Kase-san and Morning Glories

あさがおと加瀬さん。 (Asagao to Kase-san.)

8.3(3)

OtakuDen

7.7(56,831)

MAL Score

Ranked #1463

Popularity #1953

Girls Love
School

Episodes: 1
Duration: 58 min
Aired: Jun 9, 2018
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Yui Yamada is a quiet high schooler who finds comfort in plants and gardening, and she begins dating Tomoka Kase, the standout runner on the school’s track team. New to romance and naturally shy, Yui contrasts with Kase’s bright, tomboyish confidence and the attention she draws from those around her.

As their relationship grows, the two navigate the excitement and uncertainty of first love, learning how to understand one another and offer steady support despite their differences—alongside the everyday worries that come with being young and in love.

Otaku Consensus

Kase-san and Morning Glories succeeds as a concentrated romance OVA because Takuya Satou and Zexcs prioritize movement, color, and intimate body language over exposition, with reviewers repeatedly singling out its fluid animation and memorable vocal music cue. Its real limitation is adaptation shape: one short release can only sample Hiromi Takashima’s manga, so manga readers often feel the missing connective tissue even while praising the warmth of what remains.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Kase-san and Morning Glories if you want a girls-love romance that is gentle without being weightless and sincere without turning queer adolescence into trauma. It scratches a lighter, more pastel version of the Bloom Into You itch: instead of psychological excavation, it focuses on the awkward mechanics of affection, jealousy, reassurance, and being seen. The single-OVA format makes it ideal when you want a complete emotional sitting rather than a full TV commitment, and Zexcs gives the relationship texture through color, small gestures, and especially the contrast between gardening stillness and athletic motion. If Sakura Trick feels too gag-forward or you want yuri that leans shoujo-soft rather than sensational, this is the sweet spot.

Key Characters

Y
Yui Yamada(VA: Minami Takahashi)
Yamada’s appeal is in how her gardening-club literalness turns small acts like tending, noticing, and hesitating into emotional beats instead of speeches.
T
Tomoka Kase(VA: Ayane Sakura)
Kase is remembered less as a generic athletic idol than as a tomboy heroine whose confidence becomes interesting when it has to make room for tenderness and insecurity.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
It is a one-episode OVA rather than a TV season, which gives it the feel of a polished romantic snapshot but also explains the most common criticism: notable manga material had to be compressed or omitted.
2
Studio Zexcs’ animation is frequently praised in reviews for dynamic movement, a key advantage for a romance built around the contrast between a track athlete’s physical confidence and quieter, more domestic visual rhythms.
3
The adaptation comes from Hiromi Takashima’s manga, and fan discussion often treats the OVA as an affectionate entry point rather than a replacement for the source because the manga carries more relationship texture.
4
The production credits separate character design, prop design, art direction, art design, color design, photography, and editing, and the finished OVA’s appeal relies heavily on that visual pipeline: plants, uniforms, school spaces, and motion all read as curated emotional detail.
5
Among viewer impressions, the music is not just background atmosphere; reviews specifically call out the vocal song as one of the OVA’s most memorable elements.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Kase-san and Morning Glories aired on June 9, 2018 as a finished single-episode anime project, making it closer to a boutique OVA release than a conventional seasonal series.
Fun fact 2: The anime was produced by Zexcs and directed by Takuya Satou, with Kyuuta Sakai handling character design and Kazuyuki Hashimoto credited as art director.
Fun fact 3: The project’s anime path was unusual for a girls-love manga adaptation: review coverage notes that its evolution began with a music video before becoming an OVA.
Fun fact 4: AniList tags the work not only as Yuri and LGBTQ+ Themes but also gives unusually specific weight to Horticulture at 66% and Agriculture at 55%, reflecting how central plant care is to the anime’s visual identity.
Fun fact 5: Its reception sits in a narrow but strong niche: MAL lists a 7.69 score from 56,831 votes, while AniList records a 76/100 score and 1,556 favourites.