Peach Girl Had Me Yelling at My TV

That’s right, the AJnet Anime Club is now reviewing shōjo anime.

Hey, I’m just as surprised as you are.

Peach Girl originally aired in 2005 and follows Momo Adachi, a high school girl who constantly gets judged because her tanned skin and bleached-looking hair make people assume she’s some kind of party girl. In reality, Momo is shy, insecure, and hopelessly in love with her classmate Toji. Her “friend” Sae Kashiwagi figures this out and makes it her personal mission to destroy Momo’s life, mostly because she’s jealous of her. Things get even more complicated when Kairi Okayasu, a popular and relentlessly cheerful guy at school, falls for Momo and refuses to leave her side. From there, the series turns into a ridiculous love triangle held together by lies, misunderstandings, manipulation, and an almost supernatural inability for certain characters to use basic common sense.

Let’s start with Sae, because holy shit.

Sae Kashiwagi is one of the most devious and manipulative anime villains I’ve ever seen. Forget Dio Brando. I’m convinced this girl could sit down with Goku or Yujiro Hanma for ten minutes and somehow convince them that they ruined her life and owed her an apology. She lies effortlessly, turns people against each other, steals Momo’s clothes and mannerisms, and just keeps getting away with it because everyone around her has the situational awareness of a fucking potato.

She’s also legitimately evil. I’m not talking about the petty high school kind of evil where somebody spreads rumors or steals another girl’s boyfriend. Sae becomes so jealous of Momo that she eventually helps set up a situation where Momo could have been sexually assaulted by a male model named Jigoro. That was the point where I stopped viewing her as an entertaining little shit-stirrer and started hoping somebody would launch her through a fucking wall.

And then we have Toji, who might be one of the dumbest romantic leads I’ve ever watched. The guy falls for Sae’s bullshit so many times that by the fifth episode I was actively cheering for his downfall. Every time you think he’s finally going to recognize that Sae is obviously manipulating everyone, he manages to make another terrible decision. Momo spends an absurd amount of time chasing after this idiot, which becomes increasingly frustrating because the correct choice is standing right in front of her.

I’m talking about my main man Kairi.

Kairi is hands down the best character in Peach Girl, and it isn’t even close. He treats Momo well, makes her laugh, gives her space when she needs it, and unlike almost everyone else he generally sees through Sae’s bullshit. What really sold me on him was that he even tries to talk sense into Toji because he knows Momo still loves him. Kairi would have been completely justified in sitting back and letting Toji screw everything up, but instead he tries to help because he just wants Momo to be happy even if she chooses somebody else.

That’s a bro. We need more guys like Kairi in this world.

The funny thing is that Momo taking forever to realize Kairi is the better choice actually feels believable. Teenagers are fucking idiots when it comes to relationships, and they’ll chase after somebody who makes them miserable while ignoring the person who actually treats them well. I’ve watched this happen in real life more times than I can count. You can tell Peach Girl was created by a woman because parts of Momo’s behavior feel way too specifically accurate to teenage relationship drama for some middle-aged dude to have pulled out of his ass.

Kairi also deserves special recognition for casually wearing a Confederate flag shirt at one point:

I’m guessing somebody in Japan saw the design and thought, “Hey, that looks American.” Either way, there’s something hilarious about watching a Japanese anime character walk around in a Confederate flag shirt while nobody acknowledges it. Gotta love those Japanese.

What surprised me most was how invested I got in the story. I have a bad habit of getting way too involved in teen dramas and yelling at the television like the characters can hear me. I did the same thing with Riverdale, and Peach Girl brought that exact side of me back out. By the end of the series I was yelling loudly enough that my girlfriend came into the room to make sure everything was okay.

Everything was not okay, because everyone except Kairi was being a fucking Grade A dumbass.

You might think that means I hated the show, but it’s actually the opposite. If a story gets me angry enough at the characters that I’m yelling at the screen, then it clearly did something right. Peach Girl kept me invested because I cared about what happened to Momo, wanted Sae to finally get what she deserved, and desperately wanted everybody to stop making the worst possible decision at every opportunity.

For a series aimed primarily at teenage girls, Peach Girl is really fucking good. The romance is frustrating, the characters frequently make you want to scream, and Sae might be one of the most infuriating villains I’ve encountered in anime. Somehow, all of that works in the show’s favor.

I went into Peach Girl expecting something I’d probably tolerate at best. Instead, I got completely sucked into the drama.

God help me, I think I like shōjo anime.

AJ’s rating: 8/10

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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