Anime Review: Peach Boy Riverside- Disaster in Disguise!

• Title: Peach Boy Riverside
• Studio: Asahi Production
• Source: Manga
• Genre: Fantasy
• Episodes: 12
• Season: Summer 2021
• Status: Ended

A review of Peach Boy Riverside is hopefully my last contact with this anime. My journey in this messy, once-promising world has come to an end! (Thankfully)

TL;DR:

Peach Boy Riverside is an anime you want to miss if possible. If by any chance you decide to do otherwise, you are doing it at your own risk.

*NOTE*– Right watch order is: 4, 1, 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, 5, 6, 8, 10. This could make your journey in this world just a little bit better and more enjoyable.

Plot:

“In a magical world where humans, demihumans, and oni are heavily at odds with each other, a princess named Saltorine “Sally” Aldike is on a journey to find a person named Mikoto Kibitsu. Traversing the world, Sally comes across many truths that she had been ignorant of due to her lineage—including the knowledge that the oni possess power potent enough to wipe out humanity.

Seemingly blessed with a way to counter the oni’s might, Sally has a strange power that manifests itself as a sigil resembling a peach, giving her superhuman abilities capable of defeating powerful oni with ease. Even so, Sally refuses to discriminate between humans, demihumans, and oni as much as possible, believing that peace between the three factions could be attainable one day.

On the contrary, Mikoto—who also has the same ability as Sally’s but with greater mastery—has a different goal. Mikoto is out to kill and torment all oni in existence, stopping at nothing to fulfill this objective. As Sally and Mikoto continue to cross paths, the power they possess will spell the difference between amicable coexistence and utter annihilation.” -MyAnimeList

Characters and Writing(1/5):

*Background*(for better understanding of the show)- Peach Boy Riverside integrates some elements from the Japanese folktale Momotarou, a famous story about a man who was born from a peach floating on a river who grows up to be the savior of his hometown after defeating demons called oni.

The story is boring, dull, and fails to pull you into the world like it is supposed to. A big part of the problem is obnoxious episode order. The director tried to pull something fancy off, but he did not get lucky this time around. Not only that it, did not work out, but instead got that messy order punching him in the head while shouting all sorts of derogatory names.

*Quick note*: I am an anime-only consumer, so can not talk about the source material, as it is possibly way better than anime indicates.

Now onto characters… Let’s just say that I did not care about any of them. You have two main protagonists with diametrically different aims. Mikoto, a girly-like male, who has only one goal, to kill ogres. Alongside him, we have got Sally, a big tiddy female whose sole purpose is to bring peace and end long-lasting war between ogres and humans.

Mikoto is the only character that is mildly interesting for me, along with his wolf-like dog(personally my favorite part of the show), who goes from cool, composed, and sweet guy to cold-blood killer in a second.

Sally is pretty much there only for echi moments and for sake of having a female protagonist. Her shounen moments, when her power explodes are extremely rare, and what you see in the trailer is not what you are getting in the show.

Others are just supporting cast, without real purpose nor appeal. Not much to say besides that(Yes, I don’t like Frau).

Fights were painfully short, and were done before they even started.

Sound(3/5):

Average on all fronts, but still good enough to get me through this painful journey. At least it did not make it any harder.

Art(3/5):

Art is average. That is pretty much it. At least style is consistent all around the place.

Unfortunately, fights are very lame. Everything happens in an instant, not many effects around, and not nearly enough blood. CGI was okay, and not used too many times, before the “last” episode, where we have awfully made antagonist(Giant ogre tree)

The world is decent enough, and the character’s creation is fine! They are easily recognized and blend in the world well.

Overall(2/5):

Peach Boy Riverside is not as bad as its creators made it look. Unfortunately, what at first looked like a hell of an anime, failed to deliver and was the biggest letdown of the season for me. Asahi Production did not do any justice to the original creator of PBR, which is pretty sad, to be honest.

Summer 2021 has a lot to offer, and PBR is not on that list. If you feel like torturing yourself, watch it, otherwise Peach Boy Riverside is a hard pass.