“Peach Girl” (or if you want to use the extra-cringy full length title: “Peach Girl: Super Pop Love Hurricane”) is one of the worst TV series I’ve had the displeasure of seeing. I want to preface this review by saying that even though I’m a guy, I have a soft spot for Shoujo anime. Even though they can be silly, stupid, and problematic in their portrayal of relationships, they tend to have a certain charm and can be more engaging than Shounen series. So while I had heard that “Peach Girl” wasn’t a classic by any means, I went into this anime with at least reasonable hopes that it would be a decent watch to fill that anime void while I cried over my laptop and car (and the money I had to spend fixing them).
The first signs that something was wrong started right as the credits started rolling. Usually the opening for an anime usually showcases the best animation the developers have to offer in order to hook you in. The intro for “Peach Girl” seemed to be missing key frames, characters seemed to be drawn off model, and I remember getting this sinking feeling realizing that art for this whole anime was going to be like this. The animation for this show is frankly embarrassing, “Peach Girl” has some of the most abysmal animation I’ve ever seen in a professionally made tv series. The frame rate is terrible, the animation is stiff and ugly, and the camera has this way of freezing on the character’s faces in dramatic moments that I think is supposed to be dramatic but just makes them seem like an ugly pouting kid. This might sound like hyperbole but even compared to cheap OVAs and hentais the animation of “Peach Girl” is very substandard. I’m not too familiar with Studio Comet, the studio behind this anime, but I’ve seen clips of their other show “School Rumble” on YouTube and it seemed decent, so I’m not sure what went wrong here. I get that at the time of writing this review that this anime is 20 years old, but I don’t buy the excuse that just because something is old the art has to suck. “Eureka Seven” is one of my favorite anime whose artstyle has aged incredibly well, and it came out the same year as this show.
Well okay, the production for this show isn’t great, who cares? While the animation for “Peach Girl” is its most visible problem, it is not its main issue. In fact, two of my favorite shoujo series: “Oniisama e..” and “His and Her Circumstances” both have rather substandard and cheap production, in fact their animation might be even worse than of “Peach Girl”. But through masterful directing, engaging storytelling, interesting dynamic characters, and cleaver editing, I found the aforementioned shows so endearing that I often didn’t notice that they had an animation budget of $10. "Peach Girl" unfortunately has none of that, and that leads me to what else is wrong with this series, which is pretty much everything else.
Starting off with the cast, “Peach Girl” has an extremely infuriating and unlikable roster of characters. The protagonist, Momo, is defined by the fact that she has a crush on her classmate Kazuya, she’s extremely lackadaisical and acts like a doormat for others, and she has tan skin, which for some reason makes everyone else at the school irrationally distrust & hate her and think she’s a slut. She’s not the worst character though, that dishonor goes to Sae, who despite being Momo’s friend (for some reason) pretty much only exists to make Momo’s life miserable. Sae’s sole defining characteristic is that she is jealous of whatever Momo does and she has to do anything to ruin any relationships Momo tries to create. Kazuya is Momo’s love interest, his defining personality trait is that he is dumb as a brick and despite at least partially recognizing that Momo has feelings for him, is too dense and stupid and constantly falls for each and every obvious scheme that Sae hatches to keep them apart. The last important character is Kairi, a lower classman playboy whom Momo accidently points to as her crush and develops feelings for her. Although Kairi is often played up as a silly comic relief, I didn’t find him funny, but he ironically acts to most rationally of all the main cast. He’s also a cheater who has an interest in older women, and his brother Ryou is also a manipulative bastard.
What drove me crazy about the characters in “Peach Girl” is how utterly one dimensional and single focused they all are. The only thing Momo ever cares about is that she has a crush on Kazuya, the only thing Sae cares about is making Momo miserable, the only thing Kairi cares about is teasing girls and doing stupid stunts, and the only thing Kazuya cares about is being a dense idiot who can’t think straight for 5 seconds. The other students at school are never developed aside the fact that they don’t trust Momo because *gasp* she has tan skin. Never is any character characterized by something other than their romantic interests/obsessions. They pretty much only ever talk/think about romance. Trust me I was in highschool at a time, and while yes, we did talk a lot about sex & the opposite gender as our puberty hormones kicked in, we did also talk about sports, homework, from time to time politics and religion, and other things that fill a young person’s mind.
The story of “Peach Girl” is the worst part. Basically, every episode in the first half of the show goes something like this: Momo will try to get close to Kazuya, Sae will do something meanspirited to separate the two, despite the fact that it’s obvious, everyone, including Kazuya, will fall for it. Momo, being a doormat, will often just accept the situation. Kairi will come along and do some goofy stunt that will improve Momo’s situation, but just as it seems things will get better the episode will end on a stupid cliffhanger because of some dumb misunderstanding between Momo and either Kazuya and/or Kairi. Switch Sae with Ryou, add the fact that Kairi is cheating on Momo with an older women, and that’s pretty much the formula for the second half of the show as well. Towards the end of the series Momo has to choose between Kazuya and Kairi, and I’ve personally never felt less invested in a character’s romantic decisions. Basically the message of Peach Girl is “if you’re a girl and your boyfriend is cheating on you and your constantly having fights and misunderstandings, just tough it out and eventually things will work themselves out” which I personally think is an awful message.
Is there anything good about “Peach Girl”? While the opening song was a little annoying and perhaps a bit overly upbeat, I thought the music in the show was passable. In rare instances the characters could be likable, on *occasion* Momo would dress up and have an attractive character design (once every 3 episodes), on *occasion* Momo would stand up for herself (once every 5 episodes or so), on *occasion* Kairi would actually be funny (once every 8 episodes), and on very rare *occasions* someone would satisfyingly put Sae in her place (happens maybe twice in the whole series). Sae’s character may have become slightly bearable in the latter half of the show, although I’m not sure if that was due to actual character development or just that her character didn’t have as much screen.
Overall I strongly un-recommend “Peach Girl” and would discourage fans from watching it. The animation is hideous, the characters are all one-note, irrational, and unlikable, and the story is boring, repetitive, and has a problematic message. There are lots of better anime out there, including shoujo anime, and “Peach Girl” simply isn’t worth it.
