Summer 2021 First Impressions – Peach Boy Riverside

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Sally is a former princess whose longing for adventure saw her leave her quiet castle in the countryside in search of stimulation in the outside world. One day during the course of her travels, she discovers Frau, a member of the Harefolk community, whose rabbit-shaped visage betrays their status as a demi human. Sally’s experiences with demi humans is essentially nonexistent, so she’s somewhat surprised and disheartened to find that most people harbor a deep prejudice against them. Even though they have some ability to speak and Frau in particular is very loyal to Sally, they’re still shooed away at every turn by villagers who fear the worst.

And they do have some reason to be fearful, at least in a general sense; the world has been under attack by giant monsters and ogres, and it’s simply an unfortunate reality that this fear of being brutally murdered has perverted into hatred for other races. Even when Frau uses their power to defeat an ogre, there’s very little convincing the villagers who witness it. After defeating the ogre, Sally and Frau are taken into custody by the local knight captain, Hawthorn, but despite his own suspicions he warms up to them quickly. As Sally and Frau seek repayment for their troubles in the form of dinner, the city is brutally attacked by a high ogre and her companion. After witnessing this destruction and watching Frau attempt to fight the ogre alone, Sally enters a sort of trance and comes into some buried physical abilities that are a sight to behold. She may be travelling in search of a boy born out of a peach, but her own special powers are nothing to sneeze at.

Impressions: In the story of Momotaro, a childless old couple discovers a baby inside a peach that has floated down the river to meet them. This child grows up to become an ogre-slayer, and travels to the island of ogres with his animal companions to defeat them. This series poses the question – what if there were more peach children born with the power to defeat evil (in the most brutal manner possible)? The end of the episode leads us to believe that Sally is one these special few.

As usual, I’ve kept up on anime news even as it relates to series such as this that I’ve taken kind of a roundabout and extended route to starting. It’s well known at this point that “decisions were made” to tell this story out of chronological order for various reasons. While I do question this choice (it feels gimmicky and seems to mute some of the weight of the things that happen in this first episode), knowing about it ahead of time allowed me to make my peace with that decision rather than dwelling too much on it. While I’ll say that it’s a little disorienting not to have a better handle on the characters, especially Sally, and their motivations, this episode isn’t really as confusing as I think it’s been made out to be. It sounds as though Sally is meant to be the POV character anyway, so to begin her story already in progress, with bits and pieces told via brief flashbacks, makes some sense to me.

The remainder of the episode is fairly standard fantasy material. The generic fantasy setting in particular seems to be about on par with a lot of the other first episodes I’ve watched already this season. What is a little bit unusual is the focus this episode takes when it comes to human society’s prejudice against the demi human races. The deep-seated hatred that most humans seem to have against these individuals, even after being directly helped by one, is sort of interesting to me. It’s not necessarily unique by any means; it seems like par for the course for at least many of the recent isekai fantasy series to feature demi humans as a lower or oppressed class. But it does add a little bit of cultural flavor to this episode despite being ham-fisted and simplistic.

Pros: I was expecting this to be a fairly straightforward shounen battle series, and that assumption turned out to be off the mark. To be honest, I’m actually not entirely sure where to slot this series as far as genres and demographics are concerned. It’s got some fantasy trappings, there’s a little bit of action, it has a literary basis (buried underneath many of its other aspects), the level of violence is… unexpected, I’ll say. I’m not sure if it’s really my thing but it does seem to have a little bit more to offer than a simple action series.

I like that at least the initial focus is on a young woman, and she’s not simply another “strong female character” who does nothing but fight. She’s naïve, but that helps make her a compassionate person – at least until she’s really ready to let loose and do battle.

Cons: There are a couple of moments where Sally is sexualized for no good reason that I can discern. She’s got a large chest and some kids joke about it – right before they’re obliterated by the demon ray. Talk about an awkward tonal shift coupled with unfunny humor! There’s also a moment where Sally sees an octopus and we’re whisked away to some thought process of hers in which she’s molested by tentacles. There’s virtually no other fanservice-y content throughout the entire remainder of the episode, so I don’t really know why this material was included. It feels needlessly off-putting.

Content Warnings: Fanservice, including one moment that reads as sexual assault by tentacles and some associated nudity. Violence/gore (including several instances of human characters literally being torn in half).

Would I Watch More? – Debatable. This episode was very… strange. Not entirely off-putting but with enough tonal awkwardness that I’m not feeling much attachment to it.