Have you ever had a moment like this: You just got enough courage to put a love letter in your crush's bag, and then some mongrel picks up said bag and begins telling you that bag belongs to him and the bag beside it belongs to your crush who happens to be his friend's. It would be pretty embarrassing if some random stranger started reading your love letter, so naturally the only course of action you'd have left would be to break into that guy's house, get you letter back and give him a big enough concussion that he'll never be able to tell anyone what was in the letter...
...Of course, then he tells you the envelope that contained the letter was, in fact, empty. Naturally the embarrassment you'd feel would undoubtedly be worse than if he had actually read the letter (At least then you could have bashed the mutt's brains in). Then he comforts you by showing you all the embarrassing stuff about his own crush (who happens to be your friend). Having come to an agreement not to bash the mongrel over the head with a wooden sword, you both decide to help each other out with your respective crushes. Comedy, romance and oddly poorly done drama ensues!
Toradora
Studio: J.C. Staff
Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai
Original work by: Yuyuko Takemiya
Licensed by: NIS America
Number of episodes: 26 (25 + the OVA)
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama
Story:
Toradora's story is pretty much cut and dry high school romantic comedy. While the main characters are trying to hook each other up with each other's friends, it's clear right from the start that Taiga and Ryuji themselves will end up with each other. Pretty much everything else is the standard stuff you'd normally find in a high school centric series.
While the story itself is not exactly the most mind blowing thing ever written, the comedy elements of the series are extremely enjoyable.
Sometimes the humor can be a bit crude but ultimately it was always the most thoroughly enjoyably aspect of the series. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the other parts of the series.
The series' attempts at drama are rather half-assed. That is to say, whenever the plot tries to introduce some kind of interesting character development moment, the conflict is quickly resolved before any actual development occurs. That's not to say the characters don't get pretty good development in the series as, well, they do. It's just that it feels like they could be so much more interesting than they are. Because of these moments, a lot of the actual development the characters get feels a bit choppy at times.
Another thing about the drama is it makes itself feel hollow. The series quickly makes it clear that every time the story brings drama into the mix, it will wrap it up a little bit later in the episode. This quickly began shading my opinion more negatively towards the series at times which really did not help the story out especially later in the series when the drama and romance elements became heavier.
Speaking of romance...
The romance elements of the series really don't fare much better than the drama elements. While it's clear right from the start that Ryuji and Taiga would eventually end up together, there's really no romantic build up between them. Throughout the series both of them build more of friend relationship rather than a romantic one. They spend so much time helping each other out with their own love interests that they begin to fit more as friends with each other than potential lovers. While the series does occasionally has scenes that move them more towards a romantic relationship, they're so dispersed, infrequent and quickly sidetracked for comedic elements that they end up being rather null for romantic build up.
Ultimately, the series' biggest problem is that even though the series clearly projects that the main two characters would end up together, when it finally got to the point where they'd hook up together, I found myself not wanting them to be in a relationship and just remain friends.
Characters:
As I mentioned above, the characters do get some pretty good development even with all the missed opportunities for more.
Ryuji Takasu is the main character of the series. Much like Kodaka fromHaganai, he is quickly assumed to be a delinquent because of his appearance despite his gentler personality.
This is the face of a murderer... Of germs and uncleanliness!
As far as protagonists go, Ryuji was actually quite enjoyable. Most of the humor around him tends to focuses on the dissonance between his more delinquent appearance with his housewife-ish traits. Personality-wise, he's quite pleasant. He's a nice character but doesn't have the dumb as bricks intelligence that tends to bother me about most harem protagonists. He's a pretty hardcore neat freak to the point where he gets most of his joy from cleaning
Much of the series he's primarily in love with Minori, though unlike Taiga around Yusaku, he can actually act sane around her.
Taiga Aisaka is... Well, she's a Tsundere. In fact she might be the most Tsun, Tsundere that ever did dere. More or less she follows the same pattern as most tsundere characters. Tending to resort to more violent measures to hide her feelings at the beginning and gradually gravitating more towards her dere side then her tsun one as the series progresses.
Most of the humor around her tends to focus on her smallness, violentness and tendency to demean Ryuji, such as calling him a mutt. Personality-wise she is... Well, she is basically the epitome of tsundere.
Throughout most of the series, she's primarily in love with Yusaku, but, unlike Ryuji with Minori, she tends to act a bit more flushed around him.
Minori Kushieda is kind of the opposite of Taiga. While Taiga is more violent and grumpy, Minori is almost constantly upbeat and cheerful. She's athletic and a workaholic with an eccentric number of part-time jobs. Though she comes off as an airhead, she tends to actually be quite perceptive of things and smart. She's Taiga's best friend and she tends to be just a little too selfless at times.
Yusaku Kitamura is kind of a smart idiot. He's vice-president of the student council, wears glasses and is best friends with Ryuji and childhood friends with Ami.
He also does bachelorette parties.
...And he wears a shirt about as much as Takamatsu from Angel Beats or Aikuro from Kill la Kill.
On the outside, Ami Kawashima seems like a nice, pleasant and mature girl. On the inside, the only way to really describe her is with "Cold, heartless bitch". She tends to hide her true personality from people though the other four all know what she's really like. She works as a model and does not get along with Taiga and Minori for much of the series
Outside of the main characters you also have the various classmates of the main characters.
The most depressed teacher I've ever seen in an anime, Yuri Koigakubo
Ryuji's somewhat childish mother, Yasuko Takasu.
And, of course, Ryuji's pet mentally retarded parakeet, Inko
As I've said above, while the characterization isn't bad, it feels like it could have been so much more than it was. All of characters were pretty enjoyable in their own right, but Ami really felt the weakest of them all. She didn't seem to have much purpose throughout the story, and her development felt rather rougher than the others.
Animation:
If there is one thing J.C. Staff is good at, it's making cute yet fun art-styles that are also pretty consistent. Toradora is no exception to this. The animation itself is pretty fluid with very few drops in quality and a relatively vibrant pallet for the series.
The only time I really saw a drop in quality had to do with the one action scene in the series. While the animation in the scene was pretty fluid, the consistency of the visuals took a nosedive compared to the rest of the series. Other than that, the animation was pretty solid.
Sound:
The soundtrack for Toradora is quite interesting. While I probably wouldn't put it up with my favorites, it was still memorable and easily associate-able asToradora's. Just the mixing of more electronic beats and sounds with a dose of more solid instruments like pianos and horns really gives it an interesting vibe.
The first opening does an excellent job of capturing the vibe of the music and visually capturing each of the character's personalities while also being just plain fun. Unfortunately, neither of the closings really came off as memorable to me, and I'd usually only listen to the "my silky love" Engrish lines of the second opening before skipping the rest of it.
Openings
Opening 1:
Opening 2:
Closings
Closing 1:
Closing 2:
Language-wise, both the Japanese and English dubbings are surprisingly equal in quality. Erik Scott Kimerer (Ryuji), Cassandra Lee (Taiga), Christine Marie Cabanos (Minori), Johnny Yong Bosch (Yusaku) and Erika Harlacher (Ami) all pull off their roles perfectly and are very much in sync with the original Japanese voice actors. To be frank, NIS America did an incredible job of the casting of the dub.
Personal Enjoyment:
While I certainly found the comedy elements of the series enjoyable, the poorly done drama and romantic scenes really zapped the enjoyment out of the series. The last couple of episodes especially felt like a slog, though the OVA did lighten my mood significantly. The first opening really was fun to watch and listen to but the second just lacked the fun-ness of the first. The fact that both dubs are equally solid is definitely a plus for it, however.
Ultimately I did enjoy the series well enough, but I feel it could have been so much better than it was.
Ultimately I did enjoy the series well enough, but I feel it could have been so much better than it was.
Final Verdict:
After assigning scores to:
Story: 2.75
Characters: 3.75
Animation: 4.25
Sound: 4.50
And my own personal enjoyment: 3.75
I have given Toradora an assigned score of:
3.80/5.00
Recommendation:
Erg, this one's going to be a bit hard. I'd say streaming Toradora as my recommendation. I certainly don't regret buying it myself (Which is good considering I payed for the very not cheap Premium Edition with the hardcover artbook...) It's definitely not perfect. Toradora can be streamed fromCrunchyroll and Hulu and can be purchased off of NIS America's site and wherever else you can find it.
Alternative anime to check out:
Okami-san and Her Seven Companions
Another J.C. Staff series that, like Toradora, mixes comedic elements with drama and romance elements (though with significantly more focus on the comedic elements than the other two). Every character is inspired by both western and Japanese fairytales. The main three characters being inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, with the main female lead (Okami-san herself) being the Big Bad Wolf, the main male lead and love interest being The Hunter and Okami-san's friend being Little Red. Other characters range from the Tortoise and the Hare, Urashima TarÅ, and even a character that's kind of a mix of Morgan le Fay from King Arthur and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella.
One of the things I especially liked about this series is that while for the most part it is light-hearted, it also deals with some very dark subject matter and does so exceptionally well.
Haganai (I Don't Have Many Friends)
Haganai is, well, it's a harem about making friends. It's pretty damn crude. Characters tend to be pretty damn dumb, (i.e. they make a club for the purpose of learning to make friends and never realize that by doing so they've made friends with each other.) The main two female leads can be very, very unpleasant to each other. That being said, the series has a lot of wonderful little heartwarming moments here and there and can be pretty funny damn at times.
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