Rune loves Riku!
The mermaid Rune and the human Riku first met years ago as children and now Rune has hopped out of the water and into Riku’s life, declaring herself his new bride! Riku is less than happy about this turn of events, especially given how horny this fish out of water is….
Peach Mermaid has exactly one joke and that joke is that Rune is horny. The story makes weak attempts to build a story beyond that — like making other characters semi-horny — but overall the fact that it’s a one-joke story and far longer than a one-shot is far and away the story’s greatest weakness. Even worse, this isn’t a particularly funny joke and the delivery is dull! There are ways it could have been funny but instead the “humor” usually derives from a combination of Riku’s unwillingness to engage with Rune and, once Riku decides to actually give it a go, Rune’s “cold feet” results in her legs turning back into a tail meaning that they can’t have sex (which also strikes me as being a coward’s way out for a story in the “monster girl” genre).
The story also feels a little bit transphobic at parts as it’s revealed that one of the reasons Rune is so desperate to bang Riku is because mermaids, like some species of fish, will sometimes switch genders and with the way things currently stand Rune will turn into a male during the next mating season like her older sibling before her (who we meet and just seems, odd, like Haru Akebono forgot to give them any kind of personality beyond “possessive”). You would think that perhaps this reveal would add a sense of urgency to the story but nope! Riku becomes more willing to engage with Rune as time goes on but that’s more due to his own growing interest/attraction to her, not out of a desire to help Rune remain the gender she wants to be.
Despite having read two volumes of this three volume series there isn’t that much to say about characters other than our two leads. There are reoccurring side-characters, most of whom are members of Riku’s college club (and therefore seem to only exist to help dress Rune up in costumes and to provide well-meaning, though usually not great, romantic advice for her) but they’re all even blander. The manga likes to hint at a possible love triangle at a few points but the story doesn’t even have the sense to go for it and add at least some conflict to this story! The lack of narrative momentum in this series is quite irritating, as even a silly, slice-of-life-ish rom-com like this one should have some stakes, some progress of events, and some change in both the characters and their relationship. Peach Mermaid has none of these things, heck the only thing it truly has is forgettable art which lacks any stylistic qualities that would make it memorable. This isn’t a manga that I expect to see making the jump to a physical release anytime soon and I think that manga readers who have been overwhelmed with the number of digital releases put out by Kodansha USA in the past few years can safely ignore this title and focus on some others instead.