[Pellissier]

It was a bit that I was promising myself to post in this thread, but I just kept forgetting. Now that you guys brought it to light again, I'll take the chance.
I recently finished the series, and it's good use to me to set up a review of what I've seen. I take this as the right place.

I talk ignoring the manga, because I don't know it. My judgement is whole set on the anime.

Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ was a series with a *really* high potential which indeed was not blatantly wasted (as it was, in example, in "Uta~Kata"), but of which it hasn't been taken total advantage of.

The stronger point of Kashimashi imho has been the high ability to render the romance, to transmit feelings to the viewer. Not many series involved me in certain moments as Kashimashi did. Even though, operation incomplete. The climax felt down in the last episodes. The Yasuna events were too abruptly put on spotlight. The resolution was poorly believable (or too cheap?) and basically creating unsatisfaction in both Tomari fans both Yasuna fans (supposing there were such factions).
Tomari because, how comes it's clearly shown they're probably the best couple who could come out from the whole cast, and then the choice goes to Yasuna instead? So it looks mostly like an obligated choice, and that's why I see as both parts unhappy.

I was more a Tomari-fan, but in a percentage scale it was like 51% Tomari 49% Yasuna, so it basically was the same to me, IF the ending had been more believable.

The choice of making 12 episodes: a total failure. This anime had lots and lots more space for characters' introspections, but since they put even a sort of filler (I can't help but to see the sea episode as a filler, even if something little happened at the end), so it means there probably were not much more to say. I'm disappointed also by this too, and it bonds with the wasted potential pattern.

A nice thing has been the pace. Slow and peaceful but never boring. I appreciated it a lot, as well as some very poetic moments (the kiss scene at the sunset; the bride and the groom; the butterfly metaphor, some of Ayuki's lines in her episode).

Characters: 4 worthy of a role (Hazumu, Tomari, Yasuna, Ayuki) , 1 complement (the alien), 1 complement of the complement (Janpuu), a *potentially* interesting character (Asuta) and then 2 of the silliest and useless persons ever seen in a anime in ages (Hazumu's father and teacher).
The 4 main quite shone. They were rendered magnificently and their feeling almost always felt real (I'm not taking into account the abrupt ending). Mention for Ayuki, I don't remember a single moments of her which didn't bring a benefit for the show.
The aliens, well, their presence was silly in the first place, at least it made some sense in the end. Janpuu was kawaii etc.etc. , yes, but all in all they left me cold.
The presence of Asuta could have been depicted definitely better. At the end, he looked stupid, while he probably wasn't. And his role could have been way more important (and meaningful) than it has been.
And then thumbs down for Hazumu's father and for the Teacher. Already said by Vexx, those gags already stupid to start with. Shown one time they made me laugh, a second time made my smile, from the third and so on made me sick.
So useless.

Rapid comment for the technical themes such as graphics and sound. The arts clearly were quite poor if compared to nowadays anime (think of what KyoAni is doing with Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsuu , or Studio Deen with Fate/stay night and Higurashi). This for character designs. The animations weren't bad instead, I have to say I appreciated the lots of natural backgrounds shown, and some effect was actually good.
As for the sound - well the magnificent trio lead to a magnificent job. Even if Tamura Yukari must have been quite an hard time here, I never heard this range of voice from her. Horie Yui made her extremely moe role, as good as she's capable of. The best perfomance though, belongs to Ueda Kana (almost omnipresent in the current series), really a sweet and pleasurable voice. She was new to me before Kashimashi. A very nice acquaitance.

With all of this said, these are my final ratings, a direct consequence of my thoughts:

Animation: 8
Sound: 10
Story: 8
Characters: 8
Value: 7
Enjoyment: 10

OVERALL : 8,5/10 *

* I'm always very lenient with my ratings (if not, I don't review an anime in the first place), so an 8,5 is ok but not much high for my usual standards. For the aforementioned flaws I'm confident in saying Kashimashi lost 1 whole point in the overall I would have liked to assign it.

As for the poll. Favorite Character. Even with the multiple choice, I decided to go with just one, or to be totally fair I had to vote at least four of them. And so my choice went on Tomari