I’ve been rewatching the first two-thirds of Frieren, so the major theme of this episode feels even more relevant than ever. People will never truly understand you unless you reach out to them first.

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But Marin still can’t confess

At the start of the episode, Marin reaffirms her desire to confess her feelings to Gojo. Sorry, girl, but doubt. I have one expectation for this episode and one expectation only: we’ll finally put the Akira situation to rest. They’ve been dragging that subplot out for too long, and I’m actually sick of it. Anything else, however, is sadly off the table.

Like always, Marin is in her element around the girls. Even when she finds out the truth about Akira, she handles it with her usual Marin-esque aplomb. What I love about her is that she usually takes everything in stride. She approaches practically every situation with full confidence. All season long, she’s the one female character to fend off guys on her own (one small caveat is that I didn’t watch every single anime that aired this summer). Nope, this waifu doesn’t need her man to rescue her. Unfortunately, love has a unique way of disarming us, and even Marin isn’t immune. When she’s near Gojo these days, she tends to melt into an insecure puddle. All of a sudden, Marin is no longer Marin. So naturally, we get no confession. Instead, we get the age old anime trope where the couple talks in a view of the city and talks about how beautiful it is. Hell, Call of the Night literally just did this to close out their own second season. Eat your heart out, Soseki Natsume. Tokyo’s the moon, now! Anyway, we also get a selfie (and a potentially broken phone). Remember how the boys robbed Marin of a photo session with Gojo? I guess this makes up for that. And in the process of taking the selfie, she gets to embrace him. Most anime couples never get to have this much physical contact, so you gotta take every win you can get.

What really kills me about her being so nervous around Gojo, however, is that he doesn’t notice any of it. When you spend so much time with someone, you can instantly feel when something’s off. Being dense about love is one thing, but not sensing her unusual nervousness is strange. It’s not like Marin’s a smooth operator. She wears her emotions on her sleeve. She’s never been subtle. So either Gojo’s playing dumb, or maybe he doesn’t know her as well as he should. Or he’s just plain dumb. That’s also sadly plausible.

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But Sajuna still can’t stand up for herself

Sajuna never finished the game, so she’s freaking out over what the group cosplay might entail. On the one hand, at least she spared herself from the horrific encounter with the father? Maybe. Unfortunately, the tradeoff is that she has no clue what gory prop the gang might bring out next. I still think Sajuna shouldn’t have agreed to this, and I think I’m in the minority. Judging from other people’s reactions, they cheered this on, because awww, you gotta do it for your sister! You just gotta! But as we can clearly see in this episode, Sajuna is seriously freaking the fuck out. There are limits to spoiling your loved ones, and I would draw the line here. We’re not talking about stepping out of one’s comfort zone like, “Oh, I’m an introvert, but I’ll go to a work party to support my partner.” Nah, man, Sajuna has a real fear of this stuff. I don’t buy the whole “I’m the only one who can fulfill her requests” nonsense, because at some point, you do have to let go. At some point, you do have to let her walk on her own two feet and fulfill her dreams through her own ability. How long does Sajuna expect to coddle Shinju?

And the sad thing is that Sajuna’s discomfort doesn’t really get addressed by the group either. It seems as though she kinda has to suck it up while everyone else enjoys themselves. That really sucks. Only when the event is said and done do we see Gojo comfort Sajuna by himself. And sure, I get what the story is trying to do. Once again, Gojo is husbando material! But it’s a group event with the girls, so I would’ve preferred to see a group effort by the girls to lift Sajuna’s spirits. More importantly, I hope she gets the chance sit Shinju down and have a heart-to-heart. You can love and spoil your sister rotten, but still enforce certain boundaries.

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But Akira still can’t deal with Marin

Shinju wants to see scenes with just Marin and Akira together, because their characters have important interactions in the game. She doesn’t realize, however, that Akira has been trying to avoid Marin. I guess this comes with the territory. She’s the baby of the group, so she’s naturally a bit selfish. We already know she’s spoiled by her sister. Some kids are really observant, though. Just not this one. But oh well, Shinju being Shinju at least gets us out of this holding pattern, i.e. forcing both Marin and Akira to address the weirdness between them.

Predictably enough, the truth is quite basic: Akira simply idolizes Marin. Hell, she even refers to Marin as her princess. I’m not going to speculate if Akira is into women or not, because it doesn’t really matter. I just think it would be weird for a grown ass man to say that about a teen girl, so I’m gonna apply the same logic to a grown ass woman. But putting that aside for now, Akira doesn’t want to embarrass herself around her “princess.” The thought of doing the group cosplay is enough to make her want to throw up. Of course, I think Akira’s being silly. What’s even sillier is that we dragged this bullshit out for multiple episodes. It is such a non-issue.

Just blame this all on the mom. By restricting Akira’s hobbies, her mother robbed her of her childhood. That’s why she’s being immature about this. Akira should’ve grown up with idols (as in actual idols and not the singing kind), but she couldn’t. Akira should’ve lived out her fantasies through her manga, but she couldn’t. Now she has to play catch up by experiencing all of those things as an adult. And don’t get me wrong, ’cause I don’t think Akira’s a bad person or anything. I don’t need she needs mental help or anything. The princess thing is a little weird to me, but I know she’s ultimately harmless in the fluffy, light-hearted world of My Dress-Up Darling (on the other hand, Perfect Blue…). At the same time, this is what can happen when kids aren’t allowed to be kids. A lot of people can’t skip that step permanently, so they have to act it out in adulthood. Now that everything’s out in the open, Akira can maybe relax a little. After she gets her shit together, of course. Look at her. She’s so dramatic about her princess. I just hope one day she can give her mother a piece of her mind.

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So what’s next?

Whenever I watch a show, I always try my best not to get spoiled on what happens later in the source material. It’s only when it’s quite apparent that an anime won’t get a follow-up season or movie do I bother to read spoilers, e.g. a lot of early frustrating KyoAni adaptations. With regards to My Dress-Up Darling, I do know that there isn’t a whole lot of material left to cover. So instead of a third season, perhaps we’ll get a movie? I wouldn’t mind that except I haven’t been to the theaters in probably over a year. I think the Barbie-Oppenheimer double feature was the last time I stepped foot in one. They’re just so terribly expensive nowadays. And then I always have to abstain from the overpriced concessions, so I get to sit there and be thirsty for nearly three hours. Would I break my moviegoing fast for My Dress-Up Darling? Yeah, probably. I like to try and support my niche interests. As a result, I buy almost every JRPG even when they suck. For anime, I even watched that movie about the quintuplets even though I hated the series (spoilers: the movie bored me to tears). I do skip shounen movies, though. They’re popular enough on their own, so they don’t need my support.

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• Although we frustratingly won’t get the confession in the season finale, it’s still cute to see Marin practice with the cat doll, though.
• See, there’s no need to confess, because he’s already in bed with her!
• I could never live in a room like this. It’s just too distracting. I actually think it’s neat when people proudly display their interests. I just can’t do it myself. I need my space to be rather minimalist. My bedroom is for sleep only. My office is for work only.
• Amane is so used to getting undressed around his sister (for innocent reasons), so he starts doing it in front of Suzuka. She’s a bit of a freak, though. At least Amane’s an adult like her, I guess.
• Yeah, we don’t need a reminder. Even just between girls, talking about a kid’s chest seems crass.
• Damn son, did we get a subject matter warning for this episode? This sort of thing doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but I know I can’t speak for everyone.
• Seeing Coffin’s pixel art “come to life” by transitioning into photos of the cosplayers in the same pose is a nice touch. I wish I could capture an example of it for this post, but I’ve long deleted all of my video editing software. I doubt I’d even remember how to use them anymore.
• Apparently, Sajuna’s mom is the type to secretly sneak vegetables into people’s dish for their own good. I get why parents do this with their kids, but I don’t like it. I don’t like the dishonesty, and I definitely don’t like messing with people’s food. I should be able to trust what I ingest. Food’s one of those things we should never have to question, y’know?