The Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 anime TV series will continue the adventures of “Sally” Saltorine Aldike, Frau, Carrot, and Mikoto Kibitsu. But when will Peach Boy Riverside 2 come out?
The first season of the anime was produced by Japanese animation Studio Asahi Production. In 2021, the company also worked on the Wave!!: Surfing Yappe!! anime, Heaven’s Design Team, and Dolls’ Frontline.
The Peach Boy Riverside anime project was helmed by director Shigeru Ueda (Gekidol). Writer Keiichirou Oochi (The Quintessential Quintuplets, Hinamatsuri, Girlfriend, Girlfriend) handled the series composition.
Artists Satomi Kurita (Princess Connect! Re:Dive, 3D Girlfriend) and Masato Katou (NAMUAMIDABUTSU! -UTENA-) were the character designers. Composer Takaaki Nakahashi (Pan de Peace!) created the music.
The Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the Peach Boy Riverside OP “Dark Spiral Journey” was performed by Q-MHz, while the ED “Footsteps Across the Night (Yoru wo Koeru Ashioto)” was performed by Mitei no Hanashi.
The first season of the Peach Boy Riverside anime was streaming with English subtitles on Crunchyroll, VRV, and Netflix Japan (not Netflix U.S., Hulu, or FUNimation). Crunchyroll’s Peach Boy Riverside English dub hasn’t been announced.
The first season’s finale, Peach Boy Riverside Episode 12, released on September 16, 2021. The entire first season was released as a single Peach Boy Riverside Blu-Ray Box set volume on October 13, 2021.
This article provides everything that is known about Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 release date predictions
As of the last update, Kodansha, Studio Asahi Production, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 release date. Nor has the production of a Peach Boy Riverside sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed, this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 premiere date will occur in the future.
The Peach Boy Riverside reviews have been lower than average. Many anime fans said the reason for the low scores was due to the anime’s first season not following the manga’s chronological order.
(Please the manga comparison section below to read about why the director felt the anime’s presentation of events needed to be rearranged.)
The studio has been speaking openly about how they rearranged the story, and they do offer a chronological order version, but the problem is that it’s only available through dAnime Store. As such, the vast majority of anime fans will be watching the broadcast version, and many feel it renders the plot points feeling disjointed or disconnected.
The question is whether that disconnected feeling reviewers complain about will translate into reduced Blu-Ray box sales and streaming revenue numbers. It’s also possible many anime fans will wait until Episode 12 releases and then binge-watch the entire season so there could be a spike in streaming numbers after the season is over, which would be unusual.
As such, anime fans will just have to wait and see if Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 is renewed. But so far, the signs are pointing to this anime only getting a single season, which is a shame since it’s one of the few stories that tackle prejudice and discrimination as a central theme (the 86 anime is another).
Peach Boy Riverside manga compared to the anime
The story for the anime TV series is based on the Peach Boy Riverside manga series by creator Coolkyousinnjya (COOL Kyoushinsha) and illustrator Johanne. The creator is best known for creating the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga series, which is being adapted into an anime series by Studio Kyoto Animation.
Coolkyousinnjya actually started the Peach Boy Riverside story as a web comic that began being digitally published back in January 2008. But then, in 2015, Coolkyousinnjya teamed up with manga artist Johanne to begin serializing an art visual remake of the story in Kodansha’s Shonen Magazine Pocket.
As of August 17, 2021, the Peach Boy Riverside manga remake was up to Volume 10, which included up through Chapter 45.
North American publisher Kodansha USA began releasing the official Peach Boy Riverside English translation digitally in November 2020, whereas the physical print edition began coming out in June 2021. As of August 2021, the physical English manga was up to Volume 2, with Volume 3 scheduled for October 19, 2021, Volume 4 for December 21, 2021, Volume 5 for February 1, 2022, and Volume 6 for April 5, 2022.
The Peach Boy Riverside anime is strange. And I don’t just mean the story and its eclectic characters. The anime version basically tosses the manga’s order of events into a blender in an attempt to heighten the tension and suspense while creating a solid stopping point for the anime’s first season based on a theme.
In practice, this meant the episodes were intentionally not broadcast in the chronological order set by the manga. In an Animate Times interview with director Shigeru Ueda, he explained that there were multiple reasons for the changes.
When the project was in pre-production, the director spoke to series composition writer Keiichirou Oochi about how the anime’s story would end. They’d worked together in the past, and the problem they faced was that the manga was between volumes 6 and 7 (chapters 20 through 27) at the time, and the director felt it was difficult to create a solid stopping point out of the existing source material.
“If we animated the series based on the manga as is, it would end in the middle of the story,” Ueda explained.
In order to resolve this dilemma, the director reached out to Kodansha representatives and the original manga creator. They apparently told the anime studio staff they could do whatever they wanted with the story to make it work in the episodic TV format, including developing an anime original ending to the season.
While it was nice to be offered such flexibility, the director said he would have kept the anime’s timeline chronological if the original creators had asked. Ueda also wasn’t interested in creating an original ending.
“I’ve felt this way since I was a fan of anime and manga as a kid,” Ueda said. “I want to see the anime depict what was drawn in the manga!”
Can I get a loud Amen!? The director resolved to fix the stopping point problem by shuffling the manga’s timeline. However, he recognizes that doing so is “tricky,” and it’s difficult to explain to fans the necessity for doing so.
It was also difficult to explain to the voice actors. The script was written in chronological order, but the episode productions and voice recording were done based on the TV broadcast order, which left the actors sitting in their audio booths feeling pretty confused and lost.
“That was also done intentionally. I wanted the cast members to experience the shuffling in the same way as the viewers and have it be a part of their performance,” Ueda explained. “That’s why some of the cast members came to me early on and asked, ‘Why are you shuffling?’ I couldn’t tell them in detail because they wouldn’t get lost if I told them my intention, so I just told them that I had intentions. … When I explained the plan properly after all the recording was finished, everyone was convinced. So I think I succeeded.”
Reordering story events for optimal impact is not that unusual in the anime industry, but it’s hard to think of comparisons to Peach Boy Riverside.
Such wholesale rearrangements are fairly common with Romcom anime like Kaguya-sama: Love is War and Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, where manga chapters focused on certain characters or themes will be combined together into a single episode. Most people won’t even notice such changes since chapters are often self-contained story arcs that don’t rely on the buildup from previous chapters.
But Peach Boy Riverside is far from typical since it not only jumbles the beginning, it jumps to an end in Episode 3 by presenting a critical juncture where Sally must make a choice. Then flashbacks are supposed to connect the dots and explain how this turning point in their journey was reached.
This approach can be quite confusing to some viewers, especially since the anime’s script didn’t attempt to smooth over the differences. For example, when purple-haired Ogress Meki joined the group, her name literally meant Eye Oni, but then they suddenly started calling her Carrot without explaining how she received the name from Frau.
On the positive side, the overall pacing was fairly good since most episodes adapted only three or fewer chapters. The major exception was Episode 9, which blew through the 6 chapters that contained Mikoto’s backstory.
Originally, this story arc occurred after Mikoto broke his sword and while it’s being repaired Dog tells his story. Although this story arc should have been part of Peach Boy Riverside Season 2, changing it so Mikoto was dreaming his nightmarish past due to being put asleep by the Sleep Oni Daminki (which also happened in the manga except it was limited to foreshadowing) actually worked fairly well since knowing Mikoto’s backstory earlier puts the overall conflict over prejudice in context.
The anime mostly cut scenes of the elder Mikito aka Hiko killing Oni, and better established why he was tired of the fighting, but the episode also skipped elements that tied into other plot points. For example, the old man Oni Yaki that tried to take over Sally’s Kingdom at the very beginning recognized the young Mikoto and greatly feared him since Yaki was present for the Kishin’s downfall.
Otherwise, the anime skipped scenes involving the Kishin and Yaki. The most disappointing part is that the anime skipped most of the battle between the elder Mikoto and the Kishin, which meant audiences didn’t get to see how the Kishin could use other Oni’s abilities.
Here’s a guide to watching the anime in the manga’s chronological order:
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 4: Manga Chapter 1
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 1: Manga Chapters 2, 3 (partial)
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 2: Manga Chapters 3 (partial), 4, 5
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 7: Manga Chapters 6, 7, 8 (partial)
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 11: Manga Chapters 8 (remainder), 9, 10, 11 (partial)
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 12: Manga Chapters 11 (remainder), 12
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 5: Manga Chapters 13, 14
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 6: Manga Chapters 15, 16
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 3: Manga Chapters 17, 18, 19
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 8: Manga Chapters 20, 21, 22
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 10: Manga Chapters 23, 24
- Peach Boy Riverside Season 2
- Peach Boy Riverside Episode 9: Manga Chapters 34 (partial), 35 – 39 (skimmed), 24 (partial)
A secondary issue was who would be considered the main character. The opening manga chapters switch between the perspectives of Mikoto and Sally. But the anime staff felt that the story would work better as an anime if there was a single main character as the focal point for the first season’s theme.
The director admits that the majority of the anime staff besides himself wanted Mikoto as the main character, but Ueda felt that the manga’s story really began when Sally and Frau met for the first time. Thus, it was decided to make Sally the main character, and Mikoto would be introduced in a flashback.
It’s hard to say if this approach will boost the storytelling or come off as yet another confusing contrivance to audiences.
The anime director also said that the anime might be based on the manga version, but he recognizes there are many fans of the original webcomic. Thus, he tried to put thought into incorporating elements of the web version.
The director must be a “man of culture” since the Peach Boy Riverside octopus scenes that depicted Sally’s octopi phobia were definitely not in the manga. (It’s possible these scenes come from the original webcomic.)
Normally, at this point, I make a prediction about how the anime season will end, which was made more difficult than usual. The director says that the first season concluded with a “moment when Sally grew up,” but most of the episodes adapted story arcs that take place after that point in the chronological timeline.
All in all, the finale, Peach Boy Riverside Episode 12, found a stopping point corresponding to manga Chapter 12. But in chronological order, and ignoring how Mikito’s backstory was shifted to much earlier in the timeline, the first season ended with Volume 7: Chapter 24.
It’s a good stopping point since the anime shows the characters heading off to Legedia right after a big fight. Going any further would have required condensed pacing since the next story arc lasts for several volumes.
The good news is that by 2022 the manga should provide enough source material for making Peach Boy Riverside Season 2. Better yet, English-only manga readers will also be able to start reading ahead in 2022.
Peach Boy Riverside 2 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
The last time audiences watched the anime, Sally had come to terms with her power and had decided on the future course for her journey. But chronologically the next step was the month-long journey to Legedia, the land where discrimination based on race is not allowed.
Along the way, Sally’s group runs into Roam Oni, a high ogre who considers himself to be… cool?! If anything, Sally considers Roam-san to be too loud and annoying and she frequently boots him into the sky Team Rocket-style.
Worse, Roam’s goal in tracking Sally down is far from noble. He literally wants to take Peach Girl Sally’s head just to boost his popularity!
Still, Roam does manage to score some points early on. He finds Sally to be a huge hypocrite since she advocates for the coexistence of Oni and humans yet she’s killed every single Oni that got in her way.
Roam’s goal is to have a life achievement that will stay in the minds of others. He’s afraid of dying and then being forgotten.
On the other hand, Roam came traveling with a tiny little ogre appropriately named Tiny Oni, the weakest of all the ogres. Tiny only tagged along with Roam after Boom Oni died and now Tiny needs someone strong to protect her. Of course, that means Tiny will be partnering up with Carrot aka Maki (Eye) Oni… not these dreadful humans.
Circumstances don’t seem to be improving, but then Tiny is kidnapped by knights on the lookout for the Oni. When Sally helps Roam he decides a better way to become famous is to help create the coexistence between Oni and humans.
Both Mikoto and Sally’s group quickly find themselves in trouble. The Sleep Oni Daminki had recently put Mikoto to sleep and this time when he wakes up he’s lost himself, unable to tell what is the past and what is the present…
To make matters worse, Imperial Oni continues to toy with Mikoto. The mysterious priest ogre will help heal Millia, but only if Mikoto agrees to kill an ogre… which turns out to be Roam Oni! And Mikito doesn’t care that Roam is preaching coexistence.
While Roam puts up a strong fight it’s obvious that Mikoto’s experience and talent with the sword will win the day. But a high ogre named Red Mask Oni witnesses the fight. Becoming annoyed by Imperial Oni’s manipulations, Red Mask decides to intervene to save Roam.
(“Save” is relative since Team Roam goes blasting off again.)
As for Sally’s group, audiences will learn that Frau once had a “friend” named Cobb who calls himself the Demon King. This fearsome person used to have a human form but now he appears as a black harefolk that’s festering with dark flaming energy.
The Demon King also isn’t here for a friendly chat since he’s seeking revenge on Frau for taking away his name and sealing his power. The Demon King’s goal is to remove Frau’s seal, kill everyone dear to Frau, and then restore his own power.
Easily defeating Sally and Frau, the Demon King kidnaps Carrot and dares Frau to follow him. Frau was so damaged that the angel Atra needed to heal Frau.
It’s revealed that Heaven is responsible for choosing the body that souls receive in the cycle of rebirth so there must be a traitor in Heaven responsible for empowering the Demon King… or something else. This time Atra, the “Heaven’s Bow” that’s defeated millions of demons, will be joining Frau to hunt down the Demon King since the restoration of his power threatens both the heavenly and mortal realms.
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Peach Boy Riverside Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!