My Dress-Up Darling

Episode 7

This week's episode of My Dress-Up Darling is all about new experiences. Wrapping up last week's encounter with Inui, this episode sees the group having a group cosplay shoot at a studio, and ends by giving a basic rundown of photography that also acts as the introduction to another character; aside from that, it is relatively light in terms of content. Sure, a good chunk of the episode was taken up by Gojo and Kitagawa just watching anime (which I think was just a few panels in the manga), but the fact that the anime within the anime was animated and presented so well makes me hesitant to see it as mere filler. There's still a lot of passion and love put into this production and details like that make it easier to forgive the lack of forward narrative momentum. Besides, I appreciate the scene of Gojo getting confirmation that everything he's doing is helping him improve as a craftsman as well.

The real meat of this episode, however, is in the title: Kitagawa and Gojo having a very cute stay-at-home date together while researching for the upcoming shoot. In a previous review I praised the fact that Kitagawa became fully aware of her feelings for Gojo and seemed happy with just being in love. This episode puts that pure yet over-the-top affection front and center to the point where I don't see how anybody can walk away from this without a smile on their face.

OK, maybe that's a bit extreme. I can understand how some people might be caught off-guard by the nipple joke that opens up the scene. However, the fact that Kitagawa was embarrassed by the fact that she opened the door without wearing her colored contacts to the point where she didn't even realize she opened her front door without wearing a bra helps balance it out. Kitagawa strikes me as the kind of character that gets tunnel vision whenever she experiences a strong sense of happiness. We've seen that facet of her personality when she's gushing about cosplay and anime, but this might be the first time that she's had that reaction to a very potent emotion like love. Or should I say WUV? Have I mentioned how much I love the way the subtitles adapt Kitagawa's dialogue? Anyway, next week's episode should lean more into the technical side of things regarding camera types and photography. I can't wait to see how that is handled.

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My Dress-Up Darling is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.