About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

Improbable from its first pages, Kashimashi's plot goes beyond being unbelievable into the realm of ridiculous. On the plus side, the art is nicely done, and the characters are cute. There are moments of sweetness in this story, but its lame plot is mostly a thin excuse to draw schoolgirls in short skirts getting saucy with each other.



Pros

• Nicely-drawn art and cute character designs
• Has some redeeming moments of kooky humor and sweet tenderness

• Some originality story-wise, with the girl who can't see men's faces plot twist

Cons

• The plot? Ridiculous, even by manga standards
• Stereotypical, weak and flat characters

Description

• Original Title:Kashimashi: Garu Mitsu Garu
• Author: Satoru Akahori
• Artist: Yukimaru Katsura
• Publisher: Seven Seas Manga
• ISBN: 978-1-933164-34-2
• Book Details: 192 pages, black and white format
• US Publication Date: February 2007
• Age Rating:Older Teens - Age 16+, for sexually suggestive situations and partial nudity
• Manga Genres:
  • Yuri manga
  • Comedy
  • Science Fiction

Guide Review - Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl Volume 1

If you understand that yaoi manga is about beautiful guys in love by women for women, then you can understand why Kashimashi, a yuri manga title about three girls in a love triangle is a story by boys for boys.

Once you get that, then it makes sense why Kashimashi is basically a ridiculous story created to provide the thinnest of excuses for a girl to be attracted to another girl.

Okay. I'll try to sort this out.

Hazumu is a sensitive, slightly effeminate boy who gets hit by a flying saucer while he's out hiking. The aliens try to patch him up, but by mistake, rebuild him as a girl version of his old self. Uh. Ok.

Upon his return, he greeted by his kooky parents who promptly dress him up in gothic Lolita frilly dresses, cooing that they've always wanted a daughter anyway. Oh-kaay.

And the cutie he confessed his love to earlier who turned him down is now super into him because he's now a girl, because she can't see male faces. Get it? I don't, but I suppose that doesn't matter because I'm not the target audience here – I'm not a teenage boy with fantasies about cutie-pies going girl-on-girl on each other.

The art, I'll admit, is quite nice, and there are some moments of genuine tenderness and humor. But sorry, the characters are just too flat and uninteresting and the story is just too, too far-fetched, even by manga standards for me to stomach for very long.