Hello! Gojo Dolls, how may I help you?

Marin: okay Gojo, I know I should've told you earlier but now that we're totally dating and all I feel like you should know-

Gojo: Kitagawa, I take your measurements for cosplays. I already know

Major spoilers ahead if you plan to watch this anime, which I highly recommend if you haven’t btw

I love how the series explore gender through cosplay. They end up including many characters who like to cosplay the opposite gender. And when others treat them as weird for it, those people are portrayed to be in the wrong. I love when Gojo goes to his first cosplay meet up and notices this and is like I guess people want to be their favorite character regardless of gender. Like yes! I love the strong themes in this series that hobbies have no gender. And I love how some of the side characters are able to better express their interests in things that are associated with the opposite gender after seeing the main group doing so happily and with no judgement. That also goes for Gojo’s experiences as he becomes less and less ashamed as he meets other people who are impressed with his talents of making hina dolls and sewing and don’t spare much thought going but aren’t those for girls. And Gojo realizes that there are good people around him who won’t judge him for his interests and he becomes more open about them and gets praised for it rather than rejected.

As far as the specific characters who mess with gender, I absolutely adore Amane Himeno, he is one of my absolute favorite characters from this series, he is precious and I want to squish him. I love how he’s a bit nervous as to Marin and Gojo’s intentions in asking him about cosplaying girls, but once he realizes that they’re genuinely interested, he starts nerding out with them and telling them all about it. And I love how cosplaying female characters has given him more confidence in his daily life, and he knew exactly what mattered to him and had the confidence to dump that one girlfriend who thought that his hobbies were weird. Also, his cosplays are so adorable.

It’s kind of funny how due to all of the cross dressing they’re doing with their cosplays, they end up discovering binders and a bunch of other stuff that’s often used by trans people as well. It would have been very fitting and nice to see a trans character involved and to see how their thoughts on cosplay would differ from the cis people who just enjoyed crossdressing, but I guess that’s too much to ask from most anime’s, and it’s still a great story as it is.

Also, it was really funny to me how the one time that Marin crossdressed for a cosplay, she cosplayed a character who was already a crossdresser. And then she didn’t even cosplay said character when she was crossdressed, she cosplayed her in her normal outfit it seems. So, I guess that character was masc enough on the regular then. Also, I love how like all of the girls simp over her, like either there’s more queer women here than I thought, or she just defies sexuality. Or he’s meant to have a trans man reading, but from what they showed of the show, it seemed to be more of a Mulan situation. And the main character of that’s how knew too and was still in love with her. Yuri!!! I cry out!!! Yuri!!! Everyone loves this yuri show!

I also love how the show shows how people can form communities around the things that they love. I love how new characters are introduced that they meet at the conventions, and they’re all so different, yet they bond over their shared hobby of cosplay. It’s genuinely so sweet to see these bonds form.

I especially love how some of the characters that they befriend are a bit older than them and still love cosplay. And I love that one seen where two of the older cosplayers tell Juju that cosplay is for anyone at any age, and they talk about other even older people that they know who still love cosplay.

I love how they show characters who don’t look like their characters in real life cosplaying them anyway and finding ways to adjust for it. However, this theme gets undermined by the blatant lack of any plus sized characters or characters in general who don’t have a socially accepted as good in some way body type. This anime constantly preaches how anyone can cosplay anyone and how it doesn’t matter what their actual bodies look like. And yet, even if not everyone’s bodies match the bodies of the characters that they want to cosplay, the cast still consists of thin, pale characters with desired anime proportions. (Speaking of the pale thing, quick note about that one time that Marine tanned herself for a cosplay, like I’m white so I’m not in the position to dictate how much tan is too far but like girl that made me a bit uncomfortable, like that’s not a tan, that’s changing your whole skin tone, don’t do that!)

Like think about how cool it would have been to see some of the scenes with characters upset that their bodies didn’t fit their favorite characters and trying to come up with ways to counter it with characters who really did have drastically different proportions from most characters in general because it’s just so rare to see a well written character like them. THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE THEM FAT!!! I scream!!!

Now, into the elephant in the room, the abundance of fan service in this anime. Because, despite how much of it there was, it actually made me a lot less uncomfortable for the most part than a lot of other anime’s do. And I think that comes down to the autonomy of the characters who are used for fan service. We’re going to talk mostly about Marin here because she’s the main one who ends up in these sorts of the scenes. See, often in these sorts of anime fan service scenes, a character who is unwilling to show their body is unwillingly “accidentally” put into a situation where sexualized bits of it are shown to the main character and thus the audience. Why this would make many people uncomfortable, especially the women in the audience since this is done more the female characters and said characters are the ones who don’t really have autonomy in these scenes is obvious. But that’s the difference with Marin: autonomy. In any scene where Gojo sees her in an inappropriate way, she is willing wearing something revealing because she enjoys it. She’s confident in her body and she wants to show it. During scenes where she’s getting measured for cosplay stuff, she feels no discomfort, she generally seems to have a really good relationship with her body and has no issues with Gojo seeing it. Sometimes, when she catches feelings for Gojo, she wants him to see her in a sexual way, but prior to that when she doesn’t even think about it like that since bodies are not inherently sexual and she very much understands that and she’s just wearing a bathing suit for cosplay measurement purposes is where Gojo’s role in this comes in. Gojo is very respectful of her at all times. Whenever he sees something, it’s only because Marin doesn’t see a problem in showing it. And Gojo always does his best to not look at her in that way even though he has feelings for her. He’s never creepy or peeping at her. He’s just flustered when she’s wearing something revealing because he likes her. And that’s how it should be.

There is an instance of fan service that made me uncomfortable however, and that’s Juju’s in person introduction. Again, Gojo didn’t do anything wrong, he wasn’t trying to look or be disrespectful, but when he accidentally walked in on Juju in the shower, she did not want to be seen which took the autonomy of that scene away from her. And like, was that really necessary? We could have skipped that scene and missed nothing. That did not have to be there and I did not appreciate it being there.

I still love Juju though! She’s very cute and feels like a bit of a tsundere at times but not too over the top and not in a romantic way, more of a friendship tsundere, not wanting to show that she’s having fun branching by out and meeting other cosplayers rather than cosplaying all alone. Because she is stubborn and doesn’t like change to the way things were. And she can still enjoy cosplay the way she always has, but now she also can enjoy it with other people when she so chooses. She also likes to mantain her image and doesn’t like to freak out over scary things even though she’s very squeamish with horror. I love how seriously she takes her craft and how direct she is in what she wants.

But also, the thing about Marin and her fan service is exactly why she should have been fat!!! Or like any body type that’s not the typical anime perfect hourglass at least. Like it’s great to see how she loves her body. But wouldn’t it have meant so much more if said body wasn’t perfect by societal standards and she still had the same amount of confidence in it anyway. And in canon, I don’t know how she looks like that anyway! Like sure some people have fast metabolism, but are you really telling me that all of her weight is going to her chest and hips?!?! Her diet is also a bit of a mess regardless and she has to prepare food on her own and we’ve seen how unhealthy what she has access to is. So why does she look like a perfect model by societal beauty standards?!?! (I mean she is a model lol but still, she could have been a model for different size clothes). Suspension of disbelief I guess, but why should I have to suspend my disbelief?!?! You could have just given her a more realistic body type. It didn’t even have to be very fat, just at least more average because her confidence would have been so much more empowering if she had a realistic body. There are so many anime characters with her body type already, and this is a series about doing what makes you happy regardless of what your body looks like! So, her design undermines the theme in a way.

I still love Marin though, don’t worry! She’s such a wonderful character! She’s so passionate and doesn’t care what others think and helps Gojo break out of his shell and she’s so outgoing, yet she’s also allowed to be super nerdy and have all of this anime merch and just be a total nerd culture loving freak and I love her for that!

I really didn’t like her brief diet arc as far as her whole relationship with her body thing goes though. She barely gained any weight and her stylists at her modeling job were freaking out on her. And that wasn’t portrayed as a bad thing. In fact, dieting was shown to be the right thing to do. Which would have been more fine if she’d actually gained any weight which characters repeatedly commented that she hadn’t really gained any. And Gojo even offered to adjust her cosplays because weight fluctuation is normal!!! But no, she had to go on a whole diet. We saw that the main thing that changed was that she was eating Gojo’s breakfasts at night and then eating more breakfast the next day. So she could have just stopped doing that and returned to her normal eating patterns and it would have been fine. Although, perhaps eating more of Gojo’s cooking and less of the horrors that she cooks up would have been better as well. But it made me a bit uncomfortable the immediate shame she felt about it, implying that she wouldn’t be so confident and happy in her body if it looked any different which was not the vibes I got form her before. She seemed like she’d be confident in her appearance no matter what. Because that’s just who she is, she’s a confident person, but apparently that’s not allowed if she gets just a little fat.

I also love how the anime shows how different media can impact people. Even media that people may judge at first. The first example that comes to mind is obviously that very inappropriate first game that Marine wants to do a cosplay from: Slippery Girls. Sure, it’s in the explicit genre. But its entire purpose clearly isn’t just to be sexual considering how much joy Marin finds in the writing of the characters. Any genre can have a great story and none should be looked down upon, even erotica. Whatever the story of Slippery Girls is, it clearly meant something to a lot of people. Even people who aren’t attracted to the characters but play regardless. Marin is presumably straight (although she’s said a lot of things about the female characters that make me headcanon her as bi, but I assume that the writers just meant for her to enjoy female character’s cuteness in a platonic way, but a lot of the characters blur lines between platonic and romantic enjoyment of their favs, especially their favs of the same gender, and that’s very cool). I do love how the characters that the characters enjoy in romantic ways are on the same level as the ones that they adore in platonic ways because platonic and romantic feels both have the same value.

I also love how a bunch of the other media that they love so much is shown as extremely tropey but it’s still great and they still find meaning in it and love it. The portrayals of the things that they like are very accurate to their real life counterparts. I love the accuracy of the snippets we get from them. Especially Coffin because it was so funny seeing Gojo be like oh, this isn’t horror, it’s just slice of life, and as someone who’s into Doki Doki Literature Club, I knew exactly where this was going. And watching him freak out when he finally got to the scary part was so funny and accurate. Also, the dinner scene very much was giving Mouthwashing vibes.

Also, just my little headcanon, (very loose headcanon btw, just sort of vibes, and idk if I’m autistic myself I don’t think I am as far as I’m aware but people keep assuming it and my bestie is and I’m getting tested in March. I am neurodivergent regardless though as I have Tourettes and OCD) (edit, I have been diagnosed with autism) but both Gojo and Marine exude autism vibes to me. Gojo is so fixated on hina dolls that he never bothers talking to anyone or experiencing anything outside of it. Because he has a weird interest (a special interest mayhaps) and he relates everything that he does back to it. Every time that something happens, he processes it by relating it back to hina dolls. His social skills are also bad as he misses cues multiple times and ends up in awkward situations. Like that one time where Marin’s stylist is mad at her and Gojo assumed that he’s hitting on her and making her uncomfortable and he goes charging in lol. He also always feels like he has to hide his interests and mask even though he is terrible at it, and only when he opens up about his interests and yaps to people actually see how interesting of a person he is for real and that’s how he makes friends by showing his true self, and other people join him. Marin on the other hand is the kind of autistic ( or other kind of neurodivergent she might not be specifically autistic but she doesn’t feel neurotypical) who hardly cares about masking because her favorite thing to do is infodump about her fandom interests to her friends, who are just like whatever, that’s Marin for you. But I do think she’s mastered the art of people skills as well because she’s figured out how to be super social and stuff, but she always does so as her self in her own weird Marin ways, and she’s not ashamed of it, and people actually like her for it. The only hole in the Marin headcanon is that I have no idea how she manages to keep social and outgoing all the time. So, idk if Marin has autism specifically, but despite initial appearances, she doesn’t feel neurotypical, she’s neurodivergent in some manner though.

I also love Akira Ogata. And her backstory made me sad with how her family viewed her love of manga as childish, and she further works into the theme that cosplay is for anyone at any age, and that’s why she was able to get into it when she met people who felt the same way about fandoms and cosplay as her when she was in college. I also love her little moment where she relates to Amene Himeno over being scorned for their hobbies and they both are able to grow past that and do what they love. Also it further plays into how silly gender norms and assumptions are when she thinks that Gojo is a girl based on his online presence and he assumed that she’s a boy based on her online presence but it doesn’t matter and they become friends anyway. On that note, I also love how the series shows that despite not being able to learn everything about someone online, the friendships and connections or just one sided inspirations that you get from there still mean something, and it’s really great when they’re able to meet in real life and understand each other more fully and realize misconceptions that they’ve had about each other but still be friends from it. This goes for both her and Juju’s arcs with the main characters. Also, I love how awkward she is around Marine to the point where Marin thinks that she hates her but actually she’s just a huge fan from her pictures lol.

It did feel like a bit of a missed opportunity though that Gojo never got to cosplay. I know that he’s satisfied helping the others, but he’s always talking about how much he loves beautiful things, and he always talks about how he’d be too embarrassed to cosplay, which is probably something he picked up from being embarrassed from other people making fun of his love of hina dolls and so then he’d find showing his hobbies to be embarrassing. But it would have been so cool to see him overcome this and try something new, because you can’t tell me that he really has absolutely no interest. It would be extra cool if he cosplayed a female character. Since one of the first things he pointed out when he went to a convention was how some people were even cosplaying in drag because gender doesn’t matter when you want to become you favorite character. So I think that he would really enjoy cosplaying in drag because of his love of beautiful things, even if it was only sometimes, it would have been really cool to see him try drag and eventually be able to call himself beautiful. He’s made friends with a crossdressing cosplayer already who could help him. It would have been so cool to see Amene Himeno teach him how to do it. Especially since he already seemed to excited about learning n about how Amene was doing it before and he was so impressed with it. GOJO GETTING A DRAG ARC WOULD HAVE BEEN SO PERFECT TRUST!!! HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD HE WOULD HAVE LOVED IT TRUST AND HE WOULD HAVE BEEN SO PRETTY!!! They even tease it a bit in that one scene where the man at the shop thinks that he’s making the bunny suit for himself and is impressed by him being a trailblazer for the generation! And it’s overdramatic and a joke because it’s a misunderstanding, but it also could have been great foreshadowing!!!

Also Gojo and Marin’s relationship is the definition of character A fell first, character B fell harder.

Also I really love the misunderstandings between Gojo and his grandpa near the beginning it’s so funny especially when he brings home slippery girls to take notes on the designs and the grandpa’s like, well I guess he’s at that age, but why is he taking notes?! That scene had me laughing just thinking about it after watching it. Like at one point I was thinking about it and just randomly burst out laughing it was so funny!

From Gojo’s POV, he’s the social outcast loser who fell hard for the gorgeous, popular, cool girl at school. He can’t fathom why this super cool girl wants to hang out with him, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep their friendship going. Even though he’s crushing hard on her, he thinks he doesn’t have a chance with her, thus his focus is just to maintain their friendship.

From Marin’s POV, she’s the weird, lovable nerd who is a klutz and constantly embarrasses herself. She then falls hard for this sensitive, handsome artist who takes care of her needs (like cooking her delicious, healthy meals). The artist also agrees to make her dreams come true - cosplaying - by designing clothes for her FOR FREE, which makes her fall even harder for the artist.

This is also why I believe the story really gets going after the Shizuka arc. Once you start seeing the story more from Marin’s POV, Marin starts coming off as more of the “average” person while Gojo becomes more of the dreamboat. It’s fascinating because both perspectives work. Marin IS super cool and a klutz. Gojo IS a social outcast and a handsome, sensitive artist. It makes for a fun dynamic, especially when the story switches POVs.

Also, this helps flesh the characters out. I feel like MDUD would not be anywhere near as successful if it didn’t do the switches to Marin’s POV. If the story didn’t, then Marin would just be another manic pixie dream girl there for Gojo’s development, which would be lame. Ironically, Marin’s character becomes more lovable and interesting when the story starts letting her be more flawed, accident-prone and flustered.

Gojo’s character also becomes more lovable because making him the out-of-their-league person from Marin’s perspective feels like a natural progression. I mean…he’s a handsome artist who is an amazing cook, designs 5-star level cosplays for free, and is a subconscious smooth talker (the “beautiful” line). In any other story, he’d be the object of affection.