I am a male-to female transsexual and a lesbian, and Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ was one of the first anime/manga I discovered having to do with those subjects at the same time. So when my nerdy male pal recommended it, I had to stop everything I was doing to watch it immediately. Headdesking ensued.
This was not because Kashimashi is shallow and trivial work and I had schoolwork piling up the entire time watching it consumed. It was because of the annoying and and outright insulting nature of it.
While it is not uncommon for any media, but anime/manga especially, to not have fully grasped the idea of transsexuality and hence the portraying of such characters and their trials and tribulations tends to be awkward, stereotyped, unrealistic and shallow, I often manage to find some new insights from the overall setting, even if it is there by just accident. This requires, however, that the characters are just plain dull and generic. In the case of Kashimashi they are not, they are way out on the negative scale, disturbing and annoying (or she is). Kashimashi takes all the imaginable half-assedness of handling such themes to a new level, treating the main character literally like an object for the first half. Both she does it herself, and all the males close to him suddenly turn into voyeurists and sex-maniacs. And she's supposed to be a normal girl here, the original Hazumu's Y chromosome just got misplaced with an X during his body's reconstruction with the alien technology. Give me a break! In works like Happiness! OVA this kind of behavior / reaction is justified, and actually manages to be both funny and thought-provoking because of that. Here, nothing is explained.
Kashimashi is obviously oriented primarily for males with a fetish for a thought of themselves as lesbians (as a fantasy it's completely different thing from reality, after all lesbian porn is highly popular among men), or just extra kicks from the knowledge that a hot female used to be a guy. Probably both. That means, as you'd guess, the fanservice is inevitable. We can't just have Hazumu behave like any normal person in a bit strange new situations, we must have her be an complete idiot without any common sense. Or how many of you guys think if you suddenly were dressed in a skirt you would reflexively use it as a fan and having to have someone else to tell you that's not a good idea? Yep, this is what Kashimashi is largely about.
The result of this is that actual lesbians, transsexuals, and ESPECIALLY transsexual lesbians, who would be interested in the show's premise will not be able to identify with the main character - unless of course they're exhibitionists - and will end up with mixed feelings with probably the negative ones triumphing the positive over time. The last thing you'll remember about Kashimashi will be the episodes consisting of nothing but fanservice comedy, and how they ruined all the potential.
The last few episodes were like I would have wanted and expected the whole show to be like - serious, realistic drama. Still nothing outstanding.
It has been a few years since I watched Kashimashi. And time has not goldened memories. I viewed it in the most positive light maybe two weeks after watching, when I compared it to other pure-fanservicey series and thought it stilll had some desperate trying (in this sense, I think of Kashimashi much the same way as of Code Geass R2). I still have very mixed feelings and don't know whether it should get 1 for completely ruining the good premise or 2-4 for having that good premise and a few relatively good episodes toward the end that make up for those preceding them.
The last episodes have completely their own problems though. Another thing that highly pissed me off was Yasuna's mental health problems and how they're handled. While I have never heard of a disorder which would prevent you from 'seeing' things associated with a traumatic experience, in this case, men (it is never explained though, how come she sees both effeminate males and rough tomboy girls), this is not the problem here. But at no point anyone, male or female, says to her straight on how wrong her twisted thinking is. They just go along with it and discreetly want her cured because it would easen her life. And for the time being, the girls just enjoy their being girls, and the guy(s) are excluded from any emotional scenes most if not all of the time. All notable male characters in Kashimashi are either borderline rapists or violents. I guess most feminists would like Kashimashi because of this.
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Story - 4. The main setting is simple yet interesting and usable, however, badly executed. Also the whole Yasuna thing is so black-and-white and poorly handled, that while the latter half becomes progressively better on one level it stil retains the same level of stupidity and offensive undertone.
Art - 2. Nothing ground-breaking in the animation section. Typical school and city and forest settings. All the girls are über cute and males dull-looking, like with all male-oriented fanservice series. And I happen not to like that, it's unrealistic and sexist. Also, the alien was just very, very ,very stupid looking. It was totally out of place among those über cute girls and immemorable guys. The designs also would subtract few points from the character section if you could get lower than 1.
Sound - 4. I think the opening theme is supposed to add to the 'girly' motif of the series, and while in a honestly girly series (where feminine caring is the main theme instead of bashing one group of people after another) it could have been perfectly in place and nice, now it just adds to my rage for being part of the 'how being a girly girl lesbian radical feminist is so much über alles' message. Nothing else is memorable.
Character - 1. Main character who is pure fanservice machine and offensive to several minorities, the most ladylike girl on the planet who detests all 'normal' males because of her traumas up to the point she becomes completely unlovable, all 'normal' male characters being unemotional jerks? Definite 1.
Enjoyment - 1. While it has got some good moments really, the bad things cause so much rage and nausea throughout the ride it would take something of a cosmic level of goodness to override those. Nothing of the drama / psychology / romance section is so touching it would be remembered.
Overall -1. After careful consideration, I decided to score Kashimashi only for it's distinctive themes, what it stands for. After all, you could make Nazi propaganda cartoon and it could manage to be entertaining, but it would still be Nazi propaganda. And that is.. male-oriented fetish fuel of various sorts and more or less subtle radical feminist / misandryist propaganda combined? There's little room for positive viewing of something like this.
So, should you be a misandryist radical feminist who also happens to think that transsexuality is all about autogynephilia, e.g. getting sexual kicks from practicing exhibitionism with a female body, this is a series for you. All others, stay away, it can corrupt.
