Being a girl is harder than it looks...
For Hazumu, this couldn't be truer, because just the other day, she...was a he.
Shunned by the girl of his dreams, Hazumu loses himself in the mountains and is promptly squashed by an oncoming space ship. The alien inside, feeling guilty, rebuilds Hazumu's body...but as the wrong gender!
Now Hazumu must learn how to be the girl his parents always wanted while dealing with the trials and tribulations of being caught in a love triangle between two girls--his childhood friend, Tomari, and Yasuna, the girl who rejected him but is now strangely attracted to him/her!
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Akahori's yuri (girl love) story, which has spawned anime series, soundtracks and video games since its initial publication in 2004, uses a far-fetched plot contrivance to set its gender-swapping stage. Hazumu is a sensitive boy who would rather spend his time looking at flowers than running with other boys. His unrequited love for the beautiful girl Yasuna sends him on just such a mountaintop trip one day, but it turns out to be the worst possible day for it—an alien ship lands atop him, and when the remorseful aliens put him back together, they accidentally make Hazumu a girl. From trips to a brassiere store to visiting the girls' locker room for the first time, Hazumu learns about young womanhood quickly, with lots of opportunity for gratuitous cleavage and beauty shots. Of course, now that he is a she, Yasuna finds that she loves Hazumu, which leaves the latter grappling with the fact that although he is now one himself, he still likes girls. Artwork and panel design are traditional and uninspiring. Two unnecessary subplots (an alien who takes up residence in Hazumu's house, and Hazumu's father's determination to take a bath with his new daughter) detract from an otherwise entertaining romance. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A neat twist on the traditional love-triangle forumla, and a charming alternative to boys meeting girls." —Newtype USA, selected book of the month
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A different kind of "boy becomes girl" story,
By
This review is from: Kashimashi, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Hazumu Osaragi is a high school boy who has a crush on Yasuna Kamiizumi, the most beautiful girl at his school, but he's afraid to ask her out. His friends, fellow high school boy Asuta and two school girls-quiet, serious-minded Ayuki, and tomboyish Tomari Kurusu-all tell Hazumu he needs to get over his fear and ask Yasuna out already. And so Hazumu does...and she tearfully tells him she can't. Devistated, he decides he needs time alone and goes up to the woods on Kashima Mountain to clear his head...and it's just at that moment that an alien space ship comes speeding down to earth and crashes right on him! Wasting no time, the aliens use their technology to preform a regenerative proccess on him...but they make a terrible error and reverses his sex, changing him into a her! The aliens then make their presence known to humanity and make an announcement to the world about what they did to Hazumu, and saying nothing can be done to reverse the change. Meaning, in other words, that the whole world now knows he's a he turned into a she. Hazumu is then brought back to his parents in his new female state. After the initial shock wears off, his parents become rather delighted that they now have a daughter, and his mom goes out and buys a bunch of girl's clothes and school uniform for him. Hazumu also finds, much to his dismay, an army of reporters camped outside his house, all wanting a comment from him, and Tomari has to save him from them. At school Hazumu has a female teacher, the eccentric Tsuki Namiko, who is always mentioning the fact that she is 35 and has never had a boyfriend, but that she devotes her life to her students. She is always talking about saving Hazumu, but then she usually trips and falls. At school Asuta finds himself being attracted to Hazumu, and trying to fight his feelings, telling himself Hazumu's just his friend. Yasuna also finds herself more attracted to the female Hazumu, and then confesses she loves him! Hazumu, however, isn't ready for this, so he runs away. Coming home, he finds some of the aliens have moved in. The ship's computer which has been reconstructed as an organic girl with the ability to levitate, who is called Jan-Puu, and the ship's captain, who looks like a human male. They have come to stay for the time being, for observational purposes. Jan-Puu also seems to be attracted to Hazumu. Tomari starts to find herself falling for the girl Hazumu, much to her distress. Soon the alien staying with Hazumu comes to his school in the guise of a teacher and calling himself Sora Hitoshi.
One interesting artistic choice in this book is that when Hazumu is a boy we never see his eyes, only is hair and mouth, much like Beatle Bailey. However, his eyes become visable when he becomes a girl. Hazumu himself is a curiosity, in that he takes rather well to being a girl. You almost get the sense that this is in fact the best thing that could've happened to him, that his new gender better fits his personality. He doesn't really put up any protest when his parents want him to wear girl's clothes, even though he could probably make a good case against it. Also we see in flashbacks Hazumu was never very masculine to begin with, that he would break down and cry easily when bullies would pick on him and then have to rely on Tomari to come save him. This happens again when Hazumu is overrun with reporters s/he starts weeping and Tomari has to come rescue him. The next day at school Hazumu tells the other girls without shame or embarrasment about how Tomari saved him/her. (I actually think Tomari should've been the boy-turned-girl, she acts much more like a boy than Hazumu does.) The one thing I really don't like about this book is the way Hazumu's dad starts bugging his new daughter to take a bath with him. I've never found incest or any suggestion of it the least bit funny. Thankfully, though, Hazumu's mom is always quick to come to the rescue, clobbering her husband before he can do anything. I'm now looking forward to part 2.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best new manga series out there,
By
This review is from: Kashimashi, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
So I'm at the local Barnes and Noble, looking through the manga section, when this manga catches my eye. I'm a sucker for romance mangas, so I thought I'd give this one a try, though I was a bit put off due to the fact that I really don't like mangas about same-sex relationships (thus why I hated 12 Days). I was very pleasantly surprised at Kashimashi, however, and this has quickly become one of my favorite manga series.
Kashimashi concerns Hazumu, a boisterous young 10-year old with a colossal crush on his classmate Yasuna. Things don't go as planned when he tells her that he loves her, though, and she runs off crying and saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!!" Dejected, Hazumu treks to his favorite mountain to look at some flowers. At the same time, an alien spacecraft enters Earth's atmosphere and crash-lands... right on top of poor Hazumu. The aliens are able to reconstruct Hazumu's body, but with one slight adjustment... Hazumu is no longer a guy. That's right. He... is now a she- in every sense of the word, including having breasts, much to the fascination of Hazumu's best friend Asuta. There's also the problem of Hazumu's parents, who are overjoyed at the fact that their son is now a daughter, but none more than her father, who simply wants to take a bath with Hazumu... but gets clobbered by mom whenever he mentions it. There's also Tsuki Namiko, Hazumu's teacher; she's 35 years old, has never had a boyfriend, never wants one in order to devote her life to teaching- and tells everyone in sight about it. (Maybe her concerns for Hazumu stem from romantic feelings for the young protagonist, eh?) Kashimashi turned out to be a wild little romp through a world turned upside-down by aliens (who, by the way, end up staying at Hazumu's house and even becoming the new biology teacher [named Sora Hitoshi, a pun on his true alien identity]). The only thing I didn't really like about the series is Hazumu's dad's [...] nature toward taking a bath with him... er... her. I've always hated incest, so this rankles with me. Aside from that, though, Kashimashi (which isn't a [...] title at all... it comes from the Japanese saying "When three women get together, it's kashimashii"... so Kashimashi is simply "noisy" or "irritating") is an absolutely amazing manga series. Get it. You won't be disappointed. Now if only my Barnes and Noble will stock volume 2...
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Boy turned into a Girl,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Kashimashi, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Hazumu was a boy and now, after an alien spaceship crashed into him, is a girl. Yeah, I know, its a weird way to get his gender bent but its fast and allow the artist to dive right into the story without all that fooling around with thinking up a NEW idea.
Now Hazumu has to deal with being a girl who has become the center of attention of the mass media, a girl who dumped her when she was a guy, a female friend who may have developed a crush on her now that she is a she, a male friend who is turned on by her new body, a sick Father who wants to take a bath with her, a Mother who always wanted a little girl and the spaceship who crushed her in the first place. This may be a interesting manga.
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