My Dress-Up Darling embraces eroge the way fans actually do

My Dress-Up DarlingThis anime is the best of 2022. This anime offered an honest look into cosplay, and showed how people connect through it. The awkward, charming romance between the series’ leads Marin (a bright, bubbly, cosplayer) and Gojo (a shy, talented, classmate who creates her outfits), was embraced by fans. It’s through cosplay that the series spreads the message that it’s OK to love what you love, regardless of the stigma attached. Marin is a lover of everything. Saint ♡ Slippery’s Academy for Girls – The Young Ladies of the Humiliation Club: Debauched Miracle Life 2, a fictional eroge (a Japanese portmanteau of “erotic” and “game”) with an 18+ rating.

My Dress-Up Darling manages to talk about Marin and her Slippery Girls fandom in a way that isn’t creepy but instead feels validating. Pop culture is full of images of teenager boys and men reading mature material, but there are very few depictions of teen girls or women exploring their sexuality with adult titles. There are tamer examples of fandom, a la “friend fiction”-writing queen Tina in Bob’s Burgers. Marin’s passion for eroge character sex was a reminder of why I love mature content.

Through My Dress-Up Darling, Marin explains how her favorite character’s personality is not only something she admires, but also an example of how she would like to be. She’s enamored with Slippery Girls’ Shizuku Kuroe thanks to the character’s timid nature and her ability to connect to others. Marin loves Shizuku Kuroe and cosplaying her character is how she expresses her affection for it. And as the series progresses, she also cosplays as Black Lobelia, Rizu-kyun, and Prisoner Veronica — each of the characters has their unique brand of sex appeal, but Marin also admires their personalities.

While the show doesn’t shy away from fan service, with close-ups of Marin’s body as she uses cosplay to emulate a character’s appearance, the series always returns to the core theme of what the cosplay means to Marin: her love for the character. This resonated with me, a woman who has always loved erotic content, but didn’t feel comfortable talking about it until I was in my very late 20s. Although something might seem simple to one reader it may also appeal to others.

Each piece of smut can have a narrative element, but not all. But other times, I get pulled in because of the characters’ journeys, relationships, hardships, and for the cathartic romantic ending. As I explored josei smut (often heterosexual romances directed at 18+ women) and 18+ GL (girls’ love) or BL (boys’ love), this became very clear. While I love the characters and enjoy the sexy moments, it is possible to also feel emotional responses to the story, as well as emotional reactions. There are stories with 10 chapters full of sex and the story ends in dramatic self-discovery. It’s a complex and nuanced relationship with adult content that is rarely depicted on screen, especially in the wholesome way My Dress-Up Darling portrays it.

Image: Cloverworks

Recently, I’ve made a point to share my love of erotica, specifically in the manga space. Publicly sharing my joy when smutty manga titles are adapted, particularly when they involve queer romances.

But getting to the place where I didn’t feel the need to hide my love of this mature media was hard. It always felt like acknowledging I enjoyed erotica somehow took away from the importance of anime as a medium, or like I was giving anime’s critics ammunition to use. When I started watching anime, I often spent time reassuring non-anime watchers around me that I didn’t watch hentai, didn’t read smut, and didn’t play eroge. Because I was afraid of being judged and the mature elements of the medium, these were aspects that I avoided.

As with many forms of entertainment, anime can sexualize characters. Especially in shonen manga, which is geared towards teenage boys.My Dress-Up Darling It is an older series that is focused on shoujo but also has some shonen elements. When I was watching shonen anime, this is something that I saw a lot. Bleach’s female shinigami have breasts that would break a real human’s back. This type of fan service continues to be discussed and debated as a part of anime as a medium, especially when present in stories that aren’t explicitly sexual.

There’s also ecchi, a genre of anime and manga that uses sexual concepts — often for comedic purposes — but never crosses the line into being explicitly pornographic. An example of this is Food Wars! This series was illustrated by a hentai-artist. Here, you know exactly what you’re getting into. It’s going to be absurd, sexy, and include anime boobs that will don mousepads and body pillows alike. These series are known for their humor, which sets the stage for fan service.

Image: Cloverworks

My Dress-Up DarlingThrough characters who cosplay media such as Slippery Girls, it directly interacts with fans and ecchi. But it also often shows Marin’s body from Gojo’s perspective, which is sexualized. That said, Gojo is consistently trying to understand his feelings for Marin, respect her boundaries, and tell her when he’s uncomfortable as well. While a close up of Marin’s breasts or legs can be excessive, those shots are contextualized within a story about a teen boy falling for his best friend while attempting to understand his comically overwhelming and often horny feelings.

Growing up in an extremely religious household, I was taught that women specifically shouldn’t care about sex. I was told I shouldn’t engage with it or have it, and should essentially pretend it doesn’t exist. I wish that I was able to see. My Dress-Up Darling when I first explored the world of content out there, if only to show me, in one character, that there wasn’t anything wrong with me.

If I could only have one wish, it would be this: My Dress-Up Darling to do for women watching the show, it’s to continue to normalize consuming eroge and exploring various mediums of adult content.