WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for My Dress-Up Darling Episode 11, "I Am Currently at a Love Hotel," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
My Dress-Up Darling is all about the "opposites attract" theme between the shy protagonist Gojo Wakana and the rambunctious cosplayer Kitagawa Marin, and these two characters mesh well and make up for each other's deficiencies in unexpected ways. They stand a lot to gain from one another as they explore the world of cosplay together.
This shojo-style seinen series may also remind fans of similar high school rom-com anime series from recent seasons, such as Don't Toy With Me, Ms. Nagatoro!, with Gojo being the artistic Hachioji Naoto and Marin being the new Nagatoro Hayase -- except their relationship is a bit more R-rated yet even more wholesome, as Episode 11 shows.
For the most part, Kitagawa Marin means well and puts friendship and cosplay first. She is a positive and optimistic girl who sees the best in herself and others, and she didn't hesitate to uplift and inspire the dandere Gojo Wakana early in the series. All the same, Marin is also a playful, whimsical girl who has fun teasing her new cosplay partner, and in earlier episodes, she established herself as a more restrained Nagatoro Hayase, being an outgoing girl who has fun toying with her shy male friend. Despite her general kindness, Marin has a bit of a sadodere streak to her, and it strikes at the most unexpected time.
In earlier My Dress-Up Darling episodes, Marin toyed with Gojo when she stripped down to her revealing bikini for measurements in Gojo's bedroom, and in Episode 11, she teased him again by booking a room in a love hotel by accident and dragging him in there with her. Marin even joked that she and Gojo should take a dip in the bath together, and then she messed around by eating most of the chocolate props for her latest character, a playful succubus from a slice-of-life manga series.
Marin can't help but gently project her lively and unpredictable lifestyle on Gojo, just to have fun seeing his reactions and test his personality in the process. Gojo is a curiosity to Marin, who clearly hasn't had a friend like him before, which was Hayase's approach to Naoto in Don't Toy With Me, Ms. Nagatoro!. And in both shows, the shy male love interest strikes back without even meaning to.
Kitagawa Marin and Nagatoro Hayase both have fun pushing the buttons of their respective male friends, and while those friends aren't the type to retaliate or get angry, they do find ways to return the favor, and the girls never see it coming. In a way, Marin and Hayase are like benign bullies, being used to messing with people to get a reaction without being prepared for any return fire. In wholesome anime like My Dress-Up Darling, the results are humorous or heartwarming instead of dramatic.
In one episode, Gojo put Marin on the defensive when he confessed his love of beautiful things like Marin, and at once, Marin became a bashful, blushing maiden who, for once, didn't have a playful zinger or prank ready. Gojo's off-hand comment occupied Marin's every thought for days afterward; with one move, Gojo totally turned the tables on her, and then it was Marin who got embarrassed and flustered when they were together instead of Gojo.
Then, in Episode 11, Gojo offered for Marin, in her succubus cosplay, to straddle him on a bed so he could take point-of-view photos during the shoot. At first, all was well, but then both of them heard the passionate lovemaking from the next room, and Gojo got instantly aroused. Both of them got terribly flustered, and interestingly, this steamy moment was possible not because of Marin's daring ideas but Gojo's.
While Gojo was largely in the same boat as Marin, it still proves that he is capable of making her flustered or toying with her, and Marin is never ready for it. Marin is used to being the instigator or the idea generator, and when Gojo returns the favor, Marin's true character is exposed -- and perhaps she's a little more insecure than first impressions would suggest. She has her shy side too, and she'll have to overcome it if she truly wants a proper romance with Gojo. She claims to "wuv" him, but she's got some ground to cover, and no one can help her with that but her.
