This anime has very strong points and very weak points.
The best part is the animation. Absolutely gorgeous and dynamic character animations. The animators did an amazing job at portraying different perspectives of characters, so if you're into cosplay, the costumes presented in this show are definitely top-level professional.
Vivid colors and detalied backgrounds are the most accurate way to describe it. Now, about the style, as you can see from the poster, it's very moe, so you either really love it or find it childish or uninteresting. Next-level animation isn't that impressive anymore, but if you saw 10 seconds of any scene of any episode 10 years ago, it would make your jaw drop.
The next item is the sound, the intro and outro songs are catchy, but personally I didn't find them very memorable. Just a personal opinion. The voice actresses did a good job at portraying the emotions and personality of each individual character. Gojou is a very shy and introverted character, and his VA really trasmits this feeling, so no problems with it feeling out of place. Marin is the gyaru girl with a very outgoing personality, and her VA perfectly portrays this role. This goes on for all the characters, really. However, even if the emotions are shown professionally, this doesn't mean that their personalities are memorable, more on this in the story and characters section.
The background music was fine.
Now here comes the weird and controversial part - the story and the characters. The protagonist is a lonely dude with basically no social life, and he's absolutely and utterlyobsessed with making hina dolls. Not only passionate, but he carries a hina doll with him. He probably had dreams with hina dolls before he met Marin. So what happens? This guy somehow meets Marin, the gyaru girl. After finding out he was making clothes, she asks him to make clothes for her, and he accepts (with tears in his eyes because it's a once in his life opportunity).
By the second episode, you have basically seen every millimeter squared of Marin's body, which can be shown without turning this into a hentai. I guess some people come here for the ecchi with beautiful animation, so if you are interested in that, this is perfect for you. However, all of the "comfortable zone" of showing skin gets destroyed within the first 2 episodes, so there's nothing more to develop in that terms.
Anime has become so shameless, even by anime standards. The characters's personalities are the most dissapointing part in my opinion: Both Gojou and Marin are very unrealistic. Gojou, the skilled in the arts protagonist, is a total blockhead that can't express one single emotion like a man. He's 17, so that's at least somewhat of an excuse, but that's not enough. He's barely 10% less afraid of women at the end of the series.
Marin is the extroverted girl with a lot of friends (who are rarely shown), but this level of being comfortable is just way too much, it's like she's willing to marry him after the first day of knowing him. Of course she doesn't tell him directly, but you can see it. If you want to have an absolutely ideal girl, she's the one (for extrovert fans), but if you like a more realistic display, this will make you cringe, especially if you're in the destined demographic. Gojou's father is wholesome, I give him that.
The character that has the most "normal" way of reacting to things is Sajuna. She's the classical stereotypical tsundere cold heartless girl that doesn't care about you etc etc, but after 3 episodes she's very nice to the protagonist, so this idea is barely shown.
This might get a lot of hate, but Shinju was made just for fan service. Personal opinion.
Related to this, there's barely any conflict and stress put on the watcher. Everything goes perfectly as planned most of the time, and that one time where it doesn't, there's no dissapointment, they just do something else. I have not seen one single display of any emotion except for happiness and contempt. Maybe one small small part of sadness related to the Inui sisters. The story progresses in a straight line, and at least there's a bit of relationship advancing between the protagonists. Compared to let's say Rent-A-Girlfriend, this show has an order of magnitude more advancement. Still not a lot, in my opinion.
Gojou has perfect crafting skills from the start. He makes the clothes like he has 30 years of experience, and it never goes wrong. The only problem ever reported is that it's hot in his first cosplay, but... of course it's hot if there are 40 degrees outside, he didn't include an AC in that cosplay. He never faces any troubles, and because of this he never improves. If you want to see instant abilities from the first episode, this is for you, but if you want to see progress by perseverance and a hardworking mindset, with many problems and challenges, this isn't for you.
The issue with the lack of any personal progress is the biggest in my personal opinion, even worse than the copy-paste personalities. Remember that the target demographic is seinen.
For the enjoyment, it's average. The comedy is meh, I didn't laugh at all while watching this anime. The first tag of the series is comedy, so you expect to laugh a lot. Expect, that is. There were some scenes that were barely a drop of comedy, but not enough.
To compare it another anime, if you want something funny, it has to be unpredictable. This anime is very, very predictable. Let me tell you the formula on what is going to happen: Things will go very well.
Anyways, the comparison is Inukami!, pretty average anime in other terms, but amazing comedy. Why? Because it's unpredictable. Not to say that loud = funny, but when you know for 100% that the funniest part is going to be not shutting down the TV fast enough, it's not right.
Even after I bullied this anime for so much, there's still hope. The last episode finally has some character development, and real, unpredictable, not robotic, scenes. I won't give any spoilers, but that's the best part in my opinion.
As for the value, this anime doesn't introduce any new technology or adds any more improvement to the industry, so nothing to add here. Rewatchable if you like seeing beautiful animation, again, but not for the stories or characters - you will forget about them quickly.
For some final words, I recommend this anime if you just want to waste some time, and see pretty girls in cosplay suits.
