So it DOES include spoilers!!!!! (but if you’re familiar with the TokyoPop version, you know about the titles. And if you know about the titles, I’m sure you can at least guess where I’m going at).
~INTRODUCTION~
Listen, Peach Girl means a lot to me. It was the first shoujo I ever read, the first manga I ever collected and the first manga that I bought completely “blind”: all of the other mangas I bought I had already watched the anime adaptation first and knew at least a little bit about the story.
All I did was look at the cover and the art style, which are VERY PRETTY and appealing to me, so I bought it.
Today, I’m 25 years old and have finished rereading this story. And while I still hold it dear to my heart, I gotta admit this is a very problematic story.
~SEX~
First, I think that while it is considered a shoujo, it is definitely more suitable for late teens (like… 18+). Sex is an important feature in this story, even though there are NO sex scenes. There’s a bit of nudity, there’s /almost/ sex scenes, there’s RAPE ATTEMPTS (!!!!!!) (though this concerns more violence) and more. I first began reading it when I was about 8 years old, so I definitely shouldn’t have.
There were no warnings concerning this in the cover and while I am in no way a prude, I think that the reader needs to have at least a little bit of maturity to understand what is really going on.
~RAPE~
As I mentioned previously, there are rape ATTEMPTS. More than ONCE, even. This could potentially trigger a percentage of readers who have been through something similar. And, to a younger audience, it could potentially “teach” them wrong notions about it.
By the time I reached this part in the story, I was around 15 years old. Much older than when I first started reading, but still not that mature enough. I understood that those were rape attempts but I didn’t understand what rape really was about.
~LOVE TRIANGLES~
As a kid, I liked the idea of two handsome men fighting for the love of… well, me. As a teen, I thought that it was an unrealistic idea, but I just shrugged it off. As an adult… I HATE love triangles.
This trope is more used to bring drama into the story, and in this case, it brought ALL the (unnecessary) drama. To the point that you start to wonder: did Momo ever really love ANY of those guys?
As alluded in the subtitle of vols 8-18 (“change of heart”), Momo starts to love Kairi instead of Toji. As a “Team Kairi” person since a kid, I was ecstatic to read that. But when I found out HOW that turned out… oof. Big oof.
I’ll comment more about the couple’s lack of conversation in the next topic, but in this one I’ll focus on all the shifts the story had with Toji and Kairi:
Momo starts with Toji > Toji breaks up with her, she dates Kairi > bullshit happens (lol) and she goes back to Toji > even more bullshit happens and she gets confused as to “who to pick” (???) > She ends up with Kairi.
Look. I’m happy that she ended the story with my prefered character, but it seemed so far-fetched. She had at least 3 CHANCES to pick Kairi (in the last few chapters) and in all 3 she chose Toji. At the very last moment, as if she was an actress in a movie and had just remembered that the script told her she had to choose Kairi, she sprints towards that ending.
I already said that love triangles are unrealistic, but this manages to top that. There were several times in my reread that I was furious with Momo’s indecision and that, had I not known the ending, I’d have dropped the manga.
I understand that she was fragile when the whole switcharoo started to happen, but wow. A side character tells Momo that to her it didn’t matter who she ended up with, as long as someone “showed up”. I kinda think she’s right.
(Not to mention: the whole love triangles trope is inconsiderate towards the “unchosen one”. One of these people will always have to give up the person they love and in Toji’s case, I think the way Momo handled the situation was VERY inconsiderate.)
~LACK OF CONVERSATION~
Toji breaks up with Momo to protect her from Sae. Did he really need to do that? Answer: NO.
He could’ve just talked to her and told her that Sae was blackmailing him. He could’ve tried a better way to protect Momo, instead of having to do what Sae wanted. But nope. “I’d rather take decisions by myself about my relationship without even talking to my girlfriend”.
Many chapters later, Momo was now with Kairi and they had an agreement. “I’ll wait for you for 5 minutes and if you don’t come by then, I’ll know your answer”. Something comes up, Kairi CALLS HER and DOESN’T SAY WHAT HAPPENED and expects her to still wait for him.
Like??? He already called her, he SHOULD have said what happened and why he’d be late. He could’ve told her everything by the phone and she’d have waited for him, but instead, he did exactly what Toji did in the beginning: didn’t. Talk. to. Her. about. Important. Stuff.
At least 80% of the drama in this story could’ve been prevented by having a conversation. That drove me mad.
~THE GOOD POINTS (AND CONCLUSION)~
There are many many other little points that I’d like to share but I think I’ve already said the most important ones and I already gave too many spoilers, so I’ll wrap it up:
With these many flaws, how can I still LIKE this story and give it a somewhat high rating?
Peach Girl, while flawed and problematic, is entertaining. Even though I already knew how it ended, it had me avidly reading page after page, on the edge of my seat, hoping that it would all end okay for my favorite characters.
Momo is kind and good-hearted, even though she should hate Sae’s guts and wish her harm, she keeps worrying about her and even considers her a friend. Sae starts off as a bitch but through character development she gets better and even helps Momo and Kairi towards the end. Toji is a good boy despite everything. Kairi starts off as a funny guy, perfect even, but through character development and his backstory we can see a whole new side of him.
Many points of the story are absurd to the point of being unreal, but at least the characters are very real to me.
Plus: it was fun! True, I did have waaay more fun reading it as a kid/teen than I did as an adult, but it was still nice.
Would I still love it if I read it for the first time as an adult?
Probably not. I probably would’ve dropped this a long time ago lol
Should you read this, after this monstrous review?
I don’t know. You tell me. If you don’t, I won’t blame you. If you do, I hope you can grow to love these characters as much as I did :)
