My Dress-Up Darling: Official Anime Fanbook Review

The My Dress-Up Darling anime aired back in early 2022 and since then fans have been able to enjoy the original manga, thanks to Square Enix Manga, while we eagerly await the second season (which has been confirmed but still undated so far). In the meantime, Square Enix has brought the Official Anime Fanbook to the West, but is it worth adding to your collection? Let’s take a look!

This 100-page hardback book covers the entire first season, following cosplayer Marin Kitagawa and Wakana Gojo, her partner in bringing her costumes to life, as they spend their days learning all about this hobby and each other. It’s an opposite attracts romantic comedy in many ways, but also a down-to-earth character piece showing what happens when two people who live in entirely different worlds come together.

The book is divided into various sections beginning with a gallery of promotional images and character profiles before heading into our first staff interview with character designer and chief animation director  Kazumasa Ishida. This, like the other interviews present, proves incredibly insightful and shows how much all of the staff involved loved or came to love the series.

After Kazumasa we move on to an interview with Erika Nishihara, the costume designer. As fans will know, a key part of what makes My Dress-Up Darling so special is the attention to detail present in that department. Nishihara used to help a friend make cosplay, so her familiarity with Marin’s hobby helped considerably when designing the costumes for the anime (particularly when it came to considering the kinds of fabric Marin would use or could afford).

With these two interviews done, we transition into a story guide, which takes up at least half of the overall page count. Each episode of the TV series is given four pages each, showing off a selection of screenshots and outlining the major events that happened. These are also all given short commentaries from director Keisuke Shinohara and Yoriko Tomita who handled the story editing and scripts. They both have full-length interviews of their own later on, too.

The other major elements of note are a special feature section talking about some of the shows and games Marin’s costumes are inspired by, which is a fun addition for anyone wanting to know more about those. There’s also an interview with Marin’s Japanese voice actor: Hina Suguta, which again is quite insightful, particularly as this was Suguta’s first lead role.

The one thing this book is missing that I wish we could have seen is an interview with Wakana’s Japanese voice actor Shoya Ishige. The series and this book make it very apparent that My Dress-Up Darling isn’t just about Marin but both of them discovering new facts about themselves and the hobby, so it’s odd that he wasn’t included here too. I imagine it was just down to scheduling issues, but I hope if they do another fanbook for Season 2 we’ll see his presence there.

If you enjoyed the anime then this book is well worth adding to your collection. It’s clear from reading through the staff interviews how much love was poured into making the adaptation and how far they were willing to push their work to make sure it conveyed the original story well. In many ways, the team made their lives harder by striving to add details that other productions would have left out to save time, money or frankly sanity, but this more than paid off for the final product which is something the team and fans alike can agree on.

As mentioned,  the My Dress-Up Darling: Official Anime Fanbook comes to the West thanks to Square Enix Books. The release has been translated by Taylor Engel who also works on the manga with design handled by Ti Collier and editing by Edward Hong. Presented as a full-colour hardback that’s just slightly over A4 size, this is an attractive release that fans are going to be eager to get their hands on (there is also a cheaper eBook release, but frankly the art really shines here in the physical release so I’d recommend that over digital!).

Overall, My Dress-Up Darling: Official Anime Fanbook is a treasure trove of information including interviews with the staff and a look back at all the highlights of the first season. If you enjoyed the anime then this is a must-have!

A free preview can be read on the publisher’s website here

Our review copy from Square Enix Books was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).