>Also (speaking of), going to the opera means Sakuya wears that dress,
>which... well. That beats a sharp stick in the eye any day of the
>week.
>

This causes me to envision a mildly flustered, massively blushing Meiling the first time she saw said dress, which is just adorable.

>(I think the artist was trying to Make A Point about the tired old fan
>trope of "Sakuya pads her bra" with that outfit. :)
>

What is it with the fandom and cruel tropes about these characters?

>That said, of the house's five "current" residents, I can see Meiling
>as the only one willing to sit through an entire performance of
>Love Amongst the Dragons. She probably even knows the
>libretto.
>

I feel like I should recognize that name, but I don't. Is that opera just a running joke I've failed to pick up entirely?

>The anime never attempts to explain the phenomenon, but there's some
>inconsistency about whether it's only witches who dress that way or
>what. For instance, there are a couple of scenes set in the hospital
>where Trude's younger sister is a patient during the first season, and
>none of the nurses are wearing pants or skirts either; it's unclear
>whether that's supposed to mean they're also witches (albeit
>noncombatant ones), or if it's just that no young woman in the
>World Witches universe wears lower garments, and if the latter,
>what the heck is up with that. I think probably the animators just
>got carried away.
>

If it was a military hospital I could see it being part of the ladies' uniform, done at least on paper to keep the combat witches from feeling as self conscious because otherwise they'd stand out even amongst other enlisted personnel.

Could also be people doing a bit of hero worshiping and emulation, and the powers that be not wanting to tank morale by squashing the fashion. Though probably it is as you suggest, the animators getting carried away (that's the word of god explanation for 2B's outfit over in Nier: Automata, she is dressed as she is because Yoko Taro likes pretty girls, and is also completely out of f*cks to give.)

>This reminds me—somewhere in DBland there is a short MeiSaku manga
>where they go on a date in the Normal World, and Meiling is late.
>Because it's that kind of manga, Sakuya is promptly set upon by a pair
>of Standard Creeper Dudes (you know, the faceless young men who travel
>in packs of two or three and hit on girls they see standing around
>alone—"Looks like you got stood up, why don't you hang out with
>us?").
>
>Sakuya being Sakuya, she's surreptitiously reaching for the sharp
>objects when Meiling suddenly shows up and beats the crap out of both
>dudes—not to be particularly white-knight-y toward Sakuya, so much
>as to preclude her from just murdering them in the street.
>It's a rare depiction of Meiling being fully genre-savvy and I am here
>for it, as the young people say. :)
>

They'll never know just how close to death they came. They really ought to send Meiling thank-you gifts.

>(She then maneuvers Sakuya into a formalwear shop and Just Sorta
>Casually gets her to try on a wedding dress, which is probably the
>smoothest you will ever see Meiling being, if you happen to run
>across that manga. :)
>

Smooth, but also something of an atomic bomb of a hint, unless Sakuya is being depicted as uncharacteristically oblivious.

	-={(Astynax)}=- "This Space For Rent."