As expected, I had to do episodes 18 and 19 together, but I took notes in order, so hopefully I won’t be spitting out too much stuff about episode 19 in this post. But, I think, even if you haven’t watched episode 19 yet, you know where this is headed: a whole lot of heartbreak for everyone. I guess the big thing by way of summary for this episode is how much of it is lighthearted on the surface. Despite everything that we know is going on internally with our characters, there are a lot of fun and games stuff happening, like Toradora!‘s trying to distract us from the ugly pain that’s present and imminent.

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So, with Kitamura’s arc finished and the majority of our main cast in varying states of emotional distress, we dive into what is probably the most intense arc of the show—certainly, it is the arc we all remember for episode 19, and it’s the arc that really truly sold me on this show. By the time I got here in my late night marathon, it was about 2 AM, but I had to take a break at the end of the arc and just sob into my pillow for a few minutes before I could go on. But that’s for a later time. Right now, it’s winter for Toradora! and that means bleak backgrounds coexisting alongside with the bright lights of the holidays. It’s an intentional contrast on the show’s part and we’ll get to that here today.

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I’m starting to remember just why this show is so painful and so amazing. The end of this episode was pretty much emblematic of what the fundamental story of Toradora! is: this is a show about young people trying their best to be good and hurting themselves and each other because they don’t know any better. This dualism of childhood versus adulthood that is really starting to make itself felt is thus all the more relevant because we’re watching our main characters in a liminal state—fluctuating (sometimes in a single moment) between acting like children and acting like adults. But the reason we can’t hate them is because they’re trying. Really hard. So, let’s see how their struggle occurs as we finish off Kitamura’s arc.

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Ah, yes, the Kitamura Goes Crazy arc. I remembered that this happened, but, as predicted, I’ve forgotten pretty much everything about how the events of the plot go. Kitamura’s issues aside (because they don’t really get revealed in this episode anyways), the biggest note for me here is how radically thoughtful Taiga has become in the days after the culture festival. It’s as if, after deciding she didn’t need support herself, she’s determined to support others instead. Of course, the lovely irony is that Ryuuji is always there, as if invisible, supporting her.

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We’re well on our way to the end of this story! This episode kind of seems like a one-off on the surface, but it’s actually (once again) Toradora! using humor to keep us entertained/distracted while the foundations of the big character arcs in this half of the show are being set down. As I said last episode, large swathes of the second cour are lost to my memory due to late night marathoning, but I’m certain all five of our leads get significant development in the back half of the show. Which is a really cool thing. We’ve had the chance to see all five of them grow a little already, so now we get to see how the ways they’ve changed make them different now.

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And so, we come to the end of the first cour of Toradora! We’re now over halfway done with this rewatch, which is at once sad and joyful. For my part, I remember significantly less about the second cour than about the first: a common occurrence when I watch 2-cour shows. This has much less to do with the second cour being of lesser quality and much more to do with the fact that I tend to up my marathoning speed when I get to the back  half of the plot. For Toradora! specifically, I was up until 5:30 AM finishing it the first time I watch, which probably means I did at least from episode 15 to the end in a single sitting. That’s a lot of material that I get to rediscover. But, before that, let’s polish off the Ohashi High School Culture Festival arc.

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So, Ryuuji’s just made some terrible decisions that could have left this relationship in shambles, but this time it’s Taiga who has bent to preserve an uneasy peace between them. As I said yesterday, I’m not exactly sure how this arc concludes, but my instincts and the phantom of my memory seem to be telling me it won’t be good. At least, that’s what I was thinking before I actually started to watch the episode. But when a certain moment hit, I remembered how everything was going to end up. So, let’s get to it!

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