Wedding Peach: Legend of the Angel of Love, or just Wedding Peach (1995) is one of Sailor Moon’s earliest successors, airing at the same time as Sailor Moon SuperS and Stars. A project spawned by Nakayoshi’s rival magazine Ciao, Wedding Peach echoes many of Sailor Moon’s themes— the Greco-Roman motifs, the miniskirted battle suits, and the team of close-knit but oft-bickering friends. However, the series also helped to shape the budding magical girl genre itself: its preoccupation with romance (especially of the star-crossed kind) would find followers in the later Tokyo Mew Mew and Mermaid Melody, while its vaguely Judeo-Christian “angels vs demons” warfare would be explored later in Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.
One of Wedding Peach’s greatest claims to fame is its seiyuu cast: the main trio includes Kyoko Hikami (of Di Gi Charat), plus one of Yukana’s first anime roles and a chipper pre-Evangelion Yuko Miyamura! The opening and ending songs performed by this trio (nicknamed “Furil” for “Frill”) stand out quite a bit— the series had music contributed by Tomoki Hasegawa, who has gone on to compose for NANA and Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei. Wedding Peach contains a surprising amount of talent given its reputation!
