"Asobi Asobase" is an anime that began airing in July 2018, and is based on the original work by Suzukawa Rin. It is currently being serialized in Hakusensha's Young Animal and is receiving rave reviews. On the surface, it is a yuri-esque slice-of-life story featuring cute girls, but once you open it up, it's full of surreal gags, dirty jokes, awful facial expressions, and dark humor, making it a very controversial work in a good way. Today, we'd like to introduce one of the main characters of Asobi Asobase, "Nomura Kasumi".
A brief introduction to the contents of Asobi Asobase
Source: Asobi Asobase ©Rin Suzukawa, Hakusensha/Asobi Asobase Production Committee
The story centers around the "Playboy Research Club," a group of three beautiful middle school girls, each with their own unique characteristics. The three girls look like beautiful girls, but inside they are all different kinds of "idiots," and contrary to their cute appearances they engage in hardcore gags, facial expressions, dirty jokes, and black humor. As they are a club that studies games, there are a few games that appear in the story, but the main focus is on the three girls messing around over things that don't really make sense. Anyway, don't be fooled by the pictures, because the contents are a pretty high-level gag comedy (lol)
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
One of the main characters of Asobi Asobase, she is the one who formed the Aso Research Club, and a middle school student with a fairly large chest. As her serious appearance suggests, she is relatively calm and sensible, but as the story progresses her airheaded and cruel side gradually becomes more apparent. She generally speaks to everyone in polite language and uses the honorific "san" after all people's names. Let's take a look at the various sides of Nomura Kasumi.
Nomura Kasumi's personality
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
She's basically a weak, fragile character who isn't good at expressing her opinions, but she also has a lot of strange parts. She's extremely shy and often blushes. However, when he gets angry or serious, his attitude changes drastically, and even his words and facial expression become sharper, giving him a dual personality.
Nomura Kasumi's English is catastrophic
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
She looks serious and reads books during breaks, but her English grades are catastrophic, with single-digit scores being the norm. So she tries to form an English study group to get Olivia, a foreigner, to teach her English, but ends up forming the Playboy Study Group. As I spent more time with Olivia, my English scores dropped even further (lol)
Nomura Kasumi doesn't like men
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
Because she has learned too much about sexual matters, she has a strong aversion to men. Of course, it's understandable that they would be scared and disgusted by it when they were in middle school. Their hatred of men is so high that they go mad if there is a man nearby, and are so shocked that their soul leaves their body if they hear about sexual encounters with men.
Kissing with Aozora, whose gender is unclear
Source: Asobi Asobase ©Rin Suzukawa, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
Kasumi doesn't like men, but she was extremely upset when Aozora, who is ambiguously male or female in the story, kissed her. I wonder what kind of emotion she was feeling. Whether she saw him as a man or a woman could help Kasumi overcome her fear of men and add to her yuri attributes, so I hope they find out Aozora's true identity soon.
Nomura Kasumi hates men but loves BL
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
She doesn't like men, but she loves BL, making her a so-called fujoshi. She's at the level of writing her own BL novels, and she has a lot of pride. She often gets angry and loudly rejects Olivia or Hanako when they make thoughtless remarks about BL. When asked why she does this, even though she hates men, she gives the perfectly reasonable answer that it's because 2D doesn't come up.
BL written by Nomura Kasumi
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
Several of these appear in the story, and Hanako, who saw them, says that they are quite crazy works. Let's introduce the kind of crazy BL that Kasumi writes.
Potter-like BL
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
This is Kasumi's BL novel that Hanako first sneaks a peek at. The details of the contents were not revealed, but judging from the image in Kasumi's mind and the image that Hanako saw, it is likely a BL novel that uses Potter-like characters.
Clingy BL
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
Next is a work that Hanako sneakily peeks at while Kasumi is away. It is set in the gym storeroom, and a man who seems to be a senior who has tied up a junior licks the duct tape with his tongue, and the duct tape sticks to his tongue and won't come off. It's a really strange, crazy work.
Nomura Kasumi's facial expressions
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
Compared to Hanako, Kasumi's facial expressions are in a slightly different genre, but she also shows off quite a few. Some of her facial expressions are super comedic, but in Kasumi's case, one of her characteristics is that they are super realistic. Let's take a look at some of Kasumi's expressions!
Realistic
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
This is probably the most common pattern of Kasumi's facial expressions. One of her patterns is that she sometimes becomes very serious and says things that are completely incomprehensible.
Turns pale
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
This is a common sight when Kasumi is around a man or when she is embarrassed. One pattern is that she tries to harm herself by strangling herself at any opportunity.
Teasing
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
One of Kasumi's characteristics is that when playing a game, she can suddenly start teasing. She seems to have been traumatized by playing games with her older sister since she was a child, and being beaten whenever she lost. Learning from this, she always gives her all when playing, so this strategy seems to involve provoking her opponent, getting them excited, and then finishing them off when they let their guard down. The provocative face she makes at this time is also one of Kasumi's charms.
Actually, Kasumi is playful
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
As with BL, Kasumi looks serious but has a lot of surprising sides to her. Sometimes she says things that seem out of the blue. When a request came to the Aso Kenkyujo, she suggested sending out a warning letter and cosplayed as a phantom thief, and when she watched sci-fi, she was influenced and tried to make a proper sci-fi movie. Although she may seem serious, Kasumi has these kinds of sides to her, which is one of her charms.
Summary of Nomura Kasumi's charms!
Source: Asobi Asobase © Suzukawa Rin, Hakusensha / "Asobi Asobase" Production Committee
When Hanako was making a fuss in the clubroom about wanting a boyfriend, Nomura Kasumi coldly told her to talk about something more meaningful in life. Despite that, she is a character whose hobby is BL. She looks pure and has a nice body, so it's a shame that she would be very popular if she got serious. Will her fear of men ever go away? Let's keep an eye on Kasumi, including this aspect!
