Toradora!, is a romantic comedy anime that follows the main protagonist Ryuiji form an unbelievable friendship with a short girl named Taiga. She has become infamous for being a tough sharp-tongued young girl. Toradora! Is published and funded by Namco Bandai Games. The anime was released on the first of October 2008 and runs for an entire season. The season consists of 25 episodes, and each episode is a minimum of 24 minutes long. The essential theme in Toradora!, presented to the audience, is that love conquers even the most stubborn of people.
Toradora!, is an anime that follows the two main characters Ryuiji and Taiga and their romantic development from being friends to wanting to confess their love for each other. When watching the first episode, viewers notice how the art style of the anime is very appealing to the eye. From the start, the main characters and the side characters are more vibrantly colored than most of the other characters. And that makes it easy to determine who is who. The voice acting in the anime is very good with hearing the true emotion that the voice actors give makes the characters feel more alive. In addition, the animators do a good job introducing the love interest that is Taiga by having her demonstrate and show us that even though she appears to be a small fragile girl, she has the spirit of a tiger thus why her nickname Tiger Taiga. All of these things make the opening of the anime very promising and appealing especially if you like the comedic value that the opening presents.
After watching Toradora! I noticed how the story writers of this anime paced the growing love between the two main characters very well. The story writers managed to spread and develop the feelings between Ryuiji and Taiga very well, to the point where it comes abundantly clear to the audience that there’s something going on between the two characters before the climax. Like for example, the writers make it so that both the characters develop a friendship and try to help each other come out and confess to their individual crushes. While the characters don’t know that they are each other’s crushes and that leads to them confessing to each other. And especially having Taiga be Tsundere adds to the anticipation of the Taiga confessing to Ryuiji. The voice acting of two characters is very well done. Especially The actress for Taiga, Rie Kugimiya and how she perfectly captures the attitude that the character poses and how soft spoken she can be. Combine that with how Junji Manjima the voice actor for, Ryuiji being caring and thoughtful but ignorant to Taigas feelings and Taigas hard and cold outside appearance that truly makes her a Tsunderre, but also having a warm and caring personality under her mean persona.
The thing that bothers me about this anime is the length. In my opinion I think it doesn’t have to be a 25 episode anime, but instead a 12 to 13. I believe this because as you go on I feel the story begins to drag a tad bit with the romance building up between Ryuiji and Taiga. But anime makes up for that drag with the comedy aspect when the story would appear to be dragging the comedy would make me disregard the drag and through that would give a key moment in the terms of Taigas advances towards Ryuiji. Overall I had a blast with this anime, the ways the writers made the characters feel alive and made you actually root for the characters to finally confess was an amazing experience to behold. I’d definitely recommend this anime to anyone who likes anime with strong character development and loves a good love story.
All in all, Toradora! was a joy ride to watch, with the strong character development and beautiful voice acting I can see why it is so highly liked and rated. It is so well liked that it earned an 8.3 out of 10 from one of the most well known anime review sites titled MyAnimeList.com. And i can see how it deserves that praise, this anime is a masterpiece. From everything to voice acting to art style this anime earned its title as a cult classic for anyone who loves romantic anime’s. I’d have to give it the same grade or if not a little higher at a nine. This anime earned its place as a favorite in my heart and I must suggest this as a must watch for those who love to indulge in well calculated story telling.
