|
KashiMashi:
Girl Meets Girl
Anime Review
The title KashiMashi: Girl Meets Girl is accurate in the literal sense, but misleading in another. The "girl meets girl" subhead may make you think of a steamy, possibly exploitative expose of female/female relationships- kind of like an animated Girls Gone Wild, or something of that ilk. However, the actual content of KashiMashi really couldn't be much further from that tawdry realm. In fact, the series' limited nudity is about as inoffensive as possible.
 Instead, the series deals with the perennially interesting question of where friendship ends and love begins, using fantastical sci-fi concepts as tools to set the scene. Hazumu, a quiet boy who heads to the woods for solace after being rejected by his crush, has the poor luck to be hit by a falling spaceship, killing him instantly. Don't worry; he gets better. Except the aliens aren't that knowledgeable about humanity, and accidentally swap Hazumu's gender in the process of restoring him to life and full health. Maybe the already somewhat effeminate Hazumu registered as female to the ship's computer, or maybe the tech just happened to be switched to "Ladies Only" that day, but soon, Hazumu has to deal with a new body, a male best friend who now finds his newly distaff buddy incredibly attractive, and one very confused childhood friend.
 KashiMashi doesn't completely abandon its sci-fi premise, as characters from the space ship appear throughout the 13-episode series, however, the whole thing is obviously a means to an end; giving everyone an opportunity to ponder what the gender change really means for Hazumu and her friends. The fact that the aliens make a dramatic statement-- to the entire world, no less-- that they're very sorry for landing on Hazumu and mean no harm, yet no one really seems to care that much about the alien "invasion" a few episodes later is kind of charming. It takes some chutzpah for the show to literally drop a spaceship on someone's head and then basically say, "If you want sci-fi, go watch something else; this is all about relationships, folks," (although the primary credit for that choice probably goes to the original manga creators, Satoru Akahori and Yukimaru Katsura.)
 KashiMashi is mostly about the largely unchanged Hazumu, who takes to being a girl with considerable aplomb, tomboyish childhood friend Tomari who wonders if she has romantic feelings for the boy she grew up with now that he's a girl-or perhaps because he's now a girl?-and Yasuna, the reserved and delicate girl who rejected Hazumu's feelings in the first place. After the gender swap, the distant Yasuna starts to get closer to Hazumu, which begs the question of why she rejected him in the first place, when he had confessed to her as a boy. The obvious answer would be "because she must be a lesbian," but in KashiMashi, it's a little more complicated than that.
 The real distinguishing quality of the show is how it navigates same-sex relationships without having to resort to labels like "gay" or "straight;" we couldn't really tell you by the end of the show whether the three girls were lesbians, bi-sexual or what- not even getting into the complications for the transgendered Hazumu. Of course, some viewers might prefer a show about unequivocally gay characters, and we can understand that- it's just that sexuality seems to be more of an afterthought in KashiMashi. The story is about how the characters need each other for various reasons emotionally, not sexually. Clearly there must be some attraction there, but the only old-fashioned lust we see comes from a male, Hazumu's friend Asuta.
 As far as we could tell, the production is mostly invisible, which may sound like an insult. However, everything about the show-from the slightly muted color palette to the melodious background music- comes together to form a cohesive whole. It's not that any aspect of the art, music or direction in general is bad, it's more that we were so invested in the characters that we found ourselves not bothering to notice things like "the animation went up a notch there," or "this song is really nice." The one exception is the final OVA episode, which has some gorgeous imagery.
The final OVA is also a source of some controversy, because it changes the decisive ending of the TV series, which resolved the Hazumu-Yasuna-Tomari love triangle. Some viewers will no doubt dislike the fact that the series changes gears at the very end, but we found we liked the unabashedly romantic OVA ending better than the more realistic, bittersweet original ending; not that we can't handle bittersweet endings, but this was one case where the happier ending seemed thoroughly earned. You'll have to watch the whole series to figure out which camp you fall into, but it's definitely worth the effort.
Reviewed by Karen Gellender, November 2012
Below: Scenes from KashiMashi: Girl Meets Girl.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
