Peach Boy Riverside

One of the hallmarks of being an artist is that artists are generally seen as creatives in society. Without artists, society would grow culturally stagnant. Or at least society would be colder and less caring. That's me being an idealist so forget what you read.

Artists come in different forms: musicians, cartoonist mangakas, and directors. Directors have the great mantle of taking an artist's vision and making it a reality. But what if the director screws that up, alienates fans, and confuses viewers? What if the studio waited so the manga they adapted into an anime could have more chapters? What if the studio just threw in unrelated filler episodes? One more thing, what if fans simply binged watch series instead of watching week to week?

Peach Boy Riverside is an Asahi Production Studio anime released in the Summer of 2021. This Summer anime spanned 12 episodes catering to the shounen demographic and falls into the genres of fantasy and shounen. It is directed by Shigeru Ueda and written by Keiichirō and is based on the original work by Coolkyousinnjya. Coolkyousinnjya is best known for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and illustrating The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace. The latter was also a Summer 2021 release. The anime currently streams on Crunchyroll.

Our story is set at a time in history when the countryside is overrun by ogres (oni) and demi-humans. Ogres are everywhere, they bash in brains, and many of these ogres possess supernatural powers. The humans make good punching bags, and everyone is hopeless.

Enter Shounen protagonist, the androgynous Mikoto, who has a hate boner the size of Texas. Mikoto has made it his life's mission to wipe out every ogre on the planet, a noble cause indeed. He bears the power of the peach eye and is known as the Peach Boy. Kibitsu Mikoto is no marvelous killer and has been known to extend mercy periodically throughout the series. He's a loner and is accompanied by his dog Inu, who can talk. Inu acts as counsel and surrogate father to Mikoto.

In a world seething with racism, ideological division, and as Steven He would say, "Emotional Damage," Mikoto meets our second protagonist, Saltherine Aldarake, or Sally for short. Sally is a princess who has never left her kingdom, and when the two meet, they immediately bond.

While Mikoto is in the Kingdom, it comes under attack by Oni. Sally feels a burning sensation in her chest and desires to fight. After the fight, he invites Sally to come with him but declines. Sally chooses to leave the Kingdom and explore the world through these events.

The duo travels their own paths in what will become a test of philosophies. As Sally grows and learns of the Peach Boy powers that reside in her, she meets various people along the way learning why humans hate ogres and, over time, why ogres hate humans. Frau, a carrot-obsessed demi human rabbit, accompanies her. Frau shapes her view of demi-humans, as do the other side characters. Sally takes up the mantle of peaceful coexistence between species through these interactions.

Assuming you waited until the series ended and watched the anime chronologically, you'll notice that Sally receives most of the anime's focus. She is naive to the ways of the world. Sally is an idealist, and her resolve was tested to see if her stance against prejudice was one-sided. Despite these positives, Sally must learn to contain the devil within throughout the anime, at least in the first four episodes or so. I'm referring to the latent energy in her body that, when left unchecked, causes her to become a brutal fighter like Mikoto.

However, unlike Sally, Mikoto can control his powers at will. There were moments when the trauma of the past took over, and it took intervention by his dog to snap him back to reality. In each case, Mikoto acknowledged what he did wrong and apologized, furthering his growth throughout the series.

There is a great deal of philosophical and character content saturated throughout Peach Boy Riverside. It is effortless to focus on Sally while overlooking the side characters. Two characters that need more growth in the anime are Carrot and Hawthorne Grattor. While there isn't perfect development amongst them, Frau often outshines Sally as the character with the most depth and relatability throughout the series.

Carrot, lovingly named by Frau because Oni don't have names, came to be in Sally's company when she and her partner Sett attacked the Kingdom of Rimdarl. While Sally was fighting Sett, Carrot suffered a defeat at the hands of Mikoto. Mikoto stripped her of her ogre powers believing that to be a fate worse than death, leaving her to live as a human she is arrested by Hawthorne Grattor.

Hawthorne is a Commanding Knight of the Kingdom of Rimdarl who would see his kingdom destroyed by the Mask Oni. Before the destruction of the Kingdom, he would arrest Frau and Sally for their hand in killing Sett, and later he would arrest Carrot. Due to his just nature, he would free Frau and Sally only for the duo to release Carrot.

As stated earlier, he would see his homeland wiped out in one energy blast. As he is one of the only survivors, it is interesting that the trauma of the event is never shown. Hell, even Goku flipped out when Krillin was killed! Something as simple as having Winnie, a witch who has prior history with the Hawthorne family, could have cast a spell to calm his mind to focus. Instead, there is no PTSD and no real hatred of Oni.

My reasoning is that time had to be given to our antagonist Sumeragi. Sumeragi is an Oni who appears human. He dresses in priestly attire and tends to appear wherever Sally does, observing her abilities. We know nothing of his true motives. However, after learning of Sally's ambitions, he pretends to align himself as a champion though he harbors disdain for her. As Oni can be ogres or Demons, it is unknown who he is. What is known is that Sally's peach eye did not activate when she attempted to attack him.

Sumeragi puts on a good front by pretending to be a champion for coexistence, even alienating himself from his fellow ogres. Ultimately, his character may be a swipe at Christianity or Western nations though no religion or country has a monopoly on prejudice.

Despite some character development issues, the voice acting was good, with several VAs stellar in my book. The obvious first choice is M.A.O, who voiced Frau Nao Tōyama, who voiced Mikoto, and Daisuke Hirakawa as Sumeragi.

Complementing the voice acting was an excellent soundtrack that was composed exceptionally well. Kudos to Ryo Tanaka glad you worked out the sound here; Girls Frontline, not so much. However, GF has a grand Opening and Ending Theme. The OP for PEach Boy is Dark Spiral Journey, performed by Q-Mhz featuring Yuuko Suzuhana. Unfortunately, I could have been more impressed with the ending for Peach Boy though the opening was excellent.

Rounding out the non-story positives is the animation. I like the overall attention to detail. The number of companies involved in these projects blows my mind. I'm siding with the kids on this.

Peach Boy Riverside is an enjoyable anime made more so once it's watched in chronological order. It can be heavy-handed with its message and contains some objectionable content. While a shounen anime, there is enough topical undercurrent to keep it exciting and enough ecchi to keep the series from becoming preachy. The characters are enjoyable though Frau and Mikoto are the most relatable. The anime goes full-on hard-core in the first few episodes and slows some around "Ideals and Reality."

It's around "Frau and the Vampire" that things slowly heat up again. Unfortunately, they can't match the beginning passion, but there is enough momentum to see this series to the end. Be warned you may need to dry an eye at the end. Well, almost at the end. Finally, I was excited when this series was released and was glad I waited to give it a watch after the smoke cleared. The "Nightboss" is Pleased.

“Once upon a time, there lived in the country an old man and his wife. They were very lonely because they had no children. One day the old man went into the mountains to cut firewood, and his wife went to the river to wash clothes.” You know the story………….

Peach Boy Riverside Watch Order

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