Popverse's top stories of the day

• Dune: Prophecy creators promise to bring the "complexity" and "grand scale" of Frank Herbert's books and Denis Villeneuve's movies to TV
• Marvel's TV head says there's "absolutely" a future for Jon Bernthal's Punisher after his Daredevil: Born Again appearance
• Meet the Grim Reaper of The Walking Dead TV show cast, and what goes into killing someone off in the show

The hardest part of growing up is learning to admit when you are wrong. We all make mistakes, but those of us who put our thoughts and opinions online tend to make them in a very public way. So, in the interest of full transparency, I admit it: I was wrong about My Dress-Up Darling going nowhere. After over 100 chapters of build-up, Marin and Gojo have finally gotten together and… it was actually pretty good.

In case it wasn't clear, we're going to be discussing spoilers for the My Dress-Up Darling manga, so look away if you're waiting for the anime.

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, I want to stipulate that I still think the actual pacing of My Dress-Up Darling is frustrating and repetitive. The build-up toward the inevitable confession was uneven at best, which made it tempting to drop the manga entirely. The formula quickly became Marin deciding to tell Gojo how she felt at the end of a specific event only to find some reason not to. There is only so long you can watch two people go around in circles before even the most stalwart of romance manga fans start to lose interest, and My Dress-Up Darling pushed the slow burn aspect to its very limit. All of this was compounded by a release schedule that has been sporadic, so forgive me if my patience wore thin at times.

And yet, here I am, apologizing for my past transgressions against the manga. Because Gojo finally confessed to Marin. Did it feel rushed despite taking six years to reach this point? A bit. Was it still one of those moments where I did a double-take at my tablet to be sure I was reading the panel correctly? Absolutely. Did I squeal loudly in my bed as the moment finally sunk in? Yes.

There are so many things in this confession that work in its favor. Gojo, for all his shyness at the start of the story, needed to be the one who said it first simply to show how far he’s grown from that nervous kid in the sewing room. He’s not exactly outgoing by any stretch, but he is confident enough to say how he is feeling, which is no small feat. Marin’s reaction, which resembles that of a hyperactive pixie, feels perfectly in character. She’s overwhelming and chaotic, which are the girl’s most iconic traits.

And then they kiss and it is so sweet and I just feel that warm, fuzzy feeling that only a good romance manga can deliver. So, yes. I’m (mostly) sorry for my criticism of My Dress-Up Darling. Even with pacing issues and a release schedule that would make George R. R. Martin impatient, I can’t help but cheer for these two kids now that they’ve – finally – gotten their acts together.

Each week, Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• How Jujutsu Kaisen subverted Shonen tropes to become one of the most popular manga of all-time
• A World without Goku: How Akira Toriyama's death could make Dragon Ball Daima the end of Goku's story
• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why I don't talk about Rurouni Kenshin as an anime journalist
• The anime industry grew 22% in 2023 - here is why we think it happened
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead