CB Anime Review: Toradora

There are some animes that may not seem to interesting after just one epsiode, but if you keep watching, you may come to like or even love it.  That was my experience with probably one of the best romance animes of all time, Toradora.

After finishing Clannad: After Story, I wanted to find another anime in the romance genre to enjoy.  Thanks to Reddit and MyAnimeList, I discovered Toradora.  Actually, I watched the first episode of Toradora a couple months before watching Clannad, but wasn't too impressed so I didn't continue.  I decided to give Toradora a second chance after finishing Clannad and it was probably one of the best decisions in my anime watching life. 

Toradora is about Ryuji, a nice guy who has a bad reputation and a secret crush on his classmate Minori.  On the first day of school, he meets Minori's best friend, Taiga Aisaka, a short and fierce girl who has a secret crush of her own.  That crush just happens to be on Ryuji's best friend Kitamura.  After discovering that they have a crush on the other's best friend, Ryuji and Taiga form an unlikely partnership and begin this sweet and funny adventure of love and high school.

Now, as I mentioned in my Clannad review, romance animes are fairly predictable in terms of endings.  So, when I watch a romance anime, I watch it for the character's journey rather than the ending.   That doesn't mean that romance animes have bad endings, because Toradora’s ending, while predictable, is fantastic!  You would think that it might be difficult to get a full 26 episodes out of this show, but the creators did it with flying colors.  Each episode is funny, heartwarming and makes you want to drop everything you have to do for the rest of the day and just marathon the rest of the series (Which I kind of did)!  I mean, Toradora’s episode 2 had some moments that other shows would have been saving for the series finale, but the show was still funny and original and able to continue for another 2 seasons.  

In the beginning of the story, there are 4 interesting main characters, and halfway through we get an equally interesting 5^th.  Toradora’s main cast is small, but extremely well developed, especially Ryuji and Taiga.  Since they are the main characters, most screen time is devoted to them and you get to see them grow and develop greatly as the series progresses.  The other three characters have their moments to shine as well, and though we don’t get to see what happens to them at the end of the show, we still hope for the best.  There was also a great group of side characters in Toradora who were also very well developed and acted as comic relief.

Now, while the characters were great, the art was pretty average.  It did shine at some of the major plot points in the series, but on the whole, there was nothing spectacular about it.  The character designs on the other hand looked great, and except for one of the main characters, Toradora's cast had fun and original personalities.  If you watch the series, you can see that one particular character looks and sounds like another very well-known female anime character.  Honestly, it isn't too hard to figure out, but she was still a great character in the show.  

One reason that I wasn't initially intrigued by Toradora was the subtitles.  There wasn't anything wrong with them, but I was tired of reading my animes instead of watching them.  Luckily, I found the dubbed version when I began to watch the series again and they are pretty freaking amazing.  As I've mentioned previously, there are some animes where the English voice doesn't match up with their character, and this is another rare occurrence where the English voices and dialogue were absolutely perfect.  Way to go NIS America!

I'm going to warn you right now, that if you watch this series, most likely it will be a "void anime".Void Animes are, to me, shows that you watch and after you finish, you feel like there is a void in your life.  You look around and ask yourself "What do I do now?"  It's not necessarily a bad thing; it just means that you really enjoyed that show and now that the story is over, you don't know what to do.  This has happened a couple times for me.  Some of the animes were really good series like Spice and Wolf and others were pretty terrible animes like Aquarion Evol.  The next step is usually for you to just go and find another show to watch.  Just be careful while you are searching, because you won't another series exactly like the one that left the void, so don't expect to find an immediate replacement.  If Toradora had elements that you liked about it, use those elements as a starting point to find your next series.  Or, you could go a completely opposite direction and watch something completely different.  It's up to you!  The power is in your hands!

If you haven't yet realized it, I'll make it simple for you; I LOVED TORADORA!  It was one of the best combinations of romance and comedy that I've ever seen.  Clannad was really good, but Toradora now reigns supreme as my favorite romance anime.  If you want to watch something light and sweet, I hope you will take the time to enjoy this show, because it really is a fantastic anime and a great lesson about friendship and love.

Peace and Love