THIS IS MY SECOND REVIEW FOR THIS SHOW BECAUSE MODS REMOVED IT FOR SOME REASON. IT CONTAINS SPOILERS AND IS CO-WRITTEN BY MY ROMANCE ENTHUSIAST FRIENDS AND MY OLDER SISTER
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WARNING: IF YOU DON’T LIKE CRITICISMS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP VIEWING THIS REVIEW. BUT IF YOU CALM DOWN YOUR BALLS AND ARE OPEN TO SOME OPINIONS, FEEL FREE TO READ.__
I couldn’t believe that I reached the point where I rewatched this show for the second time because I got ravaged by Marin simps. They are more dangerous than AoT fanbase when you say an unpopular opinion about her or the show, you will receive many death threats. Well then, here we go.
In a nutshell (Powerpuff Girls Intro):
A self-inserting MC (3D Kanojo Girl), good animation (Horimiya), and a cheeky FML (Nagatoro-san). These were the ingredients chosen to create the “perfect” manga.
But Shin'ichi Fukuda accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction--
The Chemical F(anservice)
Thus, Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi or Suru were born.
Another in a nutshell:
60% Fanservice
36% Animation
2% Relatable Characters
2% Plot and Romance
Good riddance…
If I can segregate a show, like I segregate the trash in my household, I will put Sono Bisque into the non-biodegradable trash bin. It’s somewhat trash, but not meant to be rotten either.
Do you remember in Naruto Shippuden where Madara won and opened the infinite tsukoyomi? Imagine if everyone got affected by it, all of your favorite waifus will come together to satisfy your minds. In worst case scenario, you might dream your wildest dreams. And this show can be that wildest dream.
I remember the day when my female friend and my male underclassman told me about this show. After the massive disappointment of the trying-hard anime Komi-san Can’t Communicate, I browse this show if it’s good. The premise impressed me and my two friends genuinely recommended me this show. They said the story is good, so are the characters. The romance level would surpass my expectations. I mean look at the genres, “Romance, School, Slice of Life”. So, I thought this would be a refreshing romance to start a great year, alongside Takagi-san 3.
But, when I watched some episodes, I asked them why they like Marin so much. Here are their answers;
The answer of my female friend was, “it’s because I like her behavior.”
“What behavior exactly?”
“Her behavior when she likes to do pervert things to other people.”
The answer of my male underclassman was this, “it’s because she’s cute, beautiful, cheerful, sexy, and mostly, big boobs.”
I even asked my other female classmate what her thoughts were about the show. She said the sound of its title sounded like horny garbage to her.
I browsed the manga and reached this conclusion, my male underclassman is a virgin simp, and my female friend likes to act like a b*tch. No offense to them because I was just being honest, and they agreed. Even it’s their thing, I respected them. So this review contains our genuinely mixed reactions, criticisms, and statements from me, from my friends, and from my older sister, who loves romance animes. This is co-written by them also. I’ll state some points on behalf of them.
Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi o Suru or My Dress-up Darling is the first “romance” that aired at the start of the year. This show is like the songs of the BTS KPop group, where the fans hyped it and claimed to be the best new romance anime of the season. I heard from the fans that this will even surpass the third season of Takagi-san and they overhyped it to the highest level. My biggest regret was I rode the hype train with these stans and I reached another facepalm moment.
Sono Bisque is a clear example of a “Clickbait”. This show started to pop out on the internet, especially the pictures of their favorite new waifu, Marin Kitagawa. Innocent audiences, who had no idea about this show asked if this show is good, and in the end, it might be just another disappointment, or just plain, or just a waifu bait anime. This anime had many different titles from audiences because of its content; My Dress-up Virgin, My Dress-up Horny, My Dress-up Pussy, Sono FANSERBisque Doll, Sono VIRGIN Doll, Sono BITCHque Doll even the title I came up with, My Dress-up DOGSHIT.
I know you will ask, “Is it worth watching?” “Why are you saying things like that on your review?” “It’s a wholesome anime so why you didn’t just enjoy it?”
Now before I answer those questions, I’ll try not to be sound like a hater, or an elitist. I will express our statements as romance enthusiasts. I will use an acronym I came up with before I state my arguments.
GOOD PREMISE, WEAK, TERRIBLE AND CHEAP PLOT
When I read about the premise, it seemed interesting and refreshing. A love story with a cosplay theme. The story is in a high school setting, which is one of my favorite settings in romance stories. It never gets old when I encounter this kind of setting. When I watched the first episode, I thought it was good as it said on the premise. I just saw the MC, whose self-confidence was torn down because some random girl in his childhood just made a horrible judgment about his hobby making dolls. After that, he became depressed and lost his self-confidence for having friends. Isolated himself from society. That’s… eh. I mean, just because a random stupid girl made fun of his hobbies, and then he became solely depressed just like that? He’s like Tsutsun in 3D Kanojo Girl but he had a valid reason why he cut ties from his classmates and became an otaku lord in the series. Tsutsun was born to believe that life in 2D is better than 3D but in Wakana’s case, that’s a shallow reason and an excuse to make his character “more relatable”. I don’t know if the author just forced his character to be like that for the sake of the “good plot”. The author should’ve put a good reason or backstory on why he became like that. The story might be good if they added some background to Wakana’s storyline.
I didn’t understand what’s the whole point of this show.
The story was decent. But I couldn’t help myself being annoyed at the same time. This was a facepalm moment. I think it’s just a school SOL anime, full of fanservice and ass-pulls. The romance was plain, pretty not developed, and felt forced. I mean, they just inserted Marin was being in love with Wakana just like that? Seriously? How the heck did that happen? Just like The Anime Man said to his review about Fireworks anime movie. “How it is supposed to be a romance if the characters and the story don’t portray the romance?” The story might be good if they focus and develop well on the romance, their relationship, and add some depth to it. The cosplay should use it as a theme, not a major plot device. Even in the manga, which I’m currently reading, the story didn’t progress or change at all. It’s still the same in the beginning. The author should follow this example in Your Lie in April, they used the music as a theme and they focused more on the romance. In 3-gatsu no Lion, they used the shogi thing as its theme. In Maid-sama, they used the maid and love and hate theme. Those romance animes I’ve mentioned had the romance well developed and bloomed in some unique ways.
One of the main premises of the story is that Marin wants to be a famous cosplayer, right? So why didn’t she think on join a cosplaying competition instead than posting her pictures on the internet? The story might be interesting and it can help their development as the model and the designer. Instead, the show focused more on fanservice and cracked some repetitive and corny dialogues that broke the whole concept of romance. Even the plot of the story was shallow, I still found it interesting. However, the show was not expressive to its message.
AWFUL AND BLAND CHARACTERS
We just talked about our MC on how he was being a self-inserting wimp protagonist, now let’s check out the waifu that everybody loves, Marin Kitagawa. They said Marin symbolizes that you should be confident in yourself. Yeah, I got that. Even it might break our dignity and morality. Yeah, I got that. Our wimp MC and our waifu Marin were just… eh. I don’t know the reason why this show had some poorly written characters but they also defy the nature of logic and morality. Aside from that, there were some uninteresting characters forcedly joined, for the sake of “character development”. In the end, both two girls were just loli baits FFS. Wakana Gojou is another version of Kazuya from another multiverse, but he had very little good behavior.
Marin. Marin, I almost forgot about you. You’re the main landmark of this show on why many male audiences eagerly loved it. There was a time when someone said to me that Marin’s symbolism is amazing. I appreciate that. But how heavy her make-up she was wearing, so are her flaws. If I were to choose between Marin, Nagatoro, Igarashi from 3D Kanojo Girl, and Komi as a good female lead, I will choose the last 3 I’ve mentioned, and not Marin. Marin seemed to be what every boy’s, wet dream. She was personalized as a “perfect waifu” material. The problem with her was she lacked depth and properly good characterization. The only thing that stood out from her is her horny and somewhat perverted mindset, which fulfills every boys’ mind. She looked somewhat similar to the blond girls from hentai that I’ve watched, obviously from her reactions. Yes, there’s nothing wrong in living life to the fullest but does she know her limits and boundaries as a human person, especially she’s a girl? Does she ever think about that? It’s not bad to live that way but it’s not good either. Especially she’s still a minor. And then a series of ridonkeylous moments I saw that tore the concept of realism. Like wearing earrings, colorful nail polish, and not wearing her uniform properly inside the school is “allowed”? I’ve never thought of that thing when there’s no policy about that inside their school. Numerous times she confidently stripping naked and using her body as a form of her teasing to Wakana is one of the absurd things I’ve seen in a show. To the point, they can almost do IT. If this is one of the reasons for the hardening of dicks, for me it’s so completely annoying.
“Get on top of me, Kitagawa-san.”
Seriously this kind of thing needs to lessen.
There are many ways for him to take a photo shot of Marin in that kind of position. Do you remember in episode 2 when Wakana stared at her from the lower part of her body? That should be the angle that Wakana used instead of asking Marin to hop on him. They had no concept of limits and boundaries. Because in the end, Wakana. Is. Still. A. Boy. And. Marin. Is. Still. A. Girl.
The lady heard Wakana and Marin’s conversation is true.
They are dangerous teenagers.
Yup the fanservice won again.
But the only good thing I saw in her was her initial goal to be a pro cosplay or doing a cosplay. The only thing I’ve seen in Wakana is his hard work in sewing. I know this is a common troupe from many animes but still liked it. However, both characters were one-dimensional, bland, and one-sided. All of the characters were weak and not poignant in the story. If the author writes a story about them joining in a competitive cosplaying event, that would be awesome as fck.
EXCESSIVE USE OF FANSERVICE RUINED THE PLOT
In the first place, I was introduced by many of my friends and the anime news pages that this is a romcom seinen anime. That’s the first I’ve believed in. But damn, they should advertise this anime as an ecchi rom-com. A lot of people had been fooled because of this. Because the media advertised this anime as a romcom, not knowing this is a purely ecchi show. This fact made me feel rage when I watched the show and it wasn’t my fault. I searched it on many anime pages on Facebook, in Wikipedia, and even on MAL. I just noticed on Anilist and Anime-planet (I don’t use Anime-planet really) but it’s already too late. It's their fault for not stating the correct tags and genre on this anime. There’s no ecchi tag there so, in the end, we were just scammed by the media. That’s why this is an example of clickbait. I was baited. Even if you’re saying this is publishing on a Seinen magazine, it’s just a magazine. Yes, they said Seinen is for adult male audiences but can you explain why Shuumatsu no Harem and Interspecies Reviews were published in Shounen magazine?
After the second rewatch, some fanservice from this anime is decent. But one of the main problems is excessive fanservice. Yes, fanservice is one of the common troupes, and the signature of Japanese comedy style can make you laugh but when I watched this show, I was like watching soft-core hentai. Don’t get me wrong, I still found ecchi romcoms entertaining but this needs to lessen. Yet, I still found the ecchi scenes were illogical absurdities. I remember what happened in Episode 1 when she suddenly tried to strip in front of him when there was a comfort room inside their school. The measurement in episode 2 is when she has stripped naked again for measurements when a clothing store exists. This bounds the realism we lived in. The show used her as the “major purpose of entertainment”. The excessive fanservice ruined the whole plot that was intended to be. Is this still an ecchi romance? Or soft-core hentai? This can be so annoying. The point is, it shouldn’t rely on the fanservice for the sake of “entertainment”. It made the whole show nonsensical in some ways, like “this anime should be for cultured weebs than the romance it was supposed to be.” It caused the show to look like every boys’ wet dream to have a horny cute girlfriend. It sounds like this, if Mushoku Tensei didn’t have ecchi scenes, it would be a masterpiece of isekai. Imagine this, if My Dress-up Darling lessen its fanservice and focused more on the pinnacle of its romance, it would be one of the best seinen romance animes.
“But the animation and the production quality are good, right?”
Yes but no thanks. The animation of this show was only the saving grace from all those awful scenes. The animation is good but for me, it’s just average. Probably because Cloverworks did it and I had no expectations about that. Maybe for some guys who are new to anime that’s why they always like animation over the story. The animation is the only factor I gave a pretty fair high score. Heck, only the animation stood out in the series. The music was just plain… It reminds me how Horimiya wasn’t that special. The OP was the only thing I’d like but the ED was just average and I didn’t understand why they were hyping about it. Sorry, not sorry. The animation can’t always save this. The story, characters, and its development are more important than production quality.
Now we all took our loads about this show out of our chest, now we can finally say Sono Bisque is a decent romance but with lackluster characters, a clickbait, a scam, nonsensical excessive fanservice, and somewhat a waste of time. It had many cringe and facepalm moments, and the fanservice was incredibly disgusted. Because of this show, we just started a new year full of disappointments. We might be considered it to be good if was labeled as an ecchi anime. I mean, if you will look at my list, most of them are a variety of romance. Even other ecchi romcoms I found good and enjoyable. But, I can list many ecchi romcom animes that are better than this. Jitsu wa Watashi wa, Eromanga-sensei, Love Hina, Nyan Koi, Mayoi Chiki, Rosario to Vampire, and many more. And I can guarantee they are more enjoyable than this. This is the first time I’ve been disappointed and felt rage in my favorite genre of a certain story. This anime is not worthy of the word “wholesome”. It’s not a masterpiece or heavily romantic. Yet you can still enjoy it if you’re the type of audience to like a good animation.
If you’re the type of audience who can turn off your brain from its flaws, and casually enjoy this kind of absurd act, this anime is for you. However, if you’re a die-hard romance fan, who seeking a solid and groundbreaking romance story, sadly to say this anime is not deserved for you. It might you just feel annoyed and cringe because of the content and its characters. As we end this review, we like to state some advice, as a lesson we’ve experienced from watching this show. It can be so useful when watching an anime.
“Expect disappointment and you will never get disappointed.”
My initial score is 35/100 but if I compute our all scores the score will be a glorious 69/100. I think you know the reason why we scored it like that.
"SOL heals your soul."
But not in this kind of show.
That’s all and thank you for reading. See you at my next review!!
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