Name: A story about what it means to share love for the same thing.
Item: My Dress-Up Darling
Rating: 90
Author: Yuukimeister

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My Dress-Up Darling

a review by Yuukimeister

Yuukimeister

4 years ago·Jan 9, 2022

/ 100

The shy and quiet love story

If there is a thing that I love about this manga is how the story develops : there aren't many filler and useless moments, everything is perfectly paced with realistic every day moments and the characters are lovable.
If there is a way I can describe the start of the manga I would say engaging, because I felt exactly this way; I was extremely interested in such a formula and the fact that we have an interesting main character and such a fantastic main girl it made everything more more and catchy to follow.
This is a romcom; and what makes this even better than the average romcom is how the funny situations are, nothing feels out of place and extremely cringe thanks to the unique personality of Marin, the main girl, because she is a dumbass but in an extremely good way and Gojou, a shy and quiet MC, who always has to compensate the lack of brain with Marin. These two are such a great matching together, completely different but they share the same important thing, doing what exactly you love and defending it.

The highlight of the manga must be the amount of effort these two kids put in each cosplay : Gojou puts so much efforts in making them to not let Marin down and make her sad while she does her best to give the best possible feedback to the costumes maker; Gojou often keeps making costumes at late night to not exceed the deadline while Marin worries a lot about him and does his best to find the materials and keep him in shape; they often share time together by doing a common thing, which can be watching the related cosplay anime or playing the related game or even reading the related work, just to find the point of connection between the two of them.

There is no character who is out of place

I really love to praise good works with no stupid character placement, there is no meaning in putting a character in the story just to gift random chapters and then make it disappear without a real effect on the story ~~right Rent a Girlfriend?~~

I can start off the bat with Marin, the main girl, and tell how unique she is : she is very very stupid but such in a great way that she entertains the reader and makes him love her, because she is meant to be loved, and on top of that she is bilateral; as I said Marin is dumb because she rushes things, buying a 2000$ camera just because the name has the letter 'M' just like your name is hilarious and stupid, but on the other side of the coin she really cares about things and you can just think about how she met Gojou at the very first characters by showing her costume work, it was incredibly bad but she cared a lot about it. I cannot exclude the fact of how hilarious she is as she often forgets important things on the day of the cosplay or even about the cosplay itself and all of this often ends up with a funny situation, just fantastic.

Gojou, as I said, is the complete opposite of Marin because since he was a kid he used to love, and still loves, making the Hina dolls, despite the fact he thinks everyone hates such a thing but as soon as he saw Marin shared such a love, not for Hina dolls but for cosplaying, he found himself in her. I personally love how much he cares about her and her dream about dong cosplays, and the way he is putting efforts in helping her is just golden, I love it.

The side characters are great, finally, and so far they find a great spot in the story without ruining it but instead improving it and, most of all, improving the bond between Marin and Gojou.

Sajuna Inui made up some great chapters alongside her big boobas sister Shinju and their arc was absolutely lovable, it didn't lose the great pacing of the comedy and of the story leading to a sweet ending of the respective arc and, even if they are both a stereotype of the average loli and big boobas sister, they were absolutely fantastic; I absolutely love to see when a side character has good interactions with the main ones.

Then yeah we have simply one of the greatest traps ever to shatter my heart, fooled like a few times.

In conclusion this is a fantastic manga that I absolutely love, it engaged me right from the very first chapters and never bored me. I love every character and I love reading every chapter of it, the arts are nice and the story is one of my favourites in the romcom genre (and I finally find a great romcom).
Marin is a legend,
Just read this manga.

Story : 8/10
Characters : 8/10
Arts : 8/10
Personal Enjoyment : 9/10