As I remembered this show being incredible, and as it’s on my list of things to buy at Otakon, I figured I’d give Toradora! another watch to fill in what holes exist in my memory. And because things like random rewatches basically mean free blog content, I decided to take some notes as I watched.

Said notes ended up longer than expected, so I’ll have to split them into three parts. I invite you to take advantage of the lag time between posts to rewatch Toradora! yourself!

Episode 1

Taiga casts an ominous shadow over Ryuuji’s life before the two ever meet.

Said shadow breeds mold. Ryuuji cleans the mold.

The show actually sets up its B-plot — by which I mean all the family troubles that occur throughout — earlier than I remember. Ryuuji can’t bear to be compared with his dad; as far as the first-time viewer knows, Yasuko is kind of a deadbeat, foisting the role of adult off onto Ryuuji. And of course there’s not a parent to be seen in Taiga’s big, empty apartment.

I’m almost convinced that this is Rie Kugimiya’s best work ever. If she’s this good elsewhere, tell me now so I can rectify the grievous holes in my experience.

Episode 2

Ryuuji is so lame. His hobbies are cooking and cleaning, and sometimes he says ridiculous things.

Hazukashii serifu kinshi, dude.

But of course that’s why I so enjoy him. There’s generally more going on in the mind of the teenage male than, you know, mammary taxonomy. Maybe the anime Ryuuji is somewhat less normal than the novel Ryuuji — and that’s alright, I say. I don’t know where this puts me in the spectrum of literary opinionists, but I think the main character of a story needs to be a little atypical, or else why’s the story about this person in the first place? Human nature is best explored through the eyes of someone who is a little off, as truly “normal” things are rendered pointed (though ideally not quite stark) in contrast. Look at Leopold Bloom, for example, or Akari Mizunashi.

Episode 3

You may know that I always side with the tsundere. I should find Minori a little annoying, at least. But I don’t, which I suppose is a testament to how well-written these characters are.

She’s more than a genki girl, that Minori Kushieda. She’s outright weird in the most delightful way. And she remains an intriguing mystery.

Why, after all, does she spend all her time at school and work — what is it about her home life that keeps her away? Or maybe she’s simply restless, as later evidence seems to suggest. Or maybe…maybe we could speculate all day, and that says something about Minori’s effectiveness as a character: she keeps our interest, an impressive writerly feat in itself.

Episode 4

Dammit, Kitamura.

You know what this is? This is a shoujo show for men. You’ve got all the romantic thrusts, parries, and feints, but it’s all from the point of view of a young man — a young man who shares certain things in common with shoujo protagonists, most notably his dauntlessness (and his domesticity? Don’t know; not going there). And I don’t suppose I need to explain how the female characters are moe constructs — in fact, I especially appreciate that Toradora! demonstrates how characters born of moe can still be compelling in terms of their relationship to a plot, though it’s hardly the only example of that.

I didn’t realize previously that Toradora! was written by a woman, which is interesting in itself.

Episode 5

Oh, Ami — how I longed to hate you! How, in the end, you didn’t let me!

Taiga’s flyswatter attack feels immensely satisfying — even now, when I know that Ami will eventually say all the things I’d say to these people if I could, and that, in a certain late episode, Ami’s fist will carry with it all my hopes and dreams.

Ami’s a strange specimen. In most everyone else’s case, we see how virtues become flaws, and thereby balance out into traits; Ami is introduced as flawed from the beginning, with the provision (via Kitamura) that the friendly (and manipulative) act she puts on is less desirable than the selfish, conceited Ami who emerges in the presence of people like Taiga, people who won’t stand for her nonsense. But even the latter seems like an extreme, and what we observe in Ami’s case, as things move along, isn’t really the shedding of one facade; it’s the shedding of two, or perhaps the integration of personality variants into a more functional whole.

Episode 6

Do we see the real Ami in this episode? Not to any great extent, I’d say; even her more genuine lines sound forced. But this is only the beginning for her, after all. She’ll get better.

Probably the closest thing we get to the Ami who shines in the second half happens when she confronts the stalker.

I remember being a little dissatisfied with all the Ami-heavy episodes prior to the midway point the first time through. Watching this again was a good idea.

Oh, and Kitamura is kind of a douche, isn’t he? I’m talking about his using Taiga for things like his Ami Restructuring Project when he knows damn well how things stand with her. Though at least he has already given Taiga a straighter answer than Ryuuji gets from Minori throughout most of the show.

Episode 7

Taiga is a bro.

This episode is about breasts. No, actually, it has a lot to do with Taiga and Ryuuji’s physical relationship at this point.

We see that Ryuuji isn’t too terribly concerned about confronting Taiga in his underwear:

Maybe not a huge deal, but it’s something.

Then, of course, there’s Taiga’s revelation of her swimsuit problem:

Ryuuji has the grace to show a little shame at this point.

But that notwithstanding, they’re pretty comfortable around one another, physically speaking. There isn’t any pressure on them to succumb to the mating urge with one another. And it’s for this reason that the climactic grope is something far more (or far different — or far less?) than the harem romance grope to which we’ve become used. It worries both Ryuuji and Taiga, to some extent, but it isn’t really a tremendous deal. It’s an unfortunate accident, but not something to get hung up on — in short, it doesn’t really matter, and that’s unusual.

tl;dr Taiga and Ryuuji have something rare, even by episode seven. Theirs is something between a sibling relationship and the relationship between two same-sex straight friends. It’s no wonder that they worry so much about messing things up in the end.

Episode 8

I still don’t think that Ami becomes too terribly interesting until this episode. And of course we have the beach episodes coming up, too.

More than anything, this episode simply feels necessary, so it’s difficult to say much about it. Taiga becomes confused about her feelings right around the time that either her or Ryuuji should’ve. The initial wingman relationship wouldn’t have carried the show forever — and so I suppose I should say that this episode is an example of good pacing.

There’s the end, too, which, while a little weird, is hard not to feel good about.

By the end of this episode, the nakama has assembled, and while I remember episode 13 being a killer midway point, I wonder now whether the show isn’t more logically divided into thirds. We’ll see how that turns out.