Peach Girl

Information of Anime

The story is about a tan girl named Momo.  She's tanned because she enjoys swimming.  She has a secret crush for her junior high school friend, Toji.  Sae, a friend of Momo, is determined in stealing Toji from her.  Popular playboy student, Kairi has a crush on Momo & helps Momo in keeping her love relationship with Toji together.  However, a number of events causes Momo's love life to be complicated.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a short summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the anime yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The story starts off with the introduction of Momo & Sae.  We see what ever Momo wants, Sae rejects her ideas but ends up taking it for herself.  For example, when Momo sees a bag she likes in a store but Sae says it's uncool or looks bad, Sae ends up getting the bag & draws people's attention to her, making her popular.  So bascially, what ever Momo has or wants, Sae will take it from her.  From there, we learn that Momo has a crush on Toji but doesn't let Sae know.  When Sae discovers that Momo has a special someone in mind, she questions Momo.  Knowing Sae's character & refusing to her know it's Toji, she points at Kairi who is surrounded by a lot of girls & proclaims she likes him.

Noticing that he was pointed at, Kairi comes up to Momo & greets her.  Momo wasn't expect it.  When she leaves, Sae tries to take Kairi from her by showing off a bag she recently got.  Kairi retells the story about how he saw Sae telling Momo that the bag was no good, Sae gets up upset & gives Momo the bag.  From here when we see Momo & Kairi in a school garden, we discover that the two have met before at a beach.  Kairi was drowning in the water & Momo rescued him.  Kairi confesses that he likes her & kisses her.  Seeing him as a playboy, Momo refuses himbut they quietly become friends.

Later, we see Momo confessing to Toji & he accepts her feelings.  Sae discovers this & plans to steal Toji from her.  It's a quite a long story here, so I'll make it short.  Basically, Sae gets Toji to convince him to believe everything she says.  Mainly involves Momo liking Kairi which isn't true.  As Toji believes every word Sae says, Kairi helps Momo proving her innocents & slowly tries to get back at Sae.  Time flies as the class starts seeing Momo as a bad person who tries to take Toji away from Sae.  This all happens when Toji is in the hospital.  When he was released from the hospital, Kairi sets up a plan to get back Momo & Toji together.  When Toji learns the truth & how the class sees Momo, he turns against Sae & helps Momo.  From there, Sae is viewed as the bad person & Momo restores her lost respect.

For the next few episodes, we see Toji & Momo love relationship growing & Sae starts going out with a supermodel.  With the supermodel, she uses him for her personal interest.  She even uses him to break Toji & Momo apart by telling him that Momo loves him.  Believing her words, the supermodel meets with Momo, leaving her scared.  When Toji & Kairi learn about this, they rush to the supermodel's apartment with Sae.  When Sae enters the unit & sees Momo in bed with the supermodel close to her, she takes a picture with her cellphone.  From there, chaos happens.

Sae uses the photo taken from the supermodel's apartment to blackmail Toji.  If he refuses to dump Momo & go out with Sae, Sae would spread the photo around the school which can expel Momo.    In order to save her, Toji breaks up with Momo.  From there, we see Kairi supporting Momo from the break up.

As the class don't care about Sae going out with Toji, Kairi & Momo are getting along quite well.  Sae tried to break them apart, but Kairi manages to overcome her plans.  From there, we learn about Kairi's sad past & his affection for the school nurse who once tutored him.  We also met Kairi's older brother, Ryo.  Like Sae, Ryo is a lady killer who only plays around with their hearts.  Sae instantly loves him,  but Ryo ends up fooling around with her & tries to avoid her since he sees her as a pest.  Although Kairi & Momo saved her from danger, Sae still continues to love Ryo.  During these events, we see some hardship between Kairi & Momo as they start to fall in love.

Unclear who he loves, Kairi ends up going on a journey to clear his thoughts  Sae uses this opportunity to get Toji & Momo together.  On the day of Kairi & Momo's promised meeting, Kairi doesn't show up.  The reason why was due to an incident involving Ryo being attacked while he was meeting with the school nurse.  As Kairi enters a taxi with the school nurse to the hospital, Momo sees it & thinks that Kairi still has feelings for her.  Momo ends up going to the promised summer vacation with Toji.  Kairi sees this after chasing Momo with Sae's advice & he lost Momo.

Refusing to tell Momo what happened & trying to act normal, Kairi goes back into his playboy state.  However, he still has feelings for Momo & Momo has feelings for him.  During this time, we see the school nurse finally confessing her feelings to Ryo & accepts them.  However, Sae comes back in to Ryo's life.  We see a mini fight between the two girls for Ryo's love.  As the series comes close to a close, Kairi admits to Momo that he still has feelings for her.  This leaves Momo to decide who she should chose as her lover.  In the end, Kairi gets chosen & the story ends how it all began; Kairi & Momo being together in the same beach.

My Personal Review

I have no idea why I'm watching this series.  I believe Peach Girl is aimed for a female audience; most likely high school girls.  I could have stopped near the beginning or in the middle, but I didn't.  I guess the story has drawn me in very good.

Animation

The drawings didn't look too much like the ones you see in anime.  The characters have big eyes, but drawn different.  It's got some anime feel to it, but it's more close to manga in my view.  Even the lips are thick.  It's like the ones you see from Slam Dunk!  But it wasn't too bad.  There were times when the characters will look different.  One example would be Sae going flat like paper with a weird looking face.  She is small in this form, but it isn't consider SD form. The ending credits had character drawings from the manga I think.

Sound

It was pretty good.  The character voices were pretty good too.  Quite balance as it fit in with the scenes. 

The background music was ok, but I didn't really like it.  They fit in nicely with the sceneries, but they weren't really special.

The opening & ending theme songs were okay to me.  It wasn't something that I will be remembering the next day.

Story

The story has surprising good.  There were times when it drew me in.  It is surprising deep & I like how the third-person view (the audience) sees the story from both sides.  It really tangled with my emotions as one character didn't know what the other character did to protect him/her.

The characters did an excellent job in portraying the storyline.  With exceptions of those silly changes in character appearance, their characteristics can be related to real people.  There were times when Sae does her evil plans, it makes me want to get mad at her.  Kairi's character is unpredictable at times & adds some twist to the storyline.  To me, he went from a minor character role to a major one.

Overall Conclusion

I assume Peach Girl is anime target towards a female audience due to its strong love drama theme.  Some guys may feel strange if they try watching this anime, which I did.  Still not sure how I started watching this,  I think guys with a sensitive side should give this anime a try.  It's quite a good love story.

On a scale of ten, Peach Girl gets an eight.  The high score was given for its excellent love storyline, characters, & how the director gives the audience a third-person view to see both sides of a situation clearly.  The lost points is pretty much based on how I managed to forget some of the characters name & the story didn't stick in my mind long enough to remember.

Last updated on January 14, 2008