My Dress-Up Darling is a genuinely heartwarming slice-of-life show with some strong romantic undertones.
It's best asset are most definitely the two main characters: Gojo is a loner whose lifelong dream is to paint Hina dolls. Unlike most male anime protagonists, he actually does have a personality and comes across as genuinely likeable instead of off-puttingly passive. Kitagawa is his almost perfect opposite: an outgoing free spirit not afraid to show her passion for cosplay who doesn't care what opinion others have of her. It's nearly impossible not to love the two main characters, especially since they're pretty quirky and not the stereotypical anime fare.
Another very strong asset of the show is the amazingly well done English dub. Not only are the translations perfect, filled to the brim with character-appropriate slang (instead of teenage girls saying "However!" every second sentence), but Paul Dateh and AmaLee are possibly the best voice actors I've ever heard in the dub of an anime.
What I also liked about the show is that all the fanservice is perfectly sensible. There's no nudity out of nowhere, no creepy harem girls throwing themselves at the male protagonist for no apparent reason. It's perfectly in line with Kitagawa's personality and naturally meshes with the plot. I wish that more series would approach fanservice in this wholesame way.
That being said, the show is not an absolute masterpiece. I highly enjoyed the first five episodes, centred around Kitagawa's first cosplay, and the final two ones, which had a more romantic focus. The five episodes in between introduced two more characters that (at least to me) felt a bit tacked on; while not bad, I'm mostly ambivalent about that part.
I very much hope that the second season will come soon and keep up the quality! I really can't think of many shows (both anime and other) that managed to bring a smile to face this easily.
