THE MOVIE:

This review contains spoilers, as it's the sixth and final disc in a series. If you're new to Peach Girl, then perhaps try the earlier reviews as a start: vol. 1 vol. 2 vol. 3 vol. 4 vol. 5

The anime series Peach Girl: Super Pop Love Hurricane has been as up and down in quality and my level of enjoyment as the various relationships of the characters in this teen soap opera have risen and fallen with endless break-ups and make-ups and everything in between. What started out as a giddily addictive serial struggled to maintain its freshness across five DVDs and twenty-one episodes. This sixth and last disc, Peach Girl - Volume 6, collecting episodes 22-25, is the do-or-die moment for the series. Will Peach Girl end up a keeper, or will it be a missed opportunity?

I hate to sound wishy-washy, but I can't really make up my mind. It's ironic, since the large portion of this volume rests on Momo having to decide whether she really loves the sensitive good guy Toji or the fun class clown Kairi. She gets a lot of criticism from others for her indecisiveness, and here I am scratching my head trying to decide why I am not whole-heartedly embracing the final installment of Peach Girl.

The first episode on the disc begins with Momo back together with Toji, forcing Kairi to make some last-ditch efforts to win her back. It's Toji that actually issues the ultimatum to Momo, commit to one or the other, but it will take all of the remaining episodes on the disc to actually settle her mind. I won't give away the choice here, but I will say I actually think it was the right pick from a writing standpoint, and the way that it comes together has a nice symmetry with earlier plot points in the serial.

I think, though, that maybe it took too long to get to this place, both in terms of the overall program and even just this disc. At this point, it feels like the animators have run out of ideas for what kind of obstacles they can throw in the path of love. Twice in these four episodes, one of the male characters gets in a fight and beat up, and it's not the first time. In fact, a conversation about an earlier plot point even reminds us that it's happened before. If that weren't enough, the first couple of shows on vol. 6 throw some heavy twists at us, revolving around Sae getting pregnant with Kairi's brother's baby. Though the resolution does allow the villainess to shift into her final character stage and redeem herself a little, it's tough to get past how dark the whole thing is. This should be a much more buoyant handful of shows, but in the final stretch, Peach Girl drags.

As the finale, it should also be as good looking as the episodes that are on vol. 1, but from an animation standpoint, Peach Girl - Volume 6 is one of the weakest. Characters are often off model and look only half completed, and movement is often stiff and awkward. It's a little saddening to see a show that started off as visually playful and excellently designed take a permanent detour into mediocrity.

THE DVD

Video/Sound:
I've praised the Peach Girl discs all along for having a bright, glitch-free full frame picture, and there is no change here. Likewise, the 2.0 mixes for the Japanese and the English audio soundtracks are of the same excellent quality that we have come to expect. On the technical front, all things are golden.

Extras:
As with the preceding DVDs, we get the opening and closing credits with textless options and trailers for other Funimation titles. There are eight trailers, and another short trailer is set up as a forced viewing before the main menu loads.

A new extra in the mix is an audio commentary on the last episode, featuring all four of the main American voice actors--the ones playing Momo, Kairi, Toji, and Sae.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The big question for me in reviewing Peach Girl - Volume 6 is not just how I feel about this particular DVD, but what it means for the entire series. I enjoyed the early volumes immensely, but then found my interest waning as the series progressed. Even so, I'd probably still rate the entire thing as Recommended, with the warning that you may not be able to sustain your enthusiasm for the show and you may feel like jumping ship around vol. 4. The letdown that I felt watching Volume 6, however, was severe enough that I am downgrading this particular disc to Rent It. While I do feel the right choices were made once Momo finally made up her mind, the train getting to that station ran out of steam. Read the Miwa Ueda manga series this is based on in full, sample the anime.

Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joelle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent projects include the futuristic romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Archer Coe and the Thousand Natural Shocks, a loopy crime tale drawn by Dan Christensen; and the horror miniseries Madame Frankenstein, a collaboration with Megan Levens. Follow Rich's blog at Confessions123.com.