Review: Kashimashi

Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~, vol. 1
Story by Satoru Akahori
Art by Yukimaru Katsura
Original character design by Sukune Inugami
Rated Older Teen (16+)
Seven Seas, $10.99

Kashimashi is a gender-bender manga that alternates between serious and slapstick and somehow makes it all work.

The plot is built around an abrupt sex change and its romantic consequences. At the outset Hazumu, the main character, is a rather effeminate boy who enjoys walking in the woods and collecting flowers. He is in love with Yasuna, who turns him down because—secretly—she prefers girls to boys. Hazumu’s tomboyish friend Tomari, who has been his protector since childhood, is in love with him but can’t say so.

All this gets tossed in the blender when a spaceship strikes Hazumu and seriously injures him. The aliens reconstitute him just as he was, with one key difference: Now he is female, right down to his DNA. And for some reason they announce this to the entire world, projecting a picture of his new, nude body onto the night sky.

What follows is a curious hybrid of the hilarious and the tender. After all, nothing says comedy gold like a guy who has just grown his own set of boobs. That first peek under the shirt, figuring out which restroom to use, shopping for the first bra—all are exploited for maximum laffs. And orbiting around Hazumu are a menagerie of over-the-top characters, including his superhero-wannabe homeroom teacher, his newly lecherous father, and the space alien who comes down to study him. In a typical manga sleight-of-hand, the alien’s spaceship is transformed into a beautiful, busty girl who immediately latches on to Hazumu.

These slapstick touches lighten a more serious story about dealing with change. Hazumu’s family and friends are caring, if a bit wacky, and now they have some adjustments to make. Tomari has to deal with the object of her affections becoming a girl, and she’s also worried about losing a friend as Hazumu becomes, literally, a different person. Yasuna gets what she wants—the person she loves is now a girl—but Hazumu is almost annoyingly obtuse on this point, insisting that girls can’t fall in love with girls. And we’re back to the funny when Hazumu’s buddy, Asuta, thinks about his old friend as, you know, a gurrrl. With boobs.

Artist Yukimaru Katsura has a smooth shoujo style and uses a few tricks to make the book flow nicely. Flashbacks are shown with black borders, and when the action moves from funny to serious, she tosses out the background clutter and uses simple close-ups in large, otherwise empty panels to emphasize the change in mood. She also draws a few panels from Yasuna’s perspective, in which all the males fade to gray shadows. There is a fair amount of mild fanservice in this book, but to be honest, I didn’t really notice it because the story was pulling me along.

Seven Seas does their usual good job of production. The cover is attractive and the print quality is great—Seven Seas seems to lavish a lot of attention on covers. The book opens with a single color page. Print quality is good throughout, even in areas with complicated toning. Extras include a brief bonus story, translator’s notes, and a guide to the plants mentioned in the opening scene. I wish they had footnoted that on the first page, in fact, as I had no idea what Hazumu was talking about the first time I read it.

Kashimashi is a good story lightened with some slapstick humor, wrapped in an attractive package. There are crazy antics but also some food for though in here, more than enough for a satisfying read.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher.