What they say: Sally is a regular princess. One day she’s greeted by the wandering traveler Mikoto, the legendary swordsman who slays ogres. After seeing Mikoto defend her kingdom from a horde of the monsters, she sets off on her own adventure.
The Review:
Content (Please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
For viewers who don’t keep up too closely with anime news, you might have been a bit confused by the story of this series, which put the beginning of it in episode four. That’s because the series is being aired out of chronological order. According to the director, this was a deliberate choice. There were a number of reasons for this, but nonetheless, the director assured people the anime could still be understood.
While I have seen people criticize the decision, I personally am interested. I’ve been a fan of the nonlinear narrative format for a long time. It’s creative and allows the audience to engage in putting the story together themselves. Telling the story out of order can also give impact to other parts of the story that otherwise may not have had it. Though I can’t blame some people if they don’t want to bother in the mental exercise. However, I agree with the director and so far haven’t felt lost in the story. There are definitely some gaps in the narrative due to missing pieces not having been told yet but I can still follow the events of each episode easily enough and am looking forward to how they all connect by the end.
The first broadcast episode (episode two in chronological order), features Sally meeting a demi-human named Frau, an anthropomorphic bunny. The two travel to a village where they face some discrimination before encountering an ogre, a special kind of monster with extraordinary power, identified by horns. Frau defeats it easily and thanks the villagers for their hospitality. The two find themselves in a nearby city that is again attacked, this time by “high ogres,” who possess even greater power than typical ogres. These two high ogres cause some serious damage while Sally is forced to face one of them alone while the other waits outside city walls.
The second episode is where we get some of the ethos of the show. Humans and ogres and fundamentally opposed to each other. While Sally deals with one of the high ogres, Mikoto deals with the other outside the city walls. While the ogre says she is protecting the environment, Mikoto says that’s all just pretense and that deep down the ogres really just enjoy killing humans, and that he is the same with ogres.
The series seems to be abandoning more sympathetic character arcs in favor of a more carnal depiction of racism. Mikoto isn’t seeking revenge or anything, just like the ogres aren’t really trying to protect the environment. There’s a deep unexplainable hatred between the two groups. They just enjoy killing each other and that’s why they do it. It’s a simpler kind of message, one that ignores more systemic causes and issues, but it does drive at an interesting point in that is shows people don’t often have a reason to be hateful of someone or something who is different. All they know is they don’t like them.
The series immediately begins developing the idea further when Mikoto easily overpowers the ogre but chooses not to kill her, instead cutting off her horn and gouging out her eye, the two sources of her ogre power. While Mikoto claims it’s because this would be a fate worse than death (leaving her shunned by both humans and ogres), Mikoto’s fluffy dog companion and the framing suggest Mikoto saw himself in her eyes. So there’s more to this idea than meets the eye. We’ll have to wait before seeing how, of course.
Meanwhile, Sally finds herself in a trance-state and goes berserk, falling into ecstasy as she kills the ogre inside the city. She wears the same expression Mikoto does when he slaughters ogres. Crazy almost to the point of “2edgy4u.” However, after she cuts him down she passes out and awakens with no memory of being in that state. As Sally, Frau, and the ogre Mikoto defeated attempt to leave the city, a new more powerful ogre blasts away the entire kingdom in the blink of an eye leaving only the captain of the knights as the only survivor.
I imagine this might be where the series started losing some viewers because that scene of an ogre annihilating the city ends the previous episode, but episode 3 begins after an implicitly long timeskip with the captain, named Hawthorn, fighting in a tournament as the ogre’s debate on the dire situation of Mikoto slaughtering their kind. One of these high ogres, Sumeragi, claims his end goal is for humans and ogres to coexist in peace but he clearly has some other sinister ulterior motive and I’m guessing he’s the primary antagonist. He also looks to wield a great amount of influence and authority within the ogre community as he leads the ogre meeting about Mikoto. By this point, peach boy Mikoto also has an ogre companion on his journey but of course, there’s no explanation to their relationship given the timeskip.
The episode ends with Sumeragi reaching for Sally’s hands saying the two can make their shared dream of coexistence a reality (Sally also has this goal) while Mikoto shows up and reaches his hand at the same time saying Sumeragi is too suspicious and not to be trusted. The episode ends here on another cliffhanger before episode four shuffles the timeline again.
It isn’t until the fourth broadcast episode when we see the origin story. Now I’ll admit I’m no expert on the folk tale of Momotaro which heavily influenced this anime. What I do know is it involved a man known as a “peach boy” who slew monsters, and supposedly this anime puts a twist on it by adding a female slayer of monsters. I’ll have to verse myself in the legend a bit more to see where some of the influence comes from but what I can say is that the origin story is fairly typical. Princess with twin tails runs into Mikoto one day, gets inspired to travel, sees Mikoto cut down some ogres threatening her kingdom, then cuts her hair before setting off, and that brings us full circle to episode one’s beginning.
This intro was much needed to finally show us the origin story, though it wasn’t particularly engaging or interesting. None of the characters has a strong backstory or draw so far (although Frau and her “carrot debt” catchphrase is adorable). It seems like most of the draw will come from the conflict between humans and ogres, which as only been introduced so far.
While the series is being told out of order, though, it still fulfills the same purposes any other show does. It presents questions with promises of answers around the corner. We’ll just be getting them out of order.
In summary:
Peach Boy Riverside promises to be a unique take on the Momotaro folk story even as the interesting decision to tell it out of order risks putting some viewers off. I am not put off but I can see how others would be. The themes of humans and monsters are universal but the take on more ingrained beliefs can make for some visceral storytelling, and the characters seem fun and offer good chemistry. On the downside, the origin story is lacking and hasn’t offered a real emotional core to the story. That’s something that will have to come at a later date. I can only hope it does.
Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
