Toradora! [DUB] (2008-2009) Review

 Toradora! [DUB] (2008-2009) 9/10

“Since ancient times, the dragon has been the only beast to equal the tiger. Even if you’re not by my side right now, I will leap through space and time and always be by your side. These feelings will never change.” – Ryuji Takasu

Hello everyone and welcome back for another anime review. Today, I’ll be going over the romantic comedy anime Toradora! Toradora is a 25 episode anime that ran from October 1, 2008 - March 25, 2009, with J.C Staff producing the series. Initially, this show wasn’t originally on my backlog, but I’ve heard nothing but great things about it, so I added it on there. Soon enough, I got around to watching it and holy shit did this show hit me in ways that I wasn’t expecting. This might actually be one of the best romcoms I have ever seen, if not one of the best anime. Let’s begin.

Our story follows Ryuji Takasu as he struggles through high school love life, trying to confess his feelings to his crush Minori Kushieda. Our story also follows the famous “Palmtop Tiger” Taiga Aisaka as she tries to confess her feelings to another student Yusaku Kitamura. After finding out about each other’s crushes, Ryuji and Taiga form an alliance to help each other get their crushes. As the plot continues, secrets will be spilled and new feelings will emerge that will end with the duo falling for each other.

Okay so this is your average rom-com story about two people slowly falling in love and whatnot, but Toradora spins this very differently. By developing the crushes and the main characters as friends and eventually the two growing close together, the show develops Ryuji and Taiga’s relationship in a very organic and natural way. The two start off by helping the other set up situations so that they can get closer to their crush. But as they continue to help each other, Taiga slowly falls for Ryuji, but because of her relationship with her best friend Minori, she doesn’t want to get in the way. The way all five of the main characters (I’ll get to Ami in a second) interact and how everything interweaves is very interesting and keeps things entertaining instead of pure blockheadedness and stubbornness (like many other romantic comedies). Ami is a childhood friend of Kitamura and she kinda throws a wrench into the workings of everyone’s relationships. She’s a decent character, but I feel like the series kinda just drops her. I was hoping the show would give her a nice ending alongside everyone else.

Speaking of characters, I love this cast. Ryuji is a very relatable MC. Growing up without a father, Ryuji lives with his mother who works nights and his retarded bird Inko. Because of how he grew up, he’s very self-sufficient, being able to cook, clean, and is an overall responsible person. Taiga is also very relatable, coming from a broken, rich family who kicked her out of the house. She lives in an apartment building right next to Ryuji (their rooms being right next to each other). She’s a klutz, messy, and has a temper that’s as short as she is. I wasn’t too huge of a fan of hers at first but she grew on me. Minori is Ryuji’s crush and Taiga’s best friend. She is somewhat of an airhead and always has a bright attitude, but isn’t afraid to get angry when needed. She is captain of the girl’s softball team and is constantly working. Kitamura is Taiga’s crush and Ryuji’s best friend. He is student council vice president, constantly working for the school. He’s smart, loyal, and always tries to play peacemaker. Ami Kawashima is Kitamura’s childhood friend, a model, and likes to mess with people. She’s kind of a bitch, always putting on a front for everyone, but her development when dealing with her stalker was cool. The chemistry between these five characters plus the other side characters was very entertaining.

There is some action here, believe it or not. However, there’s only two instances that I can remember: Taiga vs Sumire (student council president) and Ami and Minori’s fight at the ski resort. These fights had no right getting so intense, especially the first one. I kinda like the second one more because it was very surprising for me. Seeing the sweetest character throwing hands was unexpected.

So one thing I was not expecting from the show was how personal it got with the characters. Ryuji’s hatred for his absent father, Taiga’s excuse of a father, a broken family, and dealing with her own shortcomings, Minori’s sacrifice for Taiga, Kitamura’s breakdown after getting rejected, Ami snapping at her stalker, etc. Taiga’s backstory and development especially hit me the hardest. I’m not going to go into details as I feel like it’s better to see it than me explaining it. But damn, all of this added more depth to these characters.

One thing I do love about this show is that it doesn’t snub the ending (unlike Hi-Score Girl and many other rom-coms). Ryuji and Taiga both confess their feelings for each other by the end. They share a kiss, you see them holding hands, and the best part? They still act like how they normally do. This is a vibe and what all relationships should be like. Usually I see shows build up to the confession and then it ends. You never see what happens after and I’m really glad this show didn’t do that. As the final episode was playing, they did one more curveball and I was expecting it to lead into a second season but at the last minute, they made it very fulfilling. Because of this is why I’m putting this show in the upper echelon of rom-coms.

I love the show’s art style. I especially love Taiga’s design. Everybody looks great honestly, even Ryuji. Usually, I’ve noticed that the male love interests for these types of shows look bland as shit. Thankfully, Ryuji doesn’t. He’s still “simplistic” compared to the females, but that’s to be expected. The animation looks top notch too (for a rom com). I love how, when needed, the animation will fluctuate to make it so much more intense than necessary (the swimming pool incident, Christmas Eve, the fights, etc).

The music is pretty solid. The music that plays in the show is sadly forgettable, but I remember not hating it. The OPs and EDs were a bit disappointing. ED 2 was the best of these, but I still won’t go out of my way to watch it. I did like the Christmas song tho. Very nice.

So I watched this in the English dub and the voice acting is great. I love Ryuji and Minori’s voices the best. I like Taiga’s too, but I have a slight problem with hers: She is voiced by Cassandra Lee Morris, who voices Morgana in Persona 5. Nothing against her as she’s a great voice actress, but all throughout the show, all I can hear is that fucking cat and it kinda ruined her for me. I still like Taiga and her voice at times and everything, but I wish they got a different voice actress for her. It must’ve been weird for her to do Morgana as she’s basically playing Taiga in P5 AND talking to another character named Ryuji. Idk, I find this coincidence very amusing. Everyone else was great, too.

Overall, this is a great show and everyone needs to watch it. It’s very wholesome with great messages about life and love. Great comedy, great characters, great art style, great everything. I highly recommend this to everyone. This is easily one of the best rom-com anime out there. I can keep going on about the show, but I’ll leave it at this.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.