Asagao to Kase-san.

A six out of ten. I liked it, however I have one minor complaint near the end of the review.

The amount of fluff in this thing is real high. I wouldn’t call it the fluffiest romance ever, and definitely not the fluffiest show ever, however it’s up there.

The character acting is top-notch. As in, QUALITY. The lead character’s emotes are ridiculously cute and the little leaves that sprout out of her hair were honestly genius. Character sakuga in this OVA is off-the-charts. One could definitely go about analyzing the animation much further.

The rest of the art is also fairly beautiful, but it has nothing striking ... style-wise. It’s pretty, but it’s “generic high school late 2010s anime” pretty. It rides the trend of “heavily lighted, plant-abundant background art with almost-fragile outlining” that has been running strong recently. It’s nice to look at but it doesn’t stand out, and standing out is ultimately more important.

The art, however, does contribute to the overall tone which I can only describe as “these are the good days of life” or “lightly sunny” or, simply, “a quiet niceness”. The long takes, the long establishing shots that come in succession, the sound design, and the amount of light that comes in every room add to that. The mostly objective and relatively distant camera also makes sure that that tone is never disturbed and maintained throughout the OVA. It adds much to the fluffiness.

An exception to the objective camera occurs when the main girl is confronted by her best friend about a problem she’s been having. Suddenly, the main girl appears to be floating in a cloudy space and the best friend is with her in person saying the problem matter-of-factly.

It’s the only real visually metaphorical or heavily stylised moment in the OVA (other than the character animation) so I believe I should talk about this. I tried to imagine the scene done completely objectively, but it just came off as cliche, making an already unoriginal trope worse (we’ll get to that in a bit). So, I believe stylizing the moment was the better choice.

Visual metaphors work well in anime and animation because transitioning from realism to stylization is much less jarring than it is in live-action. While I can’t deny that the whole thing felt a bit sudden, the act of putting the two characters right next to each other, the best friend staring straight at the camera, makes the whole dialogue feel more direct and, in turn, more effective. Doing so also adds a sense of power to the best friend’s words.

I also kinda liked the ED but I didn't notice the rest of the music.

Now, the OVA’s scenarios and characters have to be its weakest points.

The OVA, as I alluded to earlier, uses common and unoriginal tropes and presents them perfectly straight.

Story examples include the “obliviousness to sexual advances” trope where one partner is oblivious to the other partner’s sexual advances, the age-old “sexual advances get interrupted” trope, the “kiss at a bus stop” trope, the “this rooftop is our private meetup” trope, and, the ever-classic [spoiler] “I’m applying to a different college” [/spoiler] trope that is pretty much universal.

[While the “I’m too shy and embarrassed to see you in the bath” trope and the “People have distanced themselves from me because they saw me naked in the bath” trope are new to me, but I can interpret them as a yuri translation of the “We’re seeing each other naked and the difference in our bodily attractiveness is making me uncomfortable” which, while not exactly “common”, is a trope I’ve seen before a few times.]

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these. Every trope, no matter how used, can further character development, move the plot forward, deepen characterization, and spark interesting character drama.

The problem is they are not memorable.

Repeated exposure to a trope takes away from its ability to stick to your mind. You don’t remember common and used ideas far less than new and original ones. They’re easy to forget because they blend in with all the other stories you’ve experienced and don’t stand out in your mind.

Actually, after listing down all the story tropes above, I’ve softened my stance. Those tropes, although not exactly new, weren’t exactly cliche. They list also failed to cover everything the OVA had in its scenarios. You could definitely use the tropes listed to create something memorable and even iconic.

I’m not going to say the same thing about the characters.

The memorability problem extends to and is more prominent with the characters who are as straightforward as straightforward gets.

The main girl is shy, easily flustered, and easily doubts herself but easily excitable and particularly expressive. Kase is cool and emotionally honest about herself with others but rarely fully grasps other people’s emotions. The dynamic the two have can be summarized as Kase being first to open up which prompts the main girl to open up in turn, but Kase doesn’t always fully detect or understand the main girl’s emotions so it’s the main girl’s job to make her emotions clear which sometimes needs some prodding. That’s them summarized.

Although I wouldn’t call this two-dimensional and some people will find this satisfying, I don’t find it complexly-written enough or detailed enough in its presentation to be memorable. Again, the characters are somewhat cliche and you’re bound to bump into at least some of these tropes explored in more depth and nuance if you spent enough time watching or reading other yuri or even straight romance in general. I’ll probably forget what happens in the OVA in a span of a few days. I don’t even remember the main girl’s goddamn name (although it’s probably just because they don’t say her name much while Kase’s name is in the goddamn title of the OVA and the main girl mentions her name over and over and over).

To clarify, I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE PRESENCE OF CLICHES. I am complaining about THEIR USE which is simplistic and ultimately lacking in depth and nuance. The OVA didn’t play with tropes so much as place them in its story as is and leave it at that. It doesn’t take the time to explore each trope’s full potential, making these tropes lead to something interesting or create nuanced character development or, hell, do something actually rememberable.

Don’t get me wrong. I did end up liking the two leads and finding them cute both on their own and together. Their motivations were clearly defined, so it was easy to get motivated with them. The whole thing, as I said, was very fluffy. Fluff is always a good thing. I just didn’t feel like they presented anything memorable to them.

Man, did I say a "minor complaint"? That actually was far from "minor".

Ultimately, the OVA’s main problem is its memorability. None of it stuck with me and I’m sure I’ll forget all about it by tomorrow. As a fairly big fan of yuri myself, going through Dynasty Scans will probably get you something more interesting than this OVA.

Anyway, watch if you like gay fluff, character acting sakuga, and nice art but it ain’t the masterpiece everyone says it is. Forgettable.

I love me a good wholesome shoujo-ai. And that's what Asagao to Kase-san is. None of the usual yuri fanservice tropes are there; it's just a simple love story between two high school girls.

The only problem is...it's a boring story. The best part (realization of love and culmination to confession!!!) happens before the OVA begins, so you're left in this weird zone of not really understanding the relationship between the two mains. Yes...they're dating but...it seems like they're not? They *say* they're attached to each other, but we never have the pleasure of watching the relationship develop, so there's no real chance for viewers to ... develop that fondness. Instead, we're treated to 57 minutes of two characters blushing and stammering and getting into mini-misunderstandings about their relationship.

There's also no real discernible plot. That's fine when you're doing a character-driven show -- except that none of the characters are really that well developed. Yamada likes gardening and is fua-fua, and Kase-san runs track and is popular. And they both blush a lot. That's about all we got.

It's pretty frustrating. I wanted to like Kase-san and Yamada. I wanted to cheer for them! But the show never really gave me an opportunity to do so. Their relationship pretty much never developed during the show.

To top it off, the ending was maybe one of the worst narrative options they could've picked for the story resolution. It showed a remarkable lack of character growth, and honestly wasn't even satisfying -- this, coming from someone who loves sappy shoujo endings.

In the end, I didn't really hate Asagao to Kase-san, but I also didn't really enjoy it. It never really made me feel the things I'd hoped to feel, and I never grew attached to the characters or their relationship. If you're looking for good shoujo-ai, I'd stick to Strawberry Panic, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Aoi Hana, and the upcoming Yagate Kimi ni Naru.

Cute, but towards the end the dynamic becomes quite painful. Both girls becoming posessive of each other is a huge red flag, and had it not cut off at the perfect spot, in my opinion, we would either have seen a train wreck of a romance or a fantasy-land, where no sacrifices are to be made and high school sweethearts stay together forever.

Still, there are a lot of things to appreciate about the OVA - the animation is quite a beauty - silky smooth and Kyoto-esque; the cuteness aspect is through the roof, with visual gags conveying the feelings of characters in a very accurate ... and simultaniously adorable way; there's no cheap drama, or painful jealousy that is so prevalent in yuri. It is very grounded in many aspects, so casual and yet so lovely.

Either way, if you are looking for a safe 'cute girls doing cute things' yuri - more likely than not, you will enjoy this one. If you're looking for a deeper dive into a relationship, this isn't it, really.

I've heard nothing but good things about Asagao to Kase-san, ranging from its frivolous cutesy moments to pure and innocent romantic atmosphere, so I had to check it out for myself to see if it really lived up to the praise it had been receiving. To sum up my thoughts, it did certainly match what people had been saying to a tee, but yet I still left feeling strangely unsatisfied with the experience afterwards. Somehow it didn't sit right with me; maybe I'd expected too much out of a 1-hour OVA and thought it would have more substance than what there actually was, or maybe ... I felt the relationship portrayed on screen felt underdeveloped and very superficial. Now that I've given it more thought, I'm ready to share how I feel about this OVA and why I thought it struck a lot of high notes, but fumbled a bit in the process of reaching them.

Let's start with what I liked about this anime. First of all, the art and animation is fantastic, pretty much the dictionary definition of eye-candy and adorableness. Though I will say that the character designs were pretty uninspired, definitely not anything we haven't seen before. The cute moments between our main couple Yamada and Kase definitely lived up to and surpassed what I had expected going in, leaving you feeling like you've had your daily sugar intake tripled. Their chemistry and relationship is nothing short of beautiful, and I think it's the prime example of how romance should be portrayed in a light and fluffy manner. The soundtrack is also excellent and worked very well throughout the short runtime of this OVA, choosing a more subtle and serene path initially and slowly working its way up to intensify the dramatic moments. The plane motif which is frequently referenced visually works very well with the core message of the story; that the sun always shines above the clouds, no matter how bad the weather gets below.

However, I also believe that the anime's focus on the "cute" moments between our main characters worked against it just as much as it did in its favor. While I understand that this isn't meant to be a deep story and that many liberties needed to be taken to adapt the story into a 1-hour OVA, the entire runtime of this anime pretty much boils down to a compilation of all the cute moments Yamada and Kase share until the eventual climax. Again, that is exactly the appeal of anime like this, but without the proper development of these characters it fell flat when you're supposed to be getting excited over the relationship of two girls you know basically nothing about, including how they got together in the first place. This is the limitation of having a manga adapted into a short hour-long special, but I do believe that they managed to include the elements of the story that mattered. However I can't help but feel like despite it being a worthwhile experience, it could've been a lot better had it been even an hour longer, or perhaps a full 12 episode long series. With the screentime they got, none of the characters were compelling in any way; all of them were generic cardboard archetypes thrown in with some good romantic chemistry added and then blended up. This is particularly true of Yamada's best friend/generic wingwoman character whom isn't even listed on the MAL page because her role was so insignificant in the narrative.

This anime is meant to appeal to a certain demographic, and that much is obvious. It isn't trying to be a deep story with compelling character arcs or a significant message. It's supposed to be a cute love story between two girls and the challenges they face in their relationship, nothing more. And this anime exceeds with flying colors when it's regarded as that and ONLY that. So, don't be like me and go into this expecting anything else, because the short runtime and aforementioned clear intentions are guaranteed to constrain this anime to what it presents itself to be and thus leave you disappointed like I was. So if you want a very clear and straightforward fluffy romantic story between two fumbling tyros that certainly isn't lacking in the diabetes department, then by all means you will love this anime. But if you want it to rise above that and perhaps be more than what it initially appears to be, you might be in the wrong business.

This is the gayest shit I've ever seen. It's just a tomboy and a shy gardener girl who can't stay away from each other for more than 5 minutes. You can't get more gay then that if you tried. This is less of a movie and more of 50 minutes of wholesome yuri slapped together. There's almost no plot to speak of. The only conflict in the film is just the pettiest melodrama. There's even a scene where the main character starts having an anxiety attack from there being too many guys near her. It's hilarious how gay this is.

It's honestly a pretty terrible movie ... but it's cute and I'm gay as fuck so I'll at least give it a 6.

The Kase-san manga is one I'm well familiar with. It started in 2010 and was originally meant as a one-shot. But the positive response to it prompted an entire series. In 2018, Zexcs released an hour long OVA. Yes, the same studio behind Cheesesteak Suppository & Umi Monogatari. 

Story:

Yamada is on the greenery committee at school. She's started going out with Kase-san, the star of the track team and a girl who's "way cooler than any boy." So, this takes uses material from after the first volume of the manga. And it basically goes over a bunch of the events they experience from the second and ... third volumes of the manga. 

The big issue with this as an adaptation is that it skips a lot of the sweeter, more contented moments where Kase and Yamada are just happy and being adorable in favour of showcasing the more "dramatic" moments. Which makes it seem more melodramatic than it actually is. It also has the unfortunate side effect of making Kase & Yamada seem really insecure. Yeah, every couple has those moments but when it's the majority of what you see it comes across as worse than when it's a more occasional thing. 

That being said, it does a good job of presenting those moments it includes. Albeit a bit abridged. And those more cutesy moments they did include like Kase-san visiting Yamada's house or the pair on the plane do make for some very nice scenes. 

Characters:

The big problem here is the insecurity issue. In this OVA, our heroines spend more time being worried about their relationship and thinking it might be about to end than they spend being happy and appreciating each other. And since you don't see how they got together, you don't really know why they bother unless you've read the first volume of the manga and all the happy moments from the second and third volumes that the OVA skipped. 

It doesn't help that the characters aren't all that complex and the main draw of the manga is that they're absolutely adorable and their whole dynamic is just a joy to read. Not when the OVA is determined to undermine that aspect as much as possible. 

Art:

I do have to give Zexcs credit here. They did a great job of capturing the art style and bringing it to life. Which does make for a very pleasant looking OVA. The characters look good, the animation flows nicely and the backgrounds were nicely filled out. 

Sound:

Sakura Ayane & Takahashi Minami do an excellent job in the leading roles. They capture the chemistry betwixt the girls pretty much perfectly and pull off both the more dramatic and cutesy moments handily. The music is nice. Especially the ending duet with our leads. 

Ho-yay:

This one is all about the les-yay. 

Areas of Improvement:

A better job capturing the Manga's aesthetic. Here's the thing, most of the manga is less dramatic, more cutesy. If this OVA had one big dramatic sequence at the end and the rest focused more on cutesy moments, it would better represent what you can expect from the manga and the characters wouldn't come across as so insecure. 
Show the start of the relationship. I get that they don't want to spend much time on it, but it would help our investment if we saw at least a flashback of how they got together rather than having Yamada monologue about it. 
Stronger Supporting Cast. This is an issue with the manga too. We rarely see much of any characters besides Yamada & Kase. The strongest supporting character we get is Mikawa and she mostly shows up when Yamada needs someone to talk about her relationship with. 

Final Thoughts:

I don't recommend letting this OVA be your introduction to Kase-san. Yes, it has its moments but the general focus on the more tumultuous points of their relationship could easily give you the impression that it's a lot more filled with insecurity and generally much weaker than it actually is. If anything, I would say this is a good supplement for the manga. So, if you read the first three volumes and you want to see some of the scenes brought to life, I'd absolutely watch this. But I'd generally go with the manga over the OVA. It's only five volumes and has a lot of cuteness. And that's not including the ongoing follow up manga. For the OVA, I'll give it a 6/10. 

I couldn't finish it, honestly. I like yuri, but honestly this was mind-numbingly boring. It has nothing special going for it except for good art.

I definitely wouldn't say it's realistic. It's pure fluff, about a couple in a honeymoon relationship. It's very bland. And it's kinda creepy to stick your head into your new girlfriend's sheets to sniff 'em on the first date lol.

This has been done to death, and its execution kinda pales to stuff like... Their Story, for instance. (manhua) Very very bland, and not even cute enough to make up for it. :(

It's too bad, I think I set my expectations too ... high because of how high quality YagaKimi ended up.

It's incredibly cute because that's all it ever wants to be.

Well, let's start by saying "I'm not too interested in Yuri", which should hint at why the score is not in majority's favor, and I'm really sorry if this review might've attacked your opinions or preferences.

Our main characters, Yamada and Kase, are in love, and both are girls. That's the basic plot.
Throughout the whole runtime, all I ever thought was, "Looks like they (the creators) just wanted to show a sweet romance between cute girls" and that's pretty much the only thought I had been carrying throughout the whole thing. It was hard to feel ... a strong connection to their romance because it felt like I couldn't comprehend what they were going through whenever there was a conflict. I just liked the momentary slow moments, ones where music and atmosphere take the front instead of the plot and characters. That ending though, just made me want to quit but thankfully it's the end, so I skipped that one part and directly went to the credits.

I don't want this review just to be me ranting, so I'll do some work.
The whole thing looks really cute (I actually watched this because it looked cute). Throughout the whole 58 minutes, the warm and fuzzy atmosphere continuously shines, literally. What it really does well is the character animation. The occasional leaves pop up on Yamada's head emphasizing her confusion or embarrassment, the shiny rays of light that drop like the rain, and to glimmering eyes of our characters whenever they talk to each other. So much care was given to make them look cute and it's truly beautiful. Even in that dreamlike sequence where Yamada dives into her pool of thoughts with her friend's voice, even in that heavy moment, the tone of being a heavily light-hearted romance doesn't disappear.
The romance, the unpopular and popular fall for each other, isn't new or original, and probably the only gimmick is that they're already in a relationship, and now they are just figuring out what they should do. Strictly speaking, the story is really forgettable, and with enough time, the same can be said about the characters. The main reason being it works on cliches and tropes, which is nothing wrong with the case regarding any other romance work, it just didn't work. Bluntly put, this looked like that one heterosexual love story that I eventually forgot, got a Yuri remake.
After my watch, I started to question what even necessitated this work at all, but then I find out the manga which the OVA adapted from, got this following of being the best in the fanbase, and the only Yuri that the majority of Yuri fans enjoyed (A cliche for every fanbase I guess).

Who should watch this?
If you can relate to Yuri works, or just enjoy Yuri works, or just want something cute, then I think you should give this a try.
While I didn't regret my time watching, I thought I could've spent my time watching something more enjoyable.

Sapphic here... so I think my opinion is valid. This anime was just... boring? Contrived? Shallow? It had its cute moments and the art was very nice, but I honestly put it in 1.25x speed to finish the damn thing. There wasn't much of a plot that I could tell, and what plot there was was revealed by telling rather than showing; the writing was so shallow. I'm sure the source material is better-written, but I won't ever read it. I'll give it a 6 instead of a 5 simply because I want more WLW representation in anime, but it sucks that this is the ... best we've really got right now by way of WLW anime. RIP

Not a good solo movie.

It's pretty, and sweet, and some nice character interactions, though little character development. Will be much better if it gets continued, but as is I would only recommend if you're willing to get into the manga afterwards.

At first I thought it was the *end* of a manga storyline, as the relationship launches very quickly. Knowing this is the start of the story improved my opinion a lot, as both main characters are fairly 'basic' in design and their relationship lacked depth. Will think about reading the manga now, and perhaps update the review after.

Overall, pretty but mostly empty, ... maybe a good start.