Afterthought: Toradora!

Toradora! wasn’t even on my watchlist when it started. But my interest was piqued when the name Taiga Aisaka started popping up everywhere on the anime and otaku community. So I  decided to watch the anime out of pure curiosity and without a single clue what the series was about. I didn’t find the first few episodes particularly interesting and my first impression of Taiga was “oh my, what a violent chibi girl”. But I didn’t drop the series obviously and kept watching. And after finishing the last episode today, I was glad I didn’t.

When I started on the first few episodes, I expected the anime to end up nothing more than a typical series about high school life. Well, it is about high school life but is much more deeper and complex. And never would I have imagined the series to evolve into a love story in the making as well. I don’t typically like watching love story, but the way the anime was played out, the complexity of the love quadrangle and depth of the characters altogether made this series a really intriguing one.

The anime is adapted from its light novel series and I feel it was very well delivered by the production team. The animation quality is decent and the general pace of the storytelling is good. For an anime series of 25 episodes, it is also quite remarkable that none of the episodes are so-called filler episodes.

While the storyline can be predictable at times, the exquisite story telling manages to make me stay glued to the series and tuned in right till the end, with each episode getting more and more absorbing. Many of the episodes are also thought-provoking and conveys messages about friendship, love relationships and sacrifices. Episode 16 for instance, that of Kitmura’s confession and Taiga’s confrontation with Sumire, is one of the most powerful and intense episodes in the series. That episode alone teaches one on the true meaning of loving another person.

The major characters of the anime are really a group of misunderstood high school students. And where matters of the heart is concerned, it is never easy. The anime manages to delve deep into the emotions of these characters and one can feel the intensity of their feeings. For those that tend to get attached to characters in a series, it can be quite straining, though captivating, to watch the series especially in the second half when all the characters started to get real emotional.

I basically liked all the major characters in the anime … Ryuugi, Taiga, Minorin, Ami, Kitamura … which makes it especially difficult to decide what kind of an outcome I would have wanted and who Ryuugi should have choosen in the end. On a side note, I was a bit worried that Ryuugi was really going to forsake Yasuko and leave her behind. Now that would have been bothersome to me because I like Ya-chan. I didn’t like how Ryuugi treated her in the second last episode and hated it when she cried.

Eventually, I was glad how it all sorted out and was able to accept the anime’s ending, even if I do feel sad for Minorin. Not sure if there will be another season, but judging from the way things ended, I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s a need to as well. An OVA would be more fitting to tie up the loose ends and let fans know how lives of the major characters got on after their graduation from high school.

Toradora has been quite a compelling anime series and I really like it in the end. To sum it up, I would like to say that this is an anime well worth anybody’s time.

 

Synopsis (edited based on AniDB):

Based on a light novel series by Yuyuko Takemiya, illustrated by Yasu. Toradora!’s story begins with Ryuuji Takasu as he enters his second year of high school. Despite his gentle personality, he has a natural outer-appearance which makes him look like an intimidating delinquent so he is utterly hopeless about his chances of getting a girlfriend anytime soon, and does not have many close friends either. He unexpectedly knocks into “the creature ranked most dangerous in the school”, Taiga Aisaka, who goes by the nickname “Palmtop Tiger” and who just happens to also be in his class.

Taiga has a negative attitude towards others and will not hesitate to snap at people. After a series of initial misunderstandings between Ryuuji and Taiga, the two attempts to help each other in order to improve their relationship with their crush (Taiga has a crush on Ryuuji’s best friend, Yuusaku, and Ryuuji has a crush on Taiga’s best friend, Minori). Unknown to them, however, people they know from school start to become curious about their strange relationship together and rumors begin to spread about them.

[ Official site ]