Official summary: Despite Ryuji Takasu’s gentle personality, his eyes make him look like an intimidating delinquent. Class rearrangements on his second high school year put him together with his best friend, Yusaku Kitamura, and his hidden crush, Minori Kushieda. Along with these two comes Kushieda’s best friend, Taiga Aisaka. Her delicate appearance contrasts with her brutal personality. Secretly in love with Kitamura, Taiga agrees to help Ryuji with his love interest as long as he helps her get closer to hers.

Over these past few days, I’ve been trying to think of the perfect anime to review for my very first review. I was thinking of a few different ones, but lately I’ve been re-watching Toradora and now I remember why this is one of my favorite anime ever.

What to expect: a gripping story, an emotional connection to the characters, some comedy sprinkled throughout, but overall, a classic romance story.

What not to expect: Annoying characters, the feeling of being dragged through the story, pointless episodes, laugh out loud comedy.

Toradora starts off with introducing the two main protagonists, Ryuji Takasu, the gentle, but rough looking highschooler and Taiga Aisaka, Ryuji’s fiery and bold classmate. When they find out that they are in love with each other’s best friend, they agree to help each other out in getting their crushes to like them. Although all of this happens in only the first episode, I think it’s amazing how it perfectly displays each of the two main characters personalities, while introducing the side characters and their personalities, and at the same time making it feel natural and perfectly setting up the plot for the entire series.

Even at the beginning of the series, Toradora is one of the most emotional anime I’ve ever watched. I don’t mean that there’s crying and confessions every minute, I mean that the show immediately grips you in with an amazing connection to the characters and their feelings that I haven’t seen in any other anime. I would find myself mirroring the emotions of the cast as the story progressed; I was gripped the whole time.

I believe the characters are the best of the show. Throughout the whole 24 episodes, the whole cast is being developed and changed in a believable way. The way that everyone interacts with one another and changes their feelings is the high point of the anime. It’s amazing how even the side characters and supporting cast are incredibly being developed the whole time. I start feeling for the side characters just as much as I feel for the main characters and their goals. One of the best things is that none of the characters are perfect. Even the popular, smart kid in class has his issues. It really enables you to connect to each of the people when they all have problems and have to deal with them.

Now, as much as I hate to do it, I must list the negatives. At times throughout the show, it felt like they were prolonging the main plot points just so that they could get to the end of the show. It was very frustrating at times when Ryuji or someone else wasn’t doing anything for no good reason. As with many romance shows I suppose, beating around the bush during emotional scenes were frustrating to watch. On the bright side, it just made everything so much sweeter at the end when everything comes together. Another thing was that in some scenes, it felt like they shifted too much attention to a supporting role, when we haven’t spent any time with that person before.  Again though, it was sometimes nice to show what the supporting cast is thinking during the show, instead of constantly focusing all the attention on two or three characters.

The last thing I want to talk about is the conclusion to the show. I’m not going to give away any spoilers for people who want to watch the show or are watching it right now, but I must say it’s one of the most (if the THE most) satisfying conclusion to a series that I have watched. All of the frustration (not bad frustration, mind you) that has built up throughout all the episodes comes to a great conclusion. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that although things are over and the show is finished, it’s not like everyone magically has their problems taken away just because it’s the end of the series. It keeps a great sense of realism even to the ending. IMPORTANT: WATCH UNTILL AFTER THE CREDITS ON THE VERY LAST EPISODE AND IT WILL SAVE YOU THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT I FELT WATCHING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!

In conclusion, I think this is a great anime that anyone can watch and enjoy. I’m not saying I hate romance, but it isn’t usually my preferred genre of choice. But Toradora, although a full-blown romantic, slice of life anime, is a masterpiece. It will always have a special place on my anime list, and I hope that I have presented this in a way that will get anyone who hasn’t watched it, to download it right now.

5 out of 5 stars!

Download it here!

Well, that was my first review, let me know what you think if you have any suggestions (but most likely praise and awe)! If I didn’t bore you to death already, expect more reviews coming from me!

REVIEWER'S SCORE:

Have YOU watched this anime? What do you think of it?

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