My Dress-Up Darling's biggest hook for anime fans, aside from the season's best girl Kitagawa Marin, is its emphasis on cosplay. Marin's passion for the hobby and the effort the mangaka put into their research makes the series a true love letter by capturing the excitement found in every aspect of cosplay, from picking the character to wearing the finished product at an event.
However, it doesn't just show the aesthetic parts of cosplay. For every great photo Marin puts on social media, there's a much less glamorous path to it. For many, cosplay is about more than wearing the same clothes as one's favorite characters. It's a labor of love for a character or series that's had an impact on one's life, and oftentimes they'll prioritize it over basic needs like sleep or comfort. Some of these incidents can be avoided with proper time management, but others need to be learned through trial and error. My Dress-Up Darling excels in portraying this.
At the end of Episode 3, Marin casually tells Gojo there is a cosplay event she would like to attend in two weeks' time. While she sees the comment as just part of their conversation, Gojo interprets this information as a deadline for him to complete the cosplay for. What follows in Episode 4 is a stressful two weeks as Gojo tackles a family emergency, maintains the doll shop and takes exams, all on top of completing Marin's costume. Every waking moment he can spare goes toward making this outfit, to the point that he starts ignoring her and lets the house fall into a state of disarray. When he's finally finished, all he can do is let Marin know that he's done and promptly goes to bed.
Though this may be an extreme example, it's just one situation many cosplayers have found themselves in at some point, especially if they make their own costumes. In the Western cosplay world, this is called con crunch. It's essentially a version of cramming for a test the night before instead of studying a little bit every night. The main difference, though, is that Gojo more or less assigned himself the deadline in My Dress-Up Darling, while most cosplayers found themselves in con crunch due to procrastination.
With the cosplay made and Marin happy with the result, the next common experience of cosplayers is shown. In Episode 5, after spending hours at the event taking photos, Marin returns to Gojo and tells him that she's overheating in the costume and needs it to come off. They find an empty stairwell and she exposes as much skin as she can without being too indecent in public, while he helps her cool down.
Very important details to take into consideration while cosplaying are the venue and the possible temperature extremes. If a cosplayer is attending an event in the summer, like Marin and Gojo, overheating is a massive risk. Everything a cosplayer wears, from the clothes to the wig, retain heat. If a costume is made from heavy or dark materials, both of which pertain to Marin's Shizuku costume, overheating can only occur faster.
The best way to prevent this is to dress with the temperature in mind. Cosplaying as a character who has light, breezy clothes or exposes a lot of skin would be good options for a summer convention. However, because they're both beginners, Marin and Gojo prioritized accuracy over comfort. As someone who has only made clothes for dolls previously, Gojo didn't consider Marin's ability to move in the costume or how much heat it would retain. In fact, he insisted on the heavier fabric because it felt more fitting to Shizuku's background.
The addition of the experienced Sajuna brings along another issue for cosplayers. Though she initially refuses to cosplay with Marin, she quickly changes her mind once she and Gojo offer to contribute to the studio fee. It's possible for cosplayers to rent spaces and use them as series-accurate backgrounds, but they are far from cheap. Sajuna says the studio costs 15,000 yen, (approximately $130 USD) per hour. On top of however much the cosplayer spent on their outfit, it's easy to see that cosplay is an expensive hobby.
Despite all of the struggles, cosplayers love their hobby. Some have even made it their career. Cosplay is physically, mentally and financially taxing for those who partake in it. My Dress-Up Darling does not glaze over this reality, showing the audience the fruit of a cosplayer's hard labor. The hobby isn't for everyone as many try and decide the effort isn't worth it, but those who get hooked on it will give it everything they have.
