Sae Kashiwagi is the main antagonist in Peach Girl. She hates Momo, yet subconsciously wants to BE her.
Sae meets Momo at the entrance exams when Momo lends her an eraser. Momo misses the first week of school, and when she finally starts, everyone has formed their own cliques, and the only student who will talk to her is Sae. They begin a sort of friendship, but Momo quickly finds that Sae is a copycat and a boyfriend-stealer. Of course, because Sae has an innocent face and is a brilliant liar, nobody believes that she could ever do anything bad.
Sae only wants boys that other girls like. Momo knows this, so she falsely tells her that she has a crush on Kairi, just to throw Sae off of her scent (Momo actually likes Toji). Kairi rejects Sae, and Sae is so angry at Momo that she starts spreading rumors and convinces the entire class that Momo is a slut, and also feeds lies to Toji that cause him and Momo to fight and break up (after dating for just a few days). Momo is bullied so bad that she almost drops out of school.
Kairi arranges a way for Toji to see the true Sae. He has Toji hide so that he can overhear a conversation between Kairi and Sae, during which Kairi gets Sae to admit how she is able to manipulate the whole class and turn everyone against Momo. Sae, flattered by Kairi’s false admiration, arrogantly boasts how easy it is for her– all she has to do is cry and she is assumed to be the victim.
Toji hears everything and feels terribly ashamed that he doubted Momo, and while Momo is being bullied by her class, Toji storms into the room and defends her, and also shouts to everyone “MOMO IS MY GIRLFRIEND, YOU IDIOTS!” This shocks everyone, because Sae had told everyone that Toji was HER boyfriend, and that Momo was the one trying to come between them. The whole class sees that Sae is the evil one, and everyone apologizes to Momo, leaving Sae alone and friendless.
Momo still shows kindness and pity to Sae, thinking that Sae must have learned her lesson.
Wrong.
Sae is more evil than ever. When she starts dating supermodel Goro “Gigolo” Oji, she becomes popular again, and while she now has a famous boyfriend who can buy her whatever she wants, she still feels unsatisfied, because as long as Momo is happy, Sae isn’t.
Sae concocts an elaborate scheme to have Momo’s virginity stolen. First, she lies to Goro and says that Momo is trying to steal him, and of course, Goro believes her. Sae tells Goro that if Momo can spend just one night with him, she’ll have what she wants and will leave them alone. Goro believes her. Sae drugs Momo which causes her to faint in Goro’s arms, which Goro takes to mean that Momo is desperately in love with him.
Momo wakes up naked in a hotel bed, and Goro tells her that he has taken her virginity, expecting her to be happy about it. Momo is terrified and bursts into tears, and Goro is confused, because Sae had told him that Momo wanted him. (Goro never penetrated Momo, but he did undress her and let her believe that he raped her).
Sae takes pictures of Momo and Goro in the hotel room and threatens to sell the pictures to the tabloids if Toji doesn’t dump Momo. Toji resists at first, but eventually submits and breaks up with Momo to protect her from exposure.
Peach Girl: Change Of Heart
In Peach Girl: Change of Heart, Sae meets Kairi’s older brother Ryo and becomes totally enamored with him. They sleep together, and Sae believes Ryo when he promises to make her happy. But Ryo only sees women as a way to make money, and he gets Sae mixed up in his pyramid scheme. To cover inventory costs, Sae begins prostituting herself and posing for sleazy magazines. Momo and Kairi confront Sae as to why she is doing these things, and she proudly proclaims that she loves Ryo.
Ryo doesn’t care about Sae in the least, and sets her up to do a porn shoot. Sae refuses, and Ryo says that’s OK, but never to show her face to him again. Ryo later tells Sae to her face that he only set her up for the porn shoot as a way to scare her straight, and that whatever there was between them is over. But Sae chases after him. Momo begs her to forget him, as it’s clear he’s an abusive creep, but Sae screams “I KNOW, BUT I CAN’T HELP IT! I LOVE HIM!!!”
Over the course of Change of Heart, as Sae is betrayed and mistreated by Ryo, she begins to develop a conscience and starts to feel remorse for all the things she’s done to Momo. She gets in touch with Goro and has him apologize to Momo (as if an apology can make up for assaulting someone). Goro admits that he never actually did have sex with Momo, and that she’s still a virgin.
Sae also returns the incriminating photos to Toji and tells him he’s completely free. She apologizes for messing up his life and asks if he still loves Momo. He does.
Sae keeps trying to be with Ryo, but when she finds out that he actually loves Misao, she gets incredibly angry, and tells Ryo that she’s pregnant. It turns out to be a false pregnancy, but not before Ryo hires some goons to beat her unconscious and cause a miscarriage. Ryo’s ex-girlfriend Morika sneaks in and pays the goons MORE money to beat up Ryo instead. Sae leaps in front of him and gets hit in the stomach with a wooden bar. She is taken to the hospital, where it is confirmed that she was never pregnant.
By the final volume, Sae and Momo talk, and Sae admits that she has no regrets about her pursuit of Ryo, stating “Ryo never loved me back, but it was the first time I was able to love someone that much.”
Peach Girl: Sae’s Story
In the spin-off series, Peach Girl: Sae’s Story, Sae has to repeat her senior year of high school (since she ditched so much while she was prostituting herself). She’s furious and frustrated, especially since Kairi and Momo get to go to college together. She keeps ditching and hanging out at the university, and pursues different men, thinking that if she can date a gorgeous guy, she’ll be happy. She is also stalked by her childhood sweetheart, Kanji Saruwatari, who has just moved back to Japan from Malaysia.
It is in these volumes that we see what Sae’s home life is like. Her parents are cold to her, and treat her like she’s an embarrassment to the family. We also see dark flashbacks of when Sae was a child, and she had asthma and was very sickly and weak. People around her suspected that she wasn’t really a legitimate child of the family. Sae was lonely and isolated as a child, and because her birthday was so close to her older brother’s, her family would often combine their birthday celebrations, so Sae never felt like she got her own special day. Her parents seemed to favor her brother and sister over her. It is suggested that this dark time was what caused Sae to become the spiteful, manipulative person that she became.
Character development:
Sae begins the story as a petty, jealous mean girl who lies and cheats to get her way. She manipulates those around her by crying on cue and convincing everyone that she is the victim. It takes a few horrible experiences for her to change, but she eventually starts to feel remorse for her actions. After repenting for her previous actions, she still is a master schemer and loves to plot ways she can mess with people’s lives.