Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Kasimashi Girl Meets Girl is about a boy named Hazumu. He’s, shall we say, a “sensitive” kind of guy, who loves gardening. He’s also in love with beautiful, but distant Yasuna. He confesses his feeling to Yasuna, is rejected and goes off for a walk into the hills to burn off his misery. As he stands on the mountain trying to let go, he is hit by a crashing alien ship and killed. BUT! The aliens feel bad, so they revive him – except inexplicably, they can only bring him back as a girl.
The aliens helpfully broadcast the announcement over the entire earth, so Hazumu is instantly the source of interest to press. But his friends and family seem to be mostly okay with the whole thing. His mother even helpfully mentions that she’d always wanted a girl, yay for her!
There is a period of adjustment: For Hazumu, as he has to learn not to show his underwear in a hundred and fifty different ways; For his friend Asuta who is much less interested in Hazumu’s well-being as he is in staring at Hazumu’s boobs; And mostly for Hazumu’s best friend Tomari, who seems to be the ONLY person freaked out about the whole thing. It’s not until Hazumu has a meltdown and she has to protect him (as she has their whole lives) that she really gets that this is still the same Hazumu she’s always cared for.
Hazumu’s opinion of the whole thing? Well, I guess this is just the way it is, so…
Can I express a small measure of doubt that too many people would be that blase’ as a result of an sudden, unwanted gender switch? Oh, but, it’s okay – Hazumu has always been kind of girly, so it’s no big deal. Uh-huh.
The anime is pretty much following the manga, with a little softening of the slightly more annoying perviness – no scene in which Hazumu’s mother has bought her clothes but no underwear. We do get a bra-shopping scene, but it wasn’t *quite* as annoying as in the manga.
Since the story is the same as the manga, let’s talk voices. I think they are pretty good, actually. Kana Ueda’s “boy voice” for Hazumu sounds like Yumi from Maria-sama ga Miteru, and her “girl voice” is moderately girlier, more Mikan from Gakuen Alice. Not unpleasant – and different enough to account for Tomari’s discombobulation. I was desperately afraid that Horie Yui as Yasuna was going to be dog-whistle high, but she isn’t. (Iwao Junko could do that for Tomoyo and get away with it….anyone else fails.) Nor is Tamura Yukari’s Tomari annoyingly boyish. I was especially pleased with Ayuki’s voice as done by Asano Mayumi – which sounded exactly like it did in my head. lol
The animation looks like the manga animated, so nothing remarkable there. In fact, there’s nothing remarkable about Kasimashi Girl Meets Girl except that is quite pleasant. The love triangle will heat up shortly and then we’ll get all sorts of Yuri-ness.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 7
Music – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 7
Overall – 7
To sum up, the good things about the story are still good, the bad things are marginally less bad, and the only thing we need to wait and see is where the story actually goes.
The directing in the 1st episode was splendid, but why I have the feeling that it will be Yuri fanservice show ?
Because it’s written by a guy for a male audience about a guy.
It’s not hard to see that its another Dengeki not *quite* entirely Yuri story.
That may be why I disliked this 1st episode of Kashimasi…
You make me apprehend for the Strawberry Panic anime.
As a guy myself, I can tell you that Hazumu’s total lack of concern is not really all that farfetched. I know a lot of guys would treat it like the end of the world, but there are at least some of us who would not take it amiss if something came down from the sky and knocked us into a different gender.
Not that I’m NECESSARILY talking about myself… but I am ;)
1) Strawberry panic will be trash. :-) Keep your expectations very low.
2) I think most men would find the loss of their tackle and bait severely distressing. I know if the circumstances were reversed and I woke up with an additional external appendage, I’d be seriously freaked. And not all that pleased, either, because some of us just *don’t* have envy.
Well, keep in mind that Hazumu had like, what? a week to come to grips with his plot contrivance between when he got hit and when we see him next. That’s enough time, I think, to resign yourself, especially when you’ve had doctors shrug at you the whole time saying “There’s not a damn thing we can do.”
Yasuna bothers me. I’m not sure why; she just grates on a nerve of some sort.
I found all the Yuri in the first two episodes to be quite boring. Didn’t really feel anything behind it.
Hopefully I’ll grow into it all as the series progresses.
As anyone who knows me can attest, I tend to roll with the punches, but I’m absolutely sure should I awaken one day as a woman against my wishes, I would not just shrug it off. No, there’d be retribution, bloody, bloody retribution.
But, I suppose we can count ourselves fortunate that they handwaved a week’s worth of scenes of Hazumu screaming at the top of her lungs about her lost “appendage.” That might start to grate on the nerves after a bit.
Thank you Serge – that’s what I’m thinking! Ain’t no way a week is going to be enough for me to get over all that. Or a month.
Perhpas I would, eventually, get used to it, change my name to Tiresias and have a good laugh. But not in a week.
I find it highly ironic that Hazumu finally grew some metaphorical balls after losing his literal ones.
I really wondered how he became more confident and outgoing almost immediately after becoming a girl. One would think that his timidness and non-existent spinal cord would remain; I mean, he just swapped genders, not personality, right?
But I guess big boobs really DO give you that kind of confidence.