Anime Review: Kashimashi -- Girl Meets Girl

This is the pitiful story of a boy, Hazamu, with an effeminate face who actually gets turned into a girl after being hit "Dead-Like-Me-style" by an alien space ship. Before getting hit, there are some flashbacks of him and his crush, Yasuna, happily tending to the school garden and of Hazamu's friends encouraging him to confess to Yasuna. Hazamu does shyly confess to Yasuna only to be rejected. Of course it turns out that his childhood friend (and, yes, there's a promise between these two), Tomari, likes Hazamu too. And so when Hazamu turns into a girl, what's everyone supposed to do? I know, start a bizarre girl love triangle. Sigh ... not that this doesn't happen to adolescent girls who generally have this kind of relationship with their female friends before progressing to girl-boy relationships. Anyhow, Yasuna is nutz and Tomari is a tomboy who can't accept that Hazamu isn't a boy. Then there's are the accessory characters, the level headed Ayuki who decides to stay out of the mess, and the poor neglected male in the group, Asuta, who now finds himself attracted to his former a boy but now a girl bestfriend. I spent the entire show rooting for Asuta because I felt he was the sweetest and most honest with his feelings and given that Yasuna and Tomari are crazy pains-in-ass, it would be best to go with the sane guy. But no, this is a girl triangle drama, so the pitiful story of indecision, bitchcraft, and bitchslapping must go on. In the end, Hazamu chooses Yasuna out of guilt, of course , because by the end of the story she is in a state of complete mental breakdown (ARGH!!! Never choose the crazy one out of guilt, dammit!!!) and of course as soon as Yasuna recovers she starts showing some interest in boys and rejects Hazamu again. And so Hazamu goes back to Tomari out of guilt, again! (who, if the story continued, would eventually accept that Hazamu is a girl and drop her too). Sigh, ..., needless to say, I was pissed. I wanted Asuta!!! He's big and protective and there's no guilt between him and Hazamu!!! Anyhow, this is all rediculous anyway because the characters appear to be in Junior High and in junior high, there really is no such thing as a romantic relationship and I imagine at some point Hazamu would try out Asuta too.

I give this 1/5 -- because there are much better gender changing stories out there like "Afterschool Nightmare", "Tenshino Konamaiki" ("Cheeky Angel"), and "The Day of Revolution."