s a bit of quiet insight into her character that the show has done well a few times and I really hope it doesn’t let up on when the inevitable second season arrives.
Gojo gets his turn, too. He and Marin attend a festival after Marin finally does finish all her summer homework; one Gojo’s lived near for years but never actually gone to. There’s a lot of great stuff in this scene. Some of it, tropes that are so old to the genre that they’re practically cliche. Gojo is practically dumbstruck by seeing his love interest in a yukata, Marin buys way too much food, etc. But the one Dress-Up Darling works the best is probably the most classic. The fireworks go off; Gojo hears thunder and smells gunsmoke as a billion neon flowers bloom in the night sky. He spends more time looking at Marin than he does the actual show. Marin returns the favor by shattering the mood into a million pieces by goofily sticking out her tongue, which is a solid blue from the Blue Hawaii she’s been eating.
Is the moment actually ruined? Not really, Gojo has to carry her home. (Traditional sandals evidently do a number on your feet. I’ve never worn Japanese-style ones, but, that tracks with my experience with flip-flops.) And when Marin casually mentions being more careful with her footwear next year, when they go again, Gojo gets so hung up on the “next year” that the boy looks like he’s practically going to cry. It’s really sweet.
There’s an equally-sweet after-credits scene, where Gojo keeps Marin company over the phone after the latter makes the brilliant decision to watch the sequel to the horror movie they’d seen earlier. We don’t get a concrete sense of how long the two talk for, but it seems to be quite a while. At episode’s end, Marin tells a now-asleep Gojo that she loves him. Maudlin? Maybe. Heartwarming? Absolutely, and the visual of their two separate beds being stitched “together” by their phone call is really lovely.
The episode–and the season–ends with Marin wishing him a goodnight, and a promise to see him later.
A promise that might well extend to us, the viewers, as well. One can say a lot about Dress-Up Darling, most of which I already noted in the opening paragraphs of this column. But, the show definitely cares about its own characters, and that’s a good thing. I have my own hopes and expectations for the near-inevitable season two, but there will be time to write about those in a future column. MDUD will almost certainly return to the pages of Magic Planet Anime in some form or another. (Perhaps sooner than you think, even.)
For now, I think perhaps I should end this particular round of Let’s Watches the same way MDUD itself ended. To that, I say; goodnight, and see you later.
Egregious Horny Score: We’re at a tasteful 2/5 this week. Although some teenager is going to watch this and discover he has a thing for exposed necks. Pray for him.
Overall Egregious Horny Score: A solid 4/5. Frankly this was my biggest complaint with the show and probably a lot of other peoples’ as well, and I sort of regret waving the extraneous cheesecake that was present early on off in the way that I did. Oh well.
And finally, by far the most important of these little mini-entries, returning for the finale is the Bonus Nowa Screencap. Let’s hope we get more Nowa in season two. If we can’t get an authorized Flower Princess Blaze spinoff I at least want Nowa: The Anime. I would take that as a consolation prize.
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