Summary:
The two strangers in her room, as Hazumu learns, are actually the aliens that created her. The two will be staying with Hazumu for a while in order to observe her. When Hazumu wakes up the next morning, she finds that her parents have already met their guests and are even serving them breakfast. The doorbell rings and Hazumu realizes she’s late for school. She goes out to apologize, but ends up causing a scene because she forgot to put on a bra. At school, Hazumu tells her friends about how Tomari saved her, and Ayuki chimes in that Tomari even got a love letter from a girl. Ayuki then notices Yasuna watching them from across the schoolyard, but she runs away after Hazumu also catches sight of her. Hazumu tells Tomari and Ayuki about the flower bed that’s now missing Yasuna’s plant.
After school, Yasuna is practicing her flute when her classmates come to talk with her. In her vision, Yasuna sees males as black and white blurs. After they leave, Yasuna notices Hazumu watering the plants and the spot of the missing flower. Yasuna ends up turning down her friend’s invitation to go out to karaoke, and even rushes past Hazumu, who was waiting for her. At home, Yasuna receives a phone call from her parents, but turns down their invitation to eat out. Alone, Yasuna crunches on potato chips with a dead look in her eyes.
On the other hand, Hazumu asks Tomari if she hated the person who gave her the love letter. Upon hearing Tomari answer that usually you don’t hate someone like that, Hazumu runs home. She gets a flashlight out of her closet and then goes out on her bicycle. Meanwhile, Yasuna goes to bed holding a newspaper clipping of Hazumu. When she wakes up the next morning, she notices the note her mother left her, but also the wilting plant that Hazumu gave her a while ago. Yasuna starts to cry, but quickly dries her tears. As she opens the blinds, she thinks about how today will be lonely again, but then she sees Hazumu waiting outside. Hazumu, dirty all over from having spent the night digging up another plant for Yasuna, tells Yasuna that she wants to become friends. Both of them apologize for the confession, with Yasuna saying that although she was really happy to hear it, she was scared and lacked courage. But Hazumu doesn’t mind anymore, and because she’s become girl, she just wants to become friends now. Yasuna finally takes the flowers, and Tomari later finds the two happily gathered around the flowerbed at school.

I like how they’re developing the story differently from the manga by fleshing out Yasuna’s character a bit more. They’re still using the plant-that-Yasuna-took-back-to-the-mountain aspect, but for me, it gave a fresh perspective on the plot. Of course they’re still following the general storyline and cobbling together different parts, but I like, for example, how they make use of the fact that Tomari got a love letter from a girl (which is purely for humor in the manga).
From the resignation of being alone to the dead eyes to the newspaper clipping of Hazumu that she went to bed with, I do have to say that the anime’s version of Yasuna disturbs me even more than the manga’s. But she’s a big part of what makes this series so yuri-tastic. And next week is going to be even more about HazumuXYasuna, with maybe even a kiss!

Closing Thought: I’ve had the ending song on repeat for hours nows. The OP’s a good song, but I like the ED’s full version so much more.

18 Comments

  1. Damn, don’t people read the ‘DO NOT ask’ part anymore? 😀 There’s a nice shiny link on the Community side to show where the torrents are anyways – and nobody’s subbed Ep 2 yet, much less 3, last I looked.

    Haesslich
  2. I found it under ‘Kasimasi’ – I stand corrected, although I can’t say I really like the Doremi subs either. I’ll wait for one of the others to jump on this, although the series does seem to be sticking close to the spirit of the manga, which is a good sign.

    Haesslich
  3. I still don’t know what to call it. On one hand, the official logo/website says Kasimasi, but the hiragana should be pronounced kashimashi. To add onto that, in the previews they clearly say kashimashi.

  4. Not sure but I think “si” was the old way of romanizing/pronouncing it? But it’s “shi” now so “si” should be obsolete. It’s like how instead of “tu” they have “tsu”, i think. @_@”

    Kaito
  5. Am I the only one who hates Yasuna? She rejected Hazumu once because ‘she’ was a man, and now she’s feeling attraction towards her because ‘he’ became a woman! Tobari for the win.

    I thought I was well prepared for lesbian stuff when I heard Kashimashi is a shoujo-ai, but damn, that was too harsh X(

    Rasmiel
  6. It’s probably the color scheme that does that, Omni – the purple and white plus pink hair is pretty suggestive of Lacus’ ‘battle kimono’ gear from the two SEED series, although she’s FAR more grabby than Lacus ever was, at least to judge by the screenshots where she’s all over Hazumu. 😀

    Personally, I’m rooting for Tomari, as I said in a previous ep’s comments, just because of the whole childhood friend link they showed in Ep 2, although it’s interesting to see how Yasuna sees boys in general – as being nothing but greys, and somehow uninteresting, although she seemed to treasure Hazumu’s plant somewhat. I personally would find it more interesting if Hazumu ended up turning Yasuna down, at this stage, citing the ‘wanting to be friends’ reason after the way the series and manga started off. Yasuna DOES seem a little disturbing here, doesn’t she?

    Haesslich
  7. i think it is a bit to fast to write yasuna off as a disturbing person … for some reason i think there is a serius undercurrent about her reasons/illness (my shot is child abuse)

    Nightwisher
  8. She almost seems hikkimori, at least in the way she chose to isolate herself in this episode – although the way she sees ALL males as grey suggests fear. I’m not sure if it’s child abuse, or something else… but she does seem to shy away from or ignore men – I do wonder that, if she gets close to Hazumu here, and they decide to change her back into a guy, if she’d start ignoring Hazumu again or if she’d try to keep whatever develops in future episodes.

    Haesslich
  9. I bet alot of the Kashimashi fans are going to Yasuna’s direction due to sympathy. I still think Yasuna is really ‘scary’ in this episode anyway T_T

    Tomboys like Tomari = win

    Zim4o3

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