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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:4907#628] | ||||||
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(11 episodes watched): Season two takes off as if the final episode of season one ran a week rather than three years ago. That is, there is little attempt to refresh our memories. Marin has a new scantily-clad character that she would like to dress up as, and Gojo gets to work on the costume. She invites him to a Halloween party attended by the popular and stylish teenagers like herself, which makes him somewhat uncomfortable. Gojo recalls the childhood incident which traumatized him in regards to making friends, and realizes he may have badly misunderstood something--I had pretty much forgotten about this important angle to the premise of this show. I wish episode one had taken off in some new and definitive direction, since so much time has passed since season one, but instead it seems like more of the same. But I see that episode one of the first season didn't excite me all that much either. At the party a misunderstanding causes Gojo to embarass himself but Marin is impressed. Then she gets seriously sick and Gojo tends to her. And then once healthy again the two of them meet a cross-dressing cosplayer who has some intriguing tricks to teach them--all in the space of episode two. This was OK but I couldn't help feeling that the plot seemed to be drifting rather than heading in a well defined direction and the jokes weren't funny enough to completely compensate. In episode 15 this cross-dressing person, Himeno, shares a number of secrets regarding cosplaying with Gojo and Marin. Gojo gets a feel for the difference between Marin the model and Marin the cosplayer. In episode four Gojo and Marin are informed of an upcoming cultural festival that will include an odd beauty show in which girls will dress as boys and vice-versa. Marin jumps at the chance but with all his responsibilities it seems that Gojo can't design her outfit and she'll have to do so herself, which is something she's not very good at. Things are worked out and Gojo will be able to do the job after all. In episode five work on the 'host' costume moves ahead. But I couldn't help feeling somewhat bored; yet another costume is put together, but there's no significant progress in the romance between Gojo and Kitakawa. I wished this episode would hurry up and be over so that I could watch something else, which isn't a good sign. In episode six the festival and beauty contest finally come about, and the contest goes pretty much as expected. Also, we learn the trick behind creating a 'rainbow rose'. Gojo is urged to participate in a big celebration afterwards, which will hopefully improve his social skills but didn't excite me all that much. But more fun than last week. I was frankly thinking about shelving this show but I watched episode seven after all and it was more fun. It seems that Kitakawa has gained some weight, which is bad news for a model like her, and she traces the reason back to Gojo (but she seems to forget about this problem in the second half of the episode). Both Marin and Gojo discover that they enjoy photography. In episode eight Marin goes to a cosplay event but as a photographer this time. Both she and Gojo are meeting someone but in both cases the person isn't what they had expected. Gojo meets Akira (who he assumed would be a guy) in hopes of learning some tricks about how to make classy props for cosplaying. More and more characters are added to the story but it seems that the basic plot, with main characters Gojo and Marin, isn't really going anywhere. The unwritten deal at the end of season one was that the romance between this stylish and popular girl and this shy but talented guy would get going if there ever was a season two. But all things considered, it hasn't happened. There have been a few moments in which Marin has been frustrated by Gojo's ignorance regarding love, but for the most part he has just created more awesome costumes for her to wear. Some new characters have been added to the cast, but the love lives of the main ones haven't gone anywhere. As a result, watching this show has come to feel more and more like a chore and I am tempted to quit. I set the show aside for a couple of weeks but ultimately watched episode nine. Marin recruits every cosplaying friend she can for a five-person cosplay of the video game 'Coffin', which is about a group of nuns. Gojo will be working on props rather than costumes. Due to a problem in public transit he will be spending the night at her place (nobody else will be home, of course). For some reason he thinks it would be more icky to be asleep there than awake, which leads to a misunderstanding. Sort of amusing, but I think we all know that nothing really significant will come of it. In episode 10 Marin is torn between her wish that Gojo would be more romantically aggressive and her fear that maybe, out of nowhere, he's going to be too aggressive. But she doesn't dare take the initiative herself, out of fear that maybe he really does consider her to be nothing more than a friend. This is more like it, but we're already nearing the end of a second season. I had thought that cosplaying was sort of silly since real people can't be made to look like simple animated ones. But during episode 11 the thought occurred to me that maybe that's the charm of it—a sort of 'here's what character X would look like if he/she really was a real live person rather than just an animation'. Anyway, the girls continue their preparations for the Coffin photoshoot and we learn about the pasts of a couple of them, in particular how they were initially discouraged from engaging in cosplay but fell in love with it anyhow. Last updated Monday, October 06 2025. Created Wednesday, July 09 2025. | ||||||||
