If you have been reading my stuff for a while (you HAVE been reading my stuff, right?), you know of my predilection for Romantic Comedy. I had been hearing a lot about “Peach Girl” and felt I should check it out. Too bad it wasn’t ripe enough for me. (And how can you tell that a peach is ready to enjoy? The best way is by looking for a yellow ground color. The peach will also have medium-soft flesh and will smell like a peach.)

This light reverse harem show tells the tale of Momo Adachi (she is called ‘Peach Girl’ as she has a marvelous tan; all that swim team practicing). She is in love with Kazuya “Toji” Toujigamori (or Boy 1), but she also has feelings for Kairi Okayasu (or Boy 2) and she cannot decide between the two. Both fill her up emotionally, but both are equally demoralizing to her spirit, so she runs pillar to post with these two.

Adding fuel to the fire is Sae Kashiwagi (or, closer to the mark, let’s call her Sai Cotic). She spends an inordinate amount of time spreading lies and made-up facts about Momo, to make certain that it’s Momo fighting Boy 1. Or Momo fighting Boy 2. Or Momo fighting the world. And Sae doesn’t even care to date the boys; her goal is to humiliate Momo while pretending to be her ‘friend’. It doesn’t matter. I say it’s spinach and the hell with it.

The problem is that 90% of the problems could be resolved or even avoided if people spoke in FULL SENTENCES! I was getting ready to ask Conan Edogawa to come over and resolve the Case of the Missing Brain Cells. At the critical juncture, when the right thing needs to be said, it’s not! And this is done with an alarming frequency. What? Is everyone on a word budget? (“Can’t. Sentence.”) So, everyone goes off half cocked and makes a bad situation even worse, so we spend time complaining about two problems: the initial problem and the failure to correct the initial problem. And when we get things settled, we break it up again!

What’s so triply frustrating is that this goes on for 43 episodes! (No, it doesn’t; it’s only 25, bit it FEELS like 43). You reach a point that you hope a piece of errant space debris would fall out of orbit, comes crashing down to earth and impact upon the school, wiping them all out. I would weep hot tears of joy over that one. Instead, we get too much storm und drang. Why does Momo completely shrug off Kairi? Is Toji really that stupid? And just what the heck is Sae’s problem anyway? These are all questions that you’ll be asking yourself after just a few episodes, plus the biggest one of all: why am I still watching this?

This is a shame, as it is a good-looking show. They invested a lot in character design and it presents itself fully. Everyone looks like a model and you can understand why Momo would fall for these folks. Even when Sae goes into her anime tropes (turning into a paper version of herself, or looking rather neko), it comes off very well. But it is still all for naught. You can paint an outhouse heliotrope, but it still stinks.

And since I violated one of my personal rules in regard to watching anime (“If you feel the show is not going to get better, then leave, as it will NEVER get better.”), I only have myself to blame for toughing it out. There are other shows out there that drove me nuts (“Gundam Seed Destiny”, “Piano”, “Monster” and “Blassreiter”), but not to the degree of this one.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork            8 (It is a good-looking show, one of the better ones)
Plot                   6 (Pretty standard love triangle plot)
Pacing               7 (Gets a bit sluggish in parts)
Effectiveness    5 (You lose interest; well I did)
Conclusion        7 (It ended, but it was a cheat out, cheap-out ending)
Fan Service       3 (A similar show would “Wedding Peach”)
Overall              5 (Pretty much a waste)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. But don’t bother.