Peach Boy Riverside (Episode 5) – Frau and the Vampire

Sally’s party visit a town plagued by a vampire. Carrot gets to see first-hand how Frau is treated by the humans and it pushes her too far. Without her power, she can’t do anything, but the vampire might!

Peach Boy Riverside (Episode 5) – Frau and the Vampire

What happened?

After arriving at the town with the vampire problem, although Sally was fine sleeping rough outside the town and away from the vampire, they quickly found that the humans despised demihumans. Hawthorn suggested that they get a room and Frau should sneak in later. Carrot is incensed by the way they are avoiding the issue and making Frau hide to appease the humans.

While Hawthorn and Sally get the room Frau and Carrot go shopping. Frau finds some carrots to buy and is treated terribly by the shopkeeper. Carrot is furious and can’t understand why Frau tolerates it. She says that she’s used to it as it’s been going on forever, but people like Sally make it better. Carrot is struggling to believe that Sally is not a part of the problem too.

Carrot wants to kill all the humans and tacks down the vampire who is actually a high ogre with the ability to manipulate blood. Kyuketsuki tells Carrot to kill the humans herself but is intrigued by Sally after learning that she killed Sett, the walrus ogre, and Juki, the tree ogre. Frau tracks down Carrot and asks her to come with her, no doubt having heard some of their conversation.

Kyuketsuki says he has some business with Sally so Carrot should go with Frau. However, Frau now has business with Kyuketsuki. They fight and it ends when Frau’s entire upper half is destroyed by his ogre cannon! That’s when Sally arrives, drawn to his ogre power. She loses it and attacks. Kyuketsuki’s ogre powers don’t work on her, but they do her clothes, which he uses to restrain her.

Carrot tries to stop him, but then Frau revives and unleashes her dark powers. Frau defeats Kyuketsuki in one punch. He then reveals that he had been living as a human. He even found a girl that made him happy, however, on their wedding day, his ogre power took over and he killed her. Kyuketsuki hoped Carrot would be free of that curse.

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What did you think?

I really enjoyed this one. It had a great atmosphere, especially for the fight with Kyuketsuki and it really highlighted the challenges that Sally faces as she tries to change the perception of demihumans and ogres. In short, discrimination is rampant and it has a big effect on Carrot. It’s her first time seeing Frau treated like this and it’s making her angry.

She sees Sally not using her powers against humans as her agreeing with them and allowing the behaviours to persist. Unfortunately, you can’t fight discrimination with brute force. Familiarity is the key. The more people experience those that are different to them the less likely they are to blindly hate someone for some trivial reason. This series has a good message and I think it’s handling it quite well so far. That is largely because I’m watching it in the intended order and not the messed up release schedule.

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What have you learnt?

I have no idea what the person responsible for releasing it in this manner was thinking, but they are out of their mind and should not be given this much influence on anything ever again. If you had been watching this as it was released this episode would have come before Frau named Carrot. That happens in episode 7! Hawthorn hadn’t joined the group. That also happens in episode 7.

When Carrot was trying to convince Kyuketsuki to kill all the humans and told him about Sally, she said that Sally killed Sett and Juki in one punch. In the release order, Sally killed Juki in episode 12. Come on! They’re referencing stuff that hasn’t technically happened. Also, the character interactions in this episode wouldn’t make sense if you’d followed the release schedule. Then, we have the revelation about Frau and her demon wings that didn’t come up in episodes 11 and 12 when fighting Juki. I’m so glad I have the chronological order to go by. Just thinking about people trying to get their heads around this as it aired makes me so angry.

Chronological viewing order – 4, 1, 2, 7, 11, 12, 5, 6, 3, 8, 10, 9

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Episode Highlights

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Other reviews in the series

Anime

• Season One
  • Episode 4 – The Princess and the Peach
  • Episode 1 – The Ex-Princess and the Harefolk
  • Episode 2 – Ogres and Humans
  • Episode 7 – Species and Belonging
  • Episode 11 – Ideals and Reality
  • Episode 12 – Resolutions and Goodbyes
  • Episode 5 – Frau and the Vampire
  • Episode 6 – Carrot and Millia
  • Episode 3 – Sally and a Crossroads
  • Episode 8 – Companion and Companion
  • Episode 10 – Horror and Resentment
  • Episode 9 – Mikoto and Mikoto

Manga

• Series Review
  • Volume 1 – This World is Full of Monsters, Both Human and Otherwise…
  • Volume 2 – An Eerie Glow Marks the Start of an Awakening…

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