My Dress-Up Darling

Cosplay lets characters show parts of themselves that others call strange. Gojo hides his love of Hina dolls, Shinju gains confidence by playing a male hero, and Amane gains self-respect through female cosplay. Season 2 returns to this idea through Marin's male cosplay and the wider cosplay group. The main story remains a boy-girl romance, so this theme is important but not the whole show.

The show treats old rules about masculinity and femininity as unfair barriers. Gojo is shamed for making dolls, Amane is mocked for wearing women's clothes, and Shinju worries that her body cannot fit a male role. The school festival presents a woman in a male role as admirable and uses a speech that says sex and gender do not matter. The criticism stays focused on hobbies, romance, and peer pressure, with no attack on Christianity, capitalism, or Western institutions.

Shinichi Fukuda and Keisuke Shinohara have no documented activist or DEI public personas. Yoriko Tomita has a record of writing stories about gender presentation and sexuality, including Senpai Is an Otokonoko and Otherside Picnic. Most other directors and producers have public records focused on anime craft rather than identity politics.