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Holy necrobump, Batman! ;D But I wanted to make some comments having just watched the OVA as well. Overall I thought Kashimashi was what I put in the "enjoyable" category. It's not great, and it's not awful, but it was worth 1 watch through.
My biggest disappointment I guess is just that I was hoping for something a bit deeper, instead it was fairly lighthearted and avoided some things that would have been interesting to explore. I don't know how much you can hold that against the series, but *shrug* On the plus side to that -- they get kudos for Hazumu not pulling some of the cliche scenarios that usually happen.
As for the characters:
Of course the humor in Hazumu is that she just sorta completely falls into the new role without barely losing a step. Kinda like "well I'm a girl now, gotta play the part" .... granted they make excessive strides in Ep1 to show that Hazumu is really really girly to begin with.
Ayuki on one hand is a very good friend ... she's always around to lend a hand, or a shoulder to cry on. But what really disappointed me was that her character is never developed. She just has a very small token amount of development in that 1 episode that just basically explains why they won't really make her part of the story. "My name is Ayuki, I tend bar, and I listen." =D (points if you get the joke)
Yasuna ... annoys me. At some points I just want to slap her for being a selfish bitch, and then others you feel sorry for her situation and can see why she may have acted that way. After refusing Hazumu initially, then she comes back right away after Hazumu is a girl... She should have come clean about her problems right away.
Then at the end you have the very convenient "cure" to her condition which leads to her dumping Hazumu again. I guess I sorta agree with her reasons behind it as well, but she still comes across very selfish in immediately refusing Hazumu after she cures her. Plus points from the POV that she didn't lead Hazumu on then dump her later.
The OVA I consider semi-canon. Some stuff obviously happens that helps to seal up the plot nicely. Namely solving the love triangle far better than I thought they would be able to. The whole Xmas stuff and the "marriage ceremony" was pure pandering, but it was fun at least. Some characters act fairly out of character in parts, especially Sora-sensei suddenly coming back to Namiko and kissing her at the end ... did he cure his species then? They never really resolve that ... he just sees that Hazumu magically cures her by saying she chooses her, then takes off. Granted the motives behind choosing Yasuna are very suspect due to the illness.
I'm rambling now, but the one thing I find really funny about this whole thing is, they have all that fantastic technology and they have males/females -- yet they could only bring Hazumu back as a girl? =D
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