Toradora

All right, this review is on an anime called ToraDora (Just between you and me, it can be found on zomganime dot com).

Toradora is your basic romantic comedy of an anime. The main characters are a boy named Ryuji Takasu and a girl named Taiga Aisaka. The boy, Ryuji, is normally judged by passersby as the “tough guy” type, due to his intimidating eyes that he inherited from his wayward father. Of course, just because that’s what others think doesn’t mean that’s who he really is. So who is Ryuji really? Well, you’ll have to watch the show to really understand him, but let’s just say cleaning and cooking are some of his hobbies.

Then there’s Taiga (Taiga’s a straight up beast, no really, the word taiga is the Japanese pronunciation of tiger). She’s the exact opposite of Ryuji in just about every way, with her big eyes and her small stature she looks about as harmful as a fifth grader, but she’s very well known around her school for her dangerous attitude.

Her classmates have even given her the nickname ‘Palmtop Tiger’ that fits her personality perfectly.

Now, it would be easy to note that these two, upon meeting, don’t exactly hit it off right away, in fact they probably end up getting hit a lot more.

Their early relationship involves a lot of glaring, mistakes, and getting pummeled with a bokken (mainly stemming from Taiga’s viscous personality).

I can, however, say that eventually Taiga and Ryuji become pretty good friends without giving away much of the plot-line.

Their different personalities make them constantly entertaining, or at the least interesting to watch. Ryuji takes on a role similar to a mother to Taiga, and Taiga basically turns into a slave driver, yet you can tell even when she bosses him around that there’s a certain tenderness laced into her commands.

Ryuji doesn’t seem to mind taking care of Taiga, probably because he has to take care of his own mother (who works at a bar in the city and comes home drunk almost every night) the same way.

Yet, it’s not just a direct transformation from foe to friend; they both need something else from one another. Ironically, they both have rather large crushes on each other’s best friends, and they try to help one another achieve a relationship with them.

Their goal becomes a bit more difficult when everyone else in the school starts to think that they’re spending all this time together because they have a ‘thing’, when the reality is that they’re just plotting how to set each other up.

All in all with a well thought out plotline and good animation, I would have to give this anime a nine out of ten.