Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl

As transgender woman myself, I thought I should give my two cents on this series.

Going into it, I was only aware of the bizarre occurrences that set the story going, and that people were very mixed on the series. Now that I've seen it, I can confidently say Kashimashi is a beautiful romance that unfortunately gets bogged down by the author trying to be funny.

I was very thankful to see that the series was void of any transphobic themes or jokes and was generally pretty respectful. Only thing I find strange is that throughout the course of the story, people constantly refer to Hazumu ... with male pronouns. There are some outliers sprinkled around here and there, but Hazumu doesn't ever object to being referred to one way or the other, so I'm going to assume she's cool with it. Gender is a fuck, be whatever the hell you wanna be. Oh and for anyone concerned that Hazumu turns back into a guy at the end of the series—don't worry, she doesn't. She becomes a girl at the end of episode 1 and never goes back.

The first two episodes consist of some very strange plot themes around aliens and... fanservice. They're unfortunately required for plot purposes, but if you can get past those two though, you'll finally be treated to the good stuff. Episodes 7 and 8, being the beach and "test of strength" episodes are basically filler and you could probably skip them entirely and only miss out on one or two important details. Basically any time you get a comedic scene you can just skip ahead until it's over to avoid any gross shit. Especially the dad, the dad is the WORST part of the show. I wish he just dropped dead.

If you can grin and bear through all the bad stuff, or find an edit that removes all of it, you'll find the rest of the series is really touching and heartbreaking at the same time. I adore the three main characters and didn't want to see any of them hurt. I'd elaborate further, but I don't want to spoil anything, but trust me, Hazumu, Yasuna, and Tomari are great and I love them.

It starts with an over-the-top premise. A UFO crashes into a boy and, in the process of reviving him, the aliens accidentally turn him into a girl. This somewhat complicates things for the two girls who are in love with him/her, but not in the ways you might expect. I was also surprised that the aliens stuck around for the rest of the show, and became relevant again later on. Despite that, by episode 3 the world has lost interest in the body-swapped teenager who was globally annouced as the first human to have come in contact with aliens. I guess the news cycle moved ... on to a celebrity scandal or something. Instead the scope of the story narrows back to a high school rom-com for the most part.

Some rom-coms blend their romance and comedy elements throughout. This one draws a definite line between the two. In some episodes it plays its high school yuri love triangle seriously. In other episodes it goes into goofy mode, playing its characters for laughs and bringing in a weird alien in a bodystocking. The romance and comedy never quite feel like they belong in the same series.

Kashimashi is at its best as a comedy. When it switches to serious mode, it becomes apparent that most of the characters aren't particularly interesting. Boy-turned-girl Hazumu is so wishy-washy and indecisive that she would make Godai from Maison Ikkoku grind his teeth in frustration. Yasuna is defined by her weird anime disease, which the show doesn't explain particularly well until the end. Only pining childhood friend Tomari fares well in characterisation on the serious side of the story.

Without getting into specifics, the show runs into another awkward structural problem near the end. The final episode of the TV series gives a conclusion that seems to wrap everything up, only for the sequel OVA to untie that neat bow and rewrap it in a completely different shape. While I preferred the note that the OVA ended on, the road it took to get there was rushed and messy, skipping past important plot developments and undermining much of what the last few episodes of the TV series built towards.

The result is a show that has some good bits and pieces, but doesn't assemble them into a satisfying whole.

I did take my time to write the review because i wanted to think about why exactly i disliked this anime. Concerning Art and Sound the series is in my opinion and experience rather OKAY. There were better made anime in that time but there were much much worse ones.

The storytelling and the idea of the anime are pretty okay too. But what really ticks me off about this series is the obvious forceful behaviour to push and pull a non-heteronormative person into their predefinied position in society. Because of external influence a boy becomes a girl. That is a rather modern concept of breaking ... the habits and the rules our society embodies concerning the sexes. But the entire show focuses on ridiculing the "unnormal" behavior of a boy who is in the body of a girl and of the surroundings that tries to force this "unnormal" person into the heterosexual heteronormativity or reacts with great irritation because a girl dont act in the way she is expected to.

The protagonist themself is written in a way that they is nothing more than a pawn in the hands of those who decide how the society has to be and is completely denied to find their own way.

This series reflects in my opinion the normative, sexist and forceful aspects of modern society in which there is still no completely accepted place for intersex and transgender people either let alone for men and women who dont want to be restrained and repressed by the rules of their secietal sex.