Just finished Kasimasi today. It's a romantic comedy about a boy, Hazumu, who is permanently turned into a girl after an alien spacecraft crashes into earth and destroys his original body, and how his friends deal with the change.
Hazumu is pretty feminine for a boy to begin with so he takes to being a girl easily. The first few episodes have humerous moments particularly with his tomboy friend, Tomari, who tries to teach him how to behave properly as a girl (like not spreading ones legs while wearing a skirt. And no, Hazumu is totally innocent about the entire thing - he was very feminine and genuine to begin with and is happy being a girl, so there isn't any of that "boy gets to be a girl so he can use the girl's locker room to get his jollies" or any of that happening.
The series is alllll about shoujo-ai. Yasuna is a girl who cannot see men -they appear as a static grey to her and so she avoids them. Nonetheless she becomes good friends with Hazumu, the two of them having much in common. When Hazumu declairs his love for her, however, Yasuna rejects him. (Which is when Hazumu goes to the mountain where he was hit by the aliens). When Hazumu becomes a girl, however, Yasuna is overjoyed because now she can see Hazumu and fully love her properly. Yasuna is cool, too, because although she seems like this quiet girly-girl - she's really not. She stands up for herself and can kick butt when needed. By far the most original character in the series.
But she's not the only one. Hazumu's childhood friend and protector, tomboy Tomari, struggles with the fact her friend is now a girl and struggles with her feelings for Hazumu now that she's a girl. Also, Hazumu's best friend, a boy named Asuta, suddenly finds himself attracted to his friend.
What is interesting is how the characters each accept Hazumu's love for another girl. Some say that because Hazumu was originally a boy and his personality is largely intact, it is expected that he'd still be attracted to girls. For the most part, though, the consensus is that love is love is love and it doesn't matter who you love.
There's some obnoxious elements - Hazumu's father is a pervert who has always wanted a daughter and you can imagine why. There's this random school teacher who serves NO purpose to the story at all except to constantly pop in saying how she's been single for 35 years, and then pines over one of the aliens who stays behind to observe the earthlings. And lastly, the spaceship was molecularly re-engineered into a humanoid girl who says "puu" all the time. Agh, she was annoying. Luckily they're not around that often. And there's a large "stupid-male" element which got annoying to a degree, too, but I've seen WAY worse so, meh.
The love triangle that forms between Hazumu, Yasuna, and Tomari, becomes very melodramatic but in a very realistic way. And it really keeps you guessing as to how this is all going to work out. Overall, the story (12 episodes) is so fluid that I never noticed the passing of time - it kept me into it and before I knew it, I'd watched it all. *pouts*
Overall, good humour, interesting character development with some realistic character interaction. There's several kisses and none of them felt fan-servicey, they felt genuine (yay!). The animation is good and the music didn't bother me, either. Thumbs up. :D
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