あさがおと加瀬さん。

ASAGAO TO KASE-SAN.

OVA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
1
RELEASE
June 9, 2018
LENGTH
59 min

DESCRIPTION

A relationship is like a garden. It's hard, really hard, to plant the initial seeds. Once you've gone through the agonizing process of wondering if the other person even likes you, fought the fear that telling her could destroy everything, and made your confession, the most difficult part begins. Because you have to keep nurturing this wonderful new feeling to keep it growing. Not just in your own heart, but in hers. And since even the most beautiful rose can cut you to the bone with its thorns, who can you talk to for advice? Especially when you're both girls in high school? For shy Yamada and boyish Kase, time is running out.

(Source: Sentai Filmworks)

CAST

Yui Yamada
Minami Takahashi
Tomoka Kase
Ayane Sakura
Mikawa
Ibuki Kido
Akane Inoue
Minako Kotobuki
Sensei
Masumi Asano
Coach
Yumi Uchiyama

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO ASAGAO TO KASE-SAN.

MANGA RomanceKase-san Series

Cover Art for Kimi no Hikari: Asagao to Kase-san.

ONA RomanceKimi no Hikari: Asagao to Kase-san.

REVIEWS

planetJane
95/100
As soft and sweet as young love itself.
On its surface, there’s not much particularly special about Asagao to Kase-san. It’s an incredibly pretty OVA, the type that studio ZEXCS seem to specialize in. There is one big thing about it though that separates it from most of those, which is that it's a yuri OVA (based off of a well-known manga in the genre), and not a particularly beat-around-the-bush-y one either. The series in fact, almost starts with a kiss, which is part of an opening montage, set to narration from Yamada (our protagonist), that begins with that cliche yuriism, ”even though we’re both girls…” expertly spun into the setup of a story that begins with the first kiss. By the time the narrative proper starts, Yamada and her love Kase are already dating.

These shots in the opening minutes of the OVA establish Yamada and Kase's relationship, letting the viewer know unambiguously where they stand.

If you’re not yourself gay it can be hard to underscore how important that is. Yuri--especially yuri written by men--tends to treat the first kiss and the love confession as an endpoint. The payoff after chapter after chapter of teasing and will they or won’t they. Kase-san has no interest in that, and there’s refreshingly little of the purity dynamics that still define a good chunk of straight-written yuri. This is a romance story, and one that is about a relationship already in progress.

Using old yuri cliches to its own ends becomes something of a hallmark of the OVA as it progresses. Our leads are about as archetypal as they come. Yamada is short, blonde, bookish (her love of gardening is a recurring theme), very femme, shy, and rather innocent. Kase is on the taller side, has short, dark hair, is the school track star, definitely the more butch of the two, and, it’s implied, the more experienced. It would’ve been very easy to write a story where the two are defined by their differences and it pulls them into easy misunderstandings. Kase-san largely isn’t like that, though, for the conflicts the two have (there are only a few, but they’re focal points of the OVA), there is no ambiguity that they both love each other wholeheartedly, it’s such a refreshing thing to see that it’s forgivable when the OVA does occasionally dip into more cliched territory (such as Yamada being insecure about her body when seeing Kase nude for the first time, in the context of a shared bath, mind you). The ending in particular will either make you bawl or grimace depending on how jaded you are. I count myself in the former category, but it’s understandable that that’d not be true of everyone.

Praise must be given to the visuals and sound in this thing too. Both are genuinely gorgeous, characters have a modern look, but they’re incredibly expressive, especially the eyes--each character has colored highlights toward the bottom of their eyes, and they’re beautiful, almost making them (when the characters are particularly emotional) look like jewels, or even jelly candies.

The eyes in Kase-san are wonderfully expressive.

The backgrounds are gorgeous too, which would be a minor point if Kase-san didn’t like to cut to background shots as its characters talked, giving the relatively mundane world of the OVA a slightly dreamy edge. The real crowning achievement in the visuals department though is Yamada’s nightmare near the end, faced with the prospect of possibly losing Kase, she imagines herself underwater in a vast ocean, the nagging voice in her head (represented by her redheaded friend, the OVA’s only other real character) spurring her to action in the last minutes of the film.

The backgrounds in the OVA are wonderfully pastel and pretty, and add a bit of dreaminess to the setting.

The soundtrack is lovely too. It tends toward the light and airy, only getting darker when it really needs to (such as during the aforementioned nightmare scene), but the easy highlight is actually the ending song. A sweet, slightly amateurish duet between what sounds like the VAs of the main couple, singing their hearts out about their love for each other, paired with some clever and really charming lyrics (some credit for that bit is probably due to anonymous fan translator Anonyneko, but how much is hard to say).

“Sweet” is probably the OVA’s defining adjective, if you had to give it one. There’s really just not enough of this. Rock-solid romance stories between girls, backed up with very strong character writing and gorgeous visuals, but at the end of the day the big thing is just how hard you’re rooting for these two by the end of the OVA’s just shy of 60 minute runtime. Kase-san ends with a post-credits scene of its two leads leaning on each other’s shoulders on a train while they talk about flower language, and it’s the perfect ending to one of the best depictions of young love this reviewer’s ever seen in the medium.

And if you liked this review, why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?
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shacklesburst
80/100
Morning glories stand for summer love and unbreakable bonds
The Kase-san series is a story about young love. For most of us, that's a thing that comes and goes a few times, but the two protagonists of this OVA are definitely together to stay. The opening narration establishes their relationship just like the cover page of the manga always does. Then we are immediately thrown into action.

The OVA consists of noticeably distinct stories according to the chapters of the manga they encompass. First is the bentou storyline of chapter 6, then follows the adaption of chapters 11 and 12 (Kase-san visits Yamada-san at home), then the school trip of chapters 7 and 8. The OVA ends with a little more dramatized and somewhat changed rendition of the going to Tokyo for college arc of chapter 14.

The chapters aren't adapted particularly closely to the source material. Much is switched around or changed. This is not a bad thing in the end, because even though one can clearly see the different chapter borders, the OVA still manages to deliver on a coherent story.

That story manages to convey a very sweet and romantic stable relationship between the two protagonists, much in the way non-yuri-genre stories like Horimiya or 14-sai no koi deliver. It's not a romcom in the classic sense like Kimi ni todoke or Ano ko ni kiss to shirayuri wo, where most of the comedic elements depend on failed confession attempts or other shenanigans before the characters start visibly dating.

Furthermore, it's a very explicit yuri-storyline (even when contrasting with a well-known work like Ano ko ni kiss to shirayuri wo). Besides the titular morning glories, shots of lilies are shown throughout the entire run time. Multiple kisses, hugs and loving gazes are exchanged as well.

The animation is, plain and simple, gorgeous, with the common elements from so many romance shows, like glowing bubbles, rendered beautifully. The seiyuu were well-cast and fulfill their jobs admirably. Shot-composition and color-palettes are very well done and Takuya Satou did an admirable job of invoking just the right feeling for every single shot.

For everybody following the manga, this is basically a must-watch movie. For people not up to date with the manga, some story lines might seem a little out of the blue, but even then one should always find themselves just enjoying a well-made piece of animation.
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skyebadoo
90/100
A Beautiful romance OVA exploring the relationship between two girls.

I always open my reviews with my expectations of what was to come, but Kase-san is a little different in that I had already read the manga for it and absolutely loved it. So, my expectations were high to say the least, in fact I'd been anticipating an anime before one was even announce, and while a 50-minute OVA isn't quite what I was hoping for, it's hard to deny that it delivered on what I really wanted to see done.

The production itself was fine, the character art and animation were generally of high quality and thoroughly enjoyable though the backgrounds were somewhat poor. There were some poor cinematography choices too, while that looks fine as a still image, it was a nightmare trying to work out where I was supposed to be looking while Yamada was reacting to Kase's actions. Overall there were never any major issues however, for a kind of moe anime the art and animation served their purpose perfectly, hoping for more would perhaps be asking for a little too much.

Unfortunately, the first line spoken was one that irritated me to no end in the manga "Even though we're both girls…" doesn't feel like a phrase that needs to be said in the context of what the OVA was about - yuri - it almost feels like a shallow attempt to acknowledge some inherent need to challenge society, which is something I don't feel is necessary when I'm looking for focused romance. The romance itself its beautiful however, the OVA begins after Kase and Yamada have already begun dating and goes over a couple of Yamada's "firsts" and all the embarrassment and awkwardness that tends to come with first relationships, making it feel very much like a believable high school romance. Yamada makes a little bit of a deal about her first phone call to her lover, and there is consistent focus on minor body contact throughout the OVA, the inclusion of Kase's excitement towards going to her girlfriend's house and seeing her room was something that felt very real, and even relatable to the feeling of seeing a lover in their natural environment for the first time. We're also treated to the standard trip to Okinawa, though this is very cute and leads to some interesting developments. There's some light drama through the OAV that felt like they were handled particularly well, Yamada's self-consciousness was something that could easily be a genuine conflict and was dealt with in a realistic and uplifting way. Further drama was equally relatable and grounded itself well in reality, as something that almost all High School couples have to deal with, further emphasising that Kase-san's romance could be believable as well as incredibly cute.

An uplifting ending only heightened how positive the OVA could get and left for a heart warming feeling of genuine love between Yamada and Kase. Ultimately Asagao to Kase-san followed through with a pre-established romance and portrayed the love between two girls beautifully without drifting it's focus away from the couple creating a believable and grounded love story. The backgrounds and weird cinematography perhaps being the only points really holding the OVA back from being a masterpiece.
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