My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21: Group Cosplay Drama [Review]

My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21 shows us more of the cosplay world of the story, complete with both returning friends and new ones. Alas, not all is well with some members of the group. Which will probably be a bit of a pickle for them, since they plan to have a group cosplay session together.

My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21: Details in Brief

My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21 (titled Ep. 18 “I’ll Make It Happen, No Matter What with These Two Hands”, Ep. 19 “Capture Those Delicious Memories!”, Ep. 20 “The Only Way I Can Think of to Express That Gratitude Is with Money”, and Ep. 21 “Because I Don’t Intend to Sleep Tonight”) are the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th episodes (you can read my review of Ep. 13-14, Ep. 15-16, and Ep. 17 here) of the second season of this romantic comedy and slice of cosplay life anime series, and the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st episodes of the anime overall. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the 15-volume long manga of the same name by Shinichi Fukuda.

CloverWorks (The Promised Neverland, Horimiya, Spy x Family) will be returning to production this second season, just as they did with the first season. In fact, longtime readers of THS will recall that we did a review of that first season here. Crunchyroll once more is licensing this anime for its global release. Keisuke Shinohara returns as the director, with Yoriko Tomita also returning as the writer.

Synopsis

Alas, My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 is still ongoing as of this writing. In fact, My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 21 “Because I Don’t Intend to Sleep Tonight” only just premiered on Crunchyroll on August 30, 2025. Thus, to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven’t watched the new season yet, here’s the synopses for:

Ep. 18: “Wakana finishes up Marin’s suit for her Rei-sama cosplay and the day of the beauty pageant finally arrives.”

Ep. 19: “Marin discovers the terrifying truth that she’s gained weight and her cosplay no longer fits her.”

Ep. 20: “Marin and Wakana go to a cosplay event. Marin meets up with Amane and Suzuka and Wakana meets up with Akira.”

Ep. 21: “Marin tries to convince Juju to join their “Coffin” cosplay group.”

My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21: The Good

Because My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21 covers so many episodes, I shall break down what’s good about each other into parts:

Ep. 18 “I’ll Make It Happen, No Matter What with These Two Hands”

Honestly, this entire episode was the climax of the previous school festival episode, and it does so quite well. The entire scene of Marin strutting onto the stage and essentially being the king of drag kings was amazingly well-animated. All with Marin (voiced by Hina Suguta (JP) and AmaLee (EN)) singing a silly song and doing a silly dance to boot, which CloverWorks makes even funnier by animating it well.

It’s not just the performance, though. The entire process of putting Marin’s costume together is depicted in exquisite detail. Practically from start to finish, and even depicting the makeup process to boot. Truly, this episode goes all-out in depicting cosplay in every loving detail.

Ep. 19 “Capture Those Delicious Memories!”

Ok, this episode was a surprise favorite for me all due to one thing: an extremely pricey camera that Marin bought on a whim. Amazingly, this results in some very symbolic animation going on. Cloverworks literally jumps the animation quality up several notches the moment Gojo Wakana (voiced by Shōya Ishige (JP) and Paul Dateh (EN)) looks through that viewfinder. It’s not just the textures of the background turning photorealistic, although that does make it prettier. The overall animation suddenly jumps up in frame rate, resulting in a much smoother series of actions as Gojo captures moments of Marin being Marin. Honestly, in terms of animation quality alone, this is one of the best episodes.

That, and the surprisingly tasty-looking anime food. Normally, this anime is not great with food animation quality. However, this episode is a delicious exception, with a kudos to the takikomi gohan, which is rice flavored with soy sauce and dashi and mixed with seasonal ingredients, typically mushrooms, vegetables, and fish. You can easily tell that in the anime’s depiction of the dish, which was enough to make my mouth water.

Ep. 20 “The Only Way I Can Think of to Express That Gratitude Is with Money”

The story is definitely the highlight of this episode, mostly because of some returning faces. Suzuka Itou (voiced by Marie Miyake (JP) and Celeste Perez (EN)) and Chitose Amano (voiced by Ayumu Murase (JP) and Drew Breedlove (EN)) are both faces we’ve seen before who are making some very welcome reappearances. Them and the new faces are definitely a big part as to why the story of this episode is great.

Plus, there’s also the animation to consider. The moment where Suzuka and her friend Miyako (voiced by Mayuko Kazama) start fangirling over Marin’s Rei-sama cosplay was amazingly hilarious primarily because of that glorious sequence of them collapsing in tears and screaming as the camera zooms out to show the world. We could only get that level of hilarity because of the extraordinary effort CloverWorks put into it.

Ep. 21 “Because I Don’t Intend to Sleep Tonight”

Okay, the story in this episode really takes the cake due to how utterly, mindbogglingly hilarious it is. Kudos to Shinichi Fukuda for coming up with that story, because the series of silliness and misunderstandings make for some of the funniest anime I’ve seen in a while. Gojo’s lack of self-confidence and social hang-ups combined with Marin’s misunderstanding the whole situation looks like the perfect setup for the gag of the century.

Of course, not all is sunshine and rainbows here. The looming presence of Akira’s (voiced by Maki Kawase) apparent hatred towards Marin remains a haunting spectre for the story. Why does she not wish to even interact with Marin? Did Marin wrong her somehow without knowing it? We will just have to wait and see later.

All with the in-universe horror game Coffin in the background, complete with scenes of the game itself. Honestly, those scenes are some of the most impressive examples of sprite art I’ve seen, and in an anime to boot. They really help immerse you into this fictional game, and honestly almost makes you wish that it existed in our world…which it technically does, but just under the title of Corpse Party (among others), minus the nuns.

My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21: The Bad

Honestly, there’s not much I can criticize in these series of episodes. In fact, My Dress-Up Darling Ep. 18-21 are some of the best episodes of this season due to the sheer quality of them. The only nitpick I can say is that the food is not quite as spectacular as I’ve seen in some other anime. Most notably: Black Butler, Dan Da Dan, and The Apothecary Diaries. Those anime really take food depiction up to a new level, so I can’t really criticize My Dress-Up Darling for not reaching those vaunted heights.

Although, if you’re looking for a bloody action story, then My Dress-Up Darling is not for you. It’s a pure romcom with a deep focus on the world of cosplay. If you want blood, gore, death, or just violence in general; then might I recommend giving Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, Blue Box, Solo Leveling, Black Butler, Apocalypse Hotel, and/or Nyaight of the Living Cat a try? If you want some more relaxing anime to watch, then I’ll suggest checking out Senpai is an Otokonoko, Apocalypse Hotel, and Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf. Those should tide you over until the next episode of My Dress-Up Darling streams on Crunchyroll.

What did you all think of these episodes of My Dress-Up Darling? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

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