Peach Boy Riverside

Right from the off, I think it is necessary to analyze Mr. Ueda's directorial decisions, and what I do and do not understand about them. We have the anime series Peach BOY Riverside, however, Mr. Ueda chose to build the story around a girl called Sally!?! Why did he do that? It is perhaps because her backstory is much more interesting in the beginning, and we find out some important things regarding Mikoto himself later on (chronologically speaking, it is actually in the last episode), plus Sally's backstory has more interesting elements at the start of the season than what was going on around Mikoto, and she has a much larger ensemble, so I understand that decision... So then Mr. Ueda decided to mess around with the order of the episodes and release them according to his "vision". In an interview I read with him, he says that it was because that way the meaning and message of the show (regarding what Sally is going for) would stand out better. As a matter of fact - not for me! Even an idiot could understand what it is about and it just does not matter what order Mr. Ueda releases the episodes in. The main ideas of this show are easy to see, and they are clear even without putting the episode that confronts and deals with everything the most (and which chronologically belongs slightly past the halfway point) rather dramatically at the end! If Mr. Ueda had said something along the lines of "We were supposed to adapt a certain part of the manga, and we wanted to go with the original source material, so there are no big jumps and changes in the plot, however, taking into account the normal running times for an anime series, we would have just ended up with an episode that tells us the main male protagonist’s backstory, yet is not dramatic and compelling enough for the finále, so we decided to mix it up a bit and put an episode at the end that we found had much more impact," then I would have believed him, and considering where and how the anime series ends chronologically, I might even start to understand it. The way it was done, however, means I am not sure if he made a good decision, and I know that many audiences were totally put off by it, and I can understand those people who are waiting for all the episodes to come out so they can watch them in a chronological order. However, in all honesty, with the way it was sometimes weirdly mixed up, the episodes did not really feel connected to each other (so it was like someone showing you some random puzzle pieces and expecting you to see the picture they would make)... However, in all honesty, it is a shame, because Peach Boy Riverside is not a bad anime series. There is quite an interesting narrative, it confronts different world views and there are quite a few friendly and endearing characters. Animation-wise, however, I was not particularly impressed, and the soundtrack did not do much for me either, and in all honesty, I am a bit annoyed that the most interesting and likable character (Frau) I want to know more about is not actually one of the two main protagonists. On the other hand, because of that character and her air of mystery (and a few others like Winnie, Sumeragi, and maybe even Inu) there is some potential that the narrative could develop and be much more imaginative and sophisticated than I thought at first glance, and so even now at the end of the first season, I find myself wondering what will happen next. I just keep asking that they please keep Mr. Ueda away from this next time, because I do not want to put another puzzle together like I did here. 5.2/10. (2021.09.16) (kevesebbet) (több)