So, all the key players have been set. Now’s the time where you start letting character drive the action of the story, and that’s exactly what happens here. It’s also really interesting in the overall structure of the story that the last two episodes have essentially been a mini-arc for Ami spinning directly out of her character introduction. By the end of this episode, she’s already in a very different place personally than she was at the beginning of episode 5. The real her is out and so now we just watch how that spins everything else in new directions.

Continue reading →

Time for the last of the character introduction episodes—we get the final member of our main cast, Ami Kawashima. I know Ami is pretty well-beloved of the Toradora! fandom in general, but overall I wasn’t totally enamored with her character after my first watch. That being said, I think she’s pretty darn fascinating, both as a character in her own right and as a subversion of the dojikko trope. Sometimes, I even think that Ami might be a more tragic character than anyone else in this show…

As if I could have used any other picture as the header for this episode.

Continue reading →

So, if the last episode was about Minori and Ryuuji’s crush on her, this episode is about Kitamura and Taiga’s crush on him. Really, though, we got a lot less information about Kitamura this episode than we did about Minori last. It’s not really that much of a surprise given how open Minori seems to be, but in comparision, Kitamura is something of an enigma. I think he’s the type of person I’d like, but always feel nervous around. This episode also had kind of a lot of nice visual details, so you’ll see more of those cropping up here than in past write-ups.

Continue reading →

Alright, time for the Minori introduction episode aka the so much Yui Horie episode! If you didn’t already know Kana Asumi was my favorite Japanese voice actress, you’d probably be fooled into thinking Hocchan is my favorite and, well…it’s a pretty darn close race. Anyways, Minori really has a lovely personality (and I consider this beyond her simple genki-ness), and getting to see it on full display here is really a treat. Pretty hard to blame Ryuuji for staring, even if he should probably stop.

Continue reading →

Alright, main character introductions are over, time to move the plot along a little bit! For me, this was the “Taiga’s such a jerk (or other words)” debunking episode. I don’t know if it’s just the her tsun-ing stands out more, but she has a ton of really vulnerable moments in this episode that I feel get overlooked. And then we just have Ryuuji being heartmeltingly kind and making me want to cry.

Continue reading →

Surprise! I’ve been looking for an excuse to re-watch Toradora! for a while now, and the /r/anime Christmas re-watch was just what I needed to motivate me to get back to this show. As you should know, I have Toradora! sitting as my second favorite anime of all time, so I’m pretty darn excited to be watching it again. I don’t really have any worries that it won’t hold up on under more analytical watching—really, I’m just thrilled to have the chance to engage with it on a different level.

Continue reading →