Peach Boy Riverside

Finding her hometown to be tiresome, Princess Saltorine "Sally" Aldike wishes to leave the kingdom of Aldarake in pursuit of adventure. When a lonesome, long-haired traveler named Mikoto Kibitsu helps Sally in an attempt to flee from the palace, her passion is further fueled. Sally asks him to take her on a journey, even after Mikoto warns her of the peril—something made more evident when a large group of ferocious oni appears before the kingdom. Revealing himself to be the demon slayer Momotaro, Mikoto deals with the threat and promptly leaves Sally behind.

One month later, Sally musters up the courage to leave behind royalty and embark on her long-desired journey, filled with a new resolve to find Mikoto once more. Despite realizing her ignorance of the dangers that lie beyond the kingdom's walls, Sally discovers more truths in the world that she had been oblivious to—including a hidden side of herself.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Peach Boy Riverside has been published digitally in English by Kodansha Comics USA since November 10, 2020, and in print since June 29, 2021. The series has also been simulpub through K Manga.

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Kibitsu, Mikoto

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Aldike, Saltorine

Main

Frau

Supporting

Carrot

Supporting

Dog

Supporting

Winnie

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Millia

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Grator, Hawthorn

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Jucerino

Supporting

Sumeragi

Supporting

Reviews

Jul 9, 2024

typewritermonkey

Recommended

Preliminary (50/? eps)

PBR is a bizarre fantasy-action-drama. The worldbuilding and premise is a frankensteined mess that grabs whatever it pleases from other other settings, refuses to elaborate, and moves on. It's got humans, witches, demi-humans, talking dogs, oni, demons, and angels, all as distinct agents to the plot. From JRPG it's got the generic fantasy continent, human vs non-human strife, swords and magic. From Naruto comes magical eyes and from Attack on Titan, a revenge-obsessed edgelord that would make Eren Yeager blush. Humans with the Geass are granted almost total physical immunity against Oni (which are apparently born of human hatred), and can one-punch (exorcise) even the ... strongest Oni, but these powers are useless against non-Oni creatures, like some card effect from MTG. The Oni on the other hand, are the primary antagonists and have shamelessly devil fruit-like powers. The human exorcists move the plot, traveling around the continent, one obsessed with genocide, the other one crusading for a peaceful coexistence between the races, while the Oni cabal/World Government manipulates them on their chess board.

Sound fascinating? It gets even better. From an episodic story telling perspective, PBR is stupidly good. The foreshadowing, the pacing, the character dialogue, the little details in the panels, the suspense building, the cliffhangers, they are all excellent. But what pushes it into insanely good territory, is the quality never drops, unlike most works that start strong but then coast off their readers' investment. It's as if every chapter treats itself as the first chapter of a shounen. You can test this yourself. Open up a random chapter and you will notice it doesn't require you to already know or care about the plot, to communicate the weight of the pages. This alone makes PBR worth reading as a case study for storytelling.

Tragically, outstanding storytelling makes not an outstanding story. As hinted by its unapologetic premise, GBR struggles to synthesize those chapters into something greater than the sum of its parts. The prioritization of every chapter being exciting on its own legs demotes the overarching narrative to the backseat, which would still work, as in Konosuba, if there wasn't simultaneously, an obvious buildup toward the Final Battle. If every character interaction has to feel profound, they all end up blending together. If every deuteragonist and tritagonist needs to have their struggle and redemption arc, then who cares about the angst in this chapter, if we know everything will be peachy within one or two episodes? The weak protagonist motivations stand out like two sore thumbs and are baffling-ly low-effort in contrast to the rest of the work, and rather than subverting expectations by confronting and leveling up the protagonists' banal ideologies, their developments have been ironically neglected so long it would be awkward to address now.

Written by Cool, who is better known for his misfit-SoL works, PBR is a surprising but welcome genre swerve, as it manages to be both refreshingly eccentric, and moderately ambitious. Although I heavily criticized the paradoxical storytelling that is at odds with its narrative, it is at the end of the day only 50-some chapters in thus far, and has plenty of time still to fix its flaws. If you enjoy stories at the creative level, then PBR is surely great food for thought. If not, there are still plenty of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

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Sep 27, 2021

Marlo200765

Recommended

Preliminary (47/? eps)

i haven't watched all the anime yet but it was not in the correct order. So i read the manga... guess what? Its pretty amazing, the story starts with a princess who's bored in her country, after leaving the country, she meets friends of different kinds and traveled with them. I enjoyed it alot, the art is very good, in comparison the anime does good too. The character i like is Winnie and Hawthorn. Not that i ship them but i like them, i like Mikoto too when i learned his past, tbh i dont like the way Mikoto kills Oni. The fighting is ...

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Feb 3, 2021

Hellschwarz

Recommended

Preliminary (20/? eps)

Let me say this first: I usually do a lot of research before starting a series. I'm the kind of guy who wants to know if a show is worth my time before I start it, the Problem is, that I get spoiled some major plottwists if they happen early on in the story.

Luckily, at the time of this review there exists ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that could spoil me about this Manga. I read it because it was recommended, and oh boy I do not regret it.

Whille I cannot say much without spoiling, this is an Adventure in a fantasy world, but it's a dark one. ...

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Poll: Peach Boy Riverside Chapter 50 Discussion vinaykumarhs210 - Jan 26, 2022	2 replies	by Shinn_Asuka »» Sep 5, 2022 5:44 AM
Poll: Peach Boy Riverside Chapter 49 Discussion DarkwindJR - Feb 4, 2022	0 replies	by DarkwindJR »» Feb 4, 2022 10:22 AM
Get New Anime Adaptation July 2021 Syureria - Aug 6, 2020	5 replies	by prettyprint »» Aug 24, 2020 4:18 PM

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