To call the anime adaptation of Peach Boy Riverside a mess would actually be an understatement. A “mess” is usually caused by accident, trying to do something well and then tripping for some reason or the other. No, the fate of this anime was sealed before an episode even aired.

The staff decided to take a fairly logical flow of events from the manga, and then shuffle them around, just so the final episode could end on some sort of action climax. This butchers the show right out of the gate. It makes you wonder why certain characters are even in certain places at certain times without properly communicating a sense of time. Occasionally Sally, one of the two protagonists, will have an outfit change, but other than that, it makes the timeline seem jumpy and difficult to really wrap your head around, especially for weekly viewers. If you’re a manga reader, this approach does very little, since you already know what happens in the story and can already say what goes where. Hell, the anime itself manages to both spoil the result of the final episode before it even happens and make the ending of another episode a huge ass pull because it brings in a character the audience hadn’t gotten to know yet. So, this is detrimental on both ends.

I’ve seen some comparisons made to Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Baccano before the series aired, in regard to airing episodes out of the intended order from their source, but both of those series better justify this particular decision. Haruhi was mostly a slice of life comedy, with only some plot gradually thrown through the background, so the lack of consequence in the majority of runtime fit the kind of show that it was, while letting individual episodes stand out on their own. Baccano meanwhile was an incredibly fast paced show; many events of importance were happening at once and one of the three plotlines was an action setpiece on a train that was constantly evolving.

Peach Boy Riverside doesn’t have the forethought of either series. It’s tied to a fairly strict continuity of events each episode, at a pace that can be incredibly slow at points, and there’s no distinct vibe that the out of orderness adds to spice up the viewing experience, beyond learning certain things earlier than they’ll actually come up. To any new watchers, there’s nothing to gain from the way the staff aired this anime, which I will judge as such since that’s how it was released.

Jee, I’ve talked so much about the out of order timeline and its detrimental effect on enjoying the show that I’ve barely talked about the show itself yet!
So, what is this story that the staff felt was so intriguing that it needed to be told out of order to try and invest a brand new audience? A painfully generic fantasy romp that makes Akame ga Kill seem inspired by comparison, even with its folktale origin.

In a fantasy world that’s incredibly non-descript, half the show follows Sally, a princess with the magical power of getting hot and bothered. The other half follows Mikoto, a swordsman who seems dedicated to solving the systemic problems of the world by murdering nearly every oni he comes across, but not when one of them needs to be alive for plot reasons, or tag along with either protagonist for reasons that don’t add too much beyond more powers for the action scenes. The show likes to abuse the “pet the dog” trope for these characters, giving a determinably evil race just enough sympathy or a cute design for them to stick around, but not enough to really……understand them. It’s mostly a series of slow conversations underlying limp, weakly animated schlocky action.

Characters talk about various things, places get destroyed, but the show doesn’t do enough to get you invested in its world. It’s a very thrown together world, the kind that’s unfortunately very common in low rent fantasy stories. Every place is just a place to host plot. If each setting the characters visited had a distinct visual identity, perhaps it would better serve the out of order pacing of the anime by making it easy for viewers to remember what place was shown when, but alas. It’s not a plot to really expect much from, but at times it’s trying to say something about racism.

It’s not entirely lip service either despite not having much punch. How humans treat demihumans (or ogres) with disrespect versus how demihumans harshly react to the human characters is something that’s occasionally brought up as a drive across several episodes. This is at least pondered in Episode 7, and creates the distinct ideologies of the two protagonists.

Sally…is not a great female lead for this story. Beyond the in-poor-taste tentacle fanservice you see right from Episode 1, she’s mainly there to be incredibly ignorant of the world around her as a once sheltered princess and, again, get hot and bothered during the action scenes……………………..like once. If the first episode hooked you on the possibility of her going cuckoo for Coco Puffs in the action scenes, I hate to say it but this hardly ever happens again; one action scene later when she uses the power, she’s fairly measured. Crunchyroll at least wanted to market the series with the scene where Sally goes crazy with her special shonen power, but if you want more of that craziness, it’s missing in a show that’s already committed to being hardcore schlock.

Instead, she’s mostly just shown as painfully naïve. By the third episode, which takes place a bit later in the actual timeline, she’s deciding between the guy who wants to kill all the ogres, but whom she personally knows has her best interest in mind, and a total snake who claims to be wanting the races to co-exist. She’s one of the characters hurt most by the out of order pacing, participating in action but not driving a plot that’s above the audiences’ heads.

Mikoto is at least a little better; there’s actually an episode in the season that shows us their crybaby backstory which is…………fine, probably one of the few episodes where its timeline placement doesn’t really damage the cruddy pacing of the series. Sometimes his attitude is enjoyable. Otherwise though, he alternates between being nonchalantly morbid and IMUSTKILLALLTHEOGRES much like a certain other Shonen protagonist known for yelling. His voice actress is very sweet sounding, to the point where, in combination with the wiki considering him “non-bindery”, I assumed maybe this character was a non-binary protagonist, which could’ve been fairly progressive for anime. But nope. Quite the opposite, we get an incredibly uncomfortable gender panic scene in Episode 4, where Sally is shocked at him being flatchested and then lands on top of him as she realizes further. Another episode literally ends on a joke of someone else realizing the character is a femboy. GREAT.

The rest of the cast is pretty dull: a collection of tropes with little to really contribute. There’s witches, nuns, tiny priest looking ogre girls, a boring guy who only exists to be the straight man, and a series of ogre designs which serve more as action obstacles than anything else. With exception to Mikoto and one other, there isn’t much to really care about in the limited time the anime has; most of these relationships are shown out of order at any rate.
The best character in the show is easily Frau, one of the few for whom the racism lip service idea has some kind of fruit to bear. Frau has a distinct design as a bunny schoolgirl shaped like a friend, and their loyalty to Sally is at least charming and believable in a couple of the action scenes, despite the weird worldbuilding to justify their revival mechanics not really being. Still, they’re the most distinct character in a fairly bland and boring cast.

Perhaps the best I can say visually is that there’s at least……………..some creative designs? Like the aforementioned Frau, or the giant walrus and chicken demon things from the first episode. There’s some variety in even the more generic ogre characters. The art style is passable, but you won’t find much in the way of fluid animation to come from it. Most action scenes compromise of several motion tweens moved in sequence, and the occasional big explosion. It doesn’t go nearly as ridiculously bloody as you might hope from a show like this; a Kouta Hirano anime this certainly isn’t. There’s no cost cutting CGI, which is good, until the final episode when there's a hideous CGI tree monster with half committed compositing. It keeps a consistent art style in place, but these scenes don’t do enough to stand out or flow well at any rate. Similar for the soundtrack; there’s a couple decent tunes drowned out by the dialogue, but nothing you’ll think of after this show ends. The ED though is one of the lamest I’ve ever seen visually in some time, with almost nothing going on but panning up on still shots of characters in various places; no unique personality of an animator shining through.

Peach Boy Riverside is mostly pretty trash, but not entirely from the base of it. I at least like the idea of having two protagonists with distinct ideologies regarding their world’s systemic conflict going on their separate journeys and occasionally crossing paths, even if that happens too frequently in conjunction with lackluster worldbuilding, action scenes being schlocky without being memorable and the out of order story the anime staff planned out not being very considered for narrative investment at all. You’re not gonna get much from here. If you really care about the story that much, just read the manga. But if you’re just a shonen or action fan, I’d say skip this self-inflicted mess. There’s much better options for you out there in both a building structure and bombast from action scenes.