I'm Sorry; Magical Girl Wedding Peach What? Who? And Most Importantly, Why?
The 90s, man.
Tags: #WeddingPeach #Anime #Series #Manga #MagicalGirl #PlotHoles #Animated #CreepyOldMen
You’ve heard of Sailor Moon but have you heard of her lesser known knock-off, the love angel and demon slayer Wedding Peach? A group of 12 to 13 year old middle school girls are entrusted with bringing peace to the world of angels and demons through their friendship, love of love, and their obsession with getting married. Also, don’t forget the evil-turned-good mascot that has extensive knowledge of the opposing team’s strengths and weaknesses. Throw in some costume changes and you’ll get another Magical Girl Anime.
Wedding Peach is a lesser known, but excellent example of 90s anime. The plot is as confusing and random as the name. Most of the episodes follow a monster of the week format with little overarching plot to hold it all together. A good third of the show’s 25 minute run time is dedicated to transformations and character’s catch phrases. The motivations of the villains are unconvincing and poorly written. Since everyone is defeated the same way (it was the mid-90s and redrawing attack sequences over and over would have taxed the art team, we get it) – by having Wedding Peach ‘cleanse’ their evilness – it becomes unclear what the remaining three love angels are actually doing there.
The show mashes together both an ‘angels are good and devils are bad’ theme (with minor exceptions), while also getting really into weddings and everything about weddings. Listen, we told you it was super random. The main Magical Girl’s father is a wedding photographer, another one’s mother is a wedding dress designer and the third’s family runs a flower shop. The ruler of the angels is named Aphrodite, but almost every other ‘good’ character is named after a flower, a food, or a plant, while the devils are given Italian names after things in nature, like wind and river. There are some themes of Christianity thrown in as well, mostly related to the various Western wedding traditions. It has a lot going on, with little explanation of why or really any apparent reasoning at all.
What’s going on here?
The initial 3 main love angels are confirmed in the show to be around 12-years-old. Yes, 12. They are a bunch of middle school kids who are weirdly obsessed with getting married and finding the love of their lives while obsessing over the same 13-year-old boy.
The ages in general make no real sense. The trio are 12, their love interest(s) are allegedly one year older. But then there’s the angel Limone, who appears in a flashback to aid Peach’s mother, also an angel, but hasn’t aged at all in the decade in between, and in fact inhabits the body of the 13-year-old soccer team captain at school. Then there’s also the fourth love angel, Salvia, whose age is also unclear. She is confirmed to be a pure angel who has been fighting in the war since the beginning but then she also goes to middle school. But to be clear, a different middle school; not the same one as everyone else, despite transferring to that school from the US. What was that about?
There are several inconsistencies about the source of the love angels’ power. Initially, we are introduced to the idea that their power is intrinsically linked to the girls’ friendship. That plot got thrown out really fast when the fourth love angel entered the scene. Despite not wanting to cooperate with the trio, Salvia is just fine wielding her powers. Towards the end, for around the final 10 episodes, it suddenly becomes all about the hate-defying, all-powerful-love between Wedding Peach and Demon Viento (another 13-year-old boy that has been living by himself since the age of 10). Make it make sense.
When the love angels first transform, they are put into wedding dresses. Yes, full blown 90s wedding gowns. And because ain’t nobody got time or skills to fight demons while wearing a wedding dress, the love angels are forced to immediately transform into their battle sailor outfits. This leaves two questions: 1) What was the purpose of the wedding dresses if they can’t do anything in them? 2) Why are they using cheap Sailor Moon knock-off battle outfits? We don't have the answers but if you do, leave it in the comments.
In good old magic girl fashion, the powers of the girls grow as they gain new goodies. In this case, they gain something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence… no wait, it’s just the first four items of the 19th century wedding rhyme. The items all symbolize something different: old for love of family, borrowed for friendship, new for hope for the future, and blue for … love of nature? Yes, the last one is a bit of an odd-one-out but at this point, do we really continue to question the choices made here?
The Saint Something Four are used to defeat demons. Speaking of, it is rather unclear what actually happens to the baddies once they are vanquished. On one hand, at some point it seems that their souls are getting ‘cleansed’ from all evil and their remaining spirit fades away, or the launch into the sky akin to Pokemon’s Team Rocket, because as Peach explains at some point: ‘love angels don’t kill demons’. On the other hand, Salvia proclaims repeatedly how she wants to slaughter ‘em all after her ‘gal pal’ was murdered during the angel-demon war’. To top it off, there are the likes of Jama-Pi and Potamos (these are devils that have been ‘cleansed’) who end up living among humans, don’t ya know.
We also need to take a minute to talk about Raine Devila, the queen of all demons. How did she get her power, you ask? Pure spite. She had a bit of a crush on an angel who she only saw once and never talked to. When she realised that he is already in a happy relationship, she threw a bit of a temper tantrum. While we appreciate a good vengeance story and, listen, if raging spite gets you going, go for it, but this one was a tad too random in our opinion. In fact, is this even vengeance or is it just sulking. Then again, if the main cast is 12, maybe so is the queen?
Towards the end of the show, 12-year-old Peach and 13-year-old Viento want to get married because why not seal the deal before heading into battle. Did they get parental consent for this? Is child marriage legal in Japan? As everyone’s getting ready, the remaining love angels all offered their something new, borrowed, and blue for Peach’s big day just to fuck off and fight demons instead of attending this made-up ceremony for 2 seconds. Peach and Viento eventually join the battle too and die. Yes, they die, like legitimately have dead eyes. Don’t worry though, they were magically revived by Raine Devila (we think?) who for some reason was cured of her hatred after killing off the main couple. We would really like to know what was going on in the writer’s head when they plotted this.
PG turned (D)X rated?
So now that you have some idea of what is going on – and if you do, please let us know in the comments, because we’re still working it out – let’s get into Wedding Peach Deluxe. The show was rebooted in 1996 for a special 4-episode, direct-to-video season of your favorite love angels. The deluxe series, abbreviated DX, was set two years after the ending of the original anime, making the characters 14-15 years old, but was geared for a completely different audience. The original series was definitely aimed at young girls: the wedding theme, the love angels, the friendship. At least, judging from Sailor Moon and other similar magical girl anime, that’s what we assume they were going for. DX, however, takes on a more mature drawing style to say the least.
The first episode starts out reminiscent of the original anime, following the girls as they leave for vacation, with token appearances by Yanagiba-senpai, aka Limone, and Yousuke, Viento, (and that third guy, the other love interest). Once they arrive for their beach vacation, though, everything takes a sharp turn into more mature media. The love angels run around in bikinis and there is a beach montage featuring close ups of cleavage and even Momoko sunbathing topless. Nothing is explicitly shown, but considering the love angels used to exclusively talk about getting married to their (totally real) boyfriends, Lily and Daisy taking off with two random guys that approach them on the beach is a bit out of left field. Momoko, at least, is committed to Yousuke,...her husband?
Long story short, Momoko gets kidnapped by a spider demon and is attacked by the demon’s breasts. Yes, you read that correctly. It was weird and it does hint a little at tentacle porn. The girls eventually regain their memories to keep the plot going and begin their transformation. This leads to another departure from the ‘sweet’ magical girl anime of the original. While the spirit of the transformation is the same, there are a lot more little detail lines in DX depicting the, presumably, naked bodies of the love angels. Why that upgrade was necessary, we can’t say. But don’t worry, they continue with this new art direction in the ending credits with clearly nude headshots and group stills as the names of voice actors and artists scroll by. Not sure what the purpose of the new ending credits were, but it doesn’t seem to mesh with the whole Wedding Peach ~vibe~.
Nudity returns in episode four, when a devil switches the souls of the love angels with some trickster cats on Valentines Day. Along with the soul-switch, the cats keep their tails in the bodies of the love angels and get boob jobs, complete with some jumping around animations to demonstrate the upgrade. This is, by itself, strange, but the cats are feral which excuses their lusting after Yanagiba-sempai. Thankfully, the love angels’ souls are returned just in time, as the cats were taking off their shirts to sexually assault the football team captain after cornering him in the gym. The scene, nonetheless, finishes with a close-up shot of the girls just in their bras, boobs shrinking. Someone really wanted to live their best Furry fetish. It makes no sense.
While episode three is a throwaway, almost completely normal - for Wedding Peach - episode, the second installment of DX is the weirdest decision of them all. Suddenly, Salvia is dating an old man, as in, there are explicit kiss scenes and they are a couple. It is unclear whether the child abuse was a deliberate choice here or if the writers totally forgot that the protagonists are merely 14. The creep, Oasis, is the CEO of a company officially dating a 14-year-old middle school girl. We’re not sure if the creep admitting he knew she was an angel and was therefore attempting to use her angelic power to take over the world is worse or much worse, but it does introduce the idea of Fallen Angels - and then the show promptly ignores them again. While episodes one and four are clearly not meant for the same audience as the original, who is episode two for?
The 90s, man.
Wedding Peach will not be topping many nostalgia lists for 90s or magical girl anime, mainly because the plot is non-existent and the wedding theme is strange. The rest of it seems like a bad mushroom trip that someone wrote in a notebook and mistakenly was placed on a producer's desk, but the original anime at least had a shred of wholesomeness that was nixed when the DX episodes were being created. Clearly, magical girl anime had their moment in the 90s, and some can be fun to watch. The creepy deluxe edition and their crusty-old-men audience should maybe be left in the past. Not on our bingo card for 2023.
Image Credits
ADV Films (1995). Season One Cover Photo. via IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112221/mediaviewer/rm561809921/?ref_=tt_ov_i