Review: Toradora! (85%)

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Animation: 85%
Acting: 90%
Music/Sound: 80%
Story: 88%
Overall: 85%
See explanation of scores.

Toradora is the standard-setter anime about high school shounen romance. It does for high school love what Kare Kano does for adolescence in general and Honey and Clover did for post-adolescence–and that well-defined scope is both its strength and its ultimate limitation.

Maturity

Perhaps the most revolutionary thing that this show accomplished is simple: it allowed its characters to grow up. The entire cast begins as one would expect out of a formula shounen, otaku-oriented romance: shy, nice kids who are afraid to express their real feelings and who contort themselves into knots in order to avoid doing so. Most shows never allow their characters to progress much further than this, because it is part of the escapist charm for the probably older male audience it targets: for those who are still shy and struggling emotionally, it’s a comfort to see that awkwardness on screen. At most, a better show like True Tears will allow the main leads to change over time, while the side characters remain neglected.

Toradora! manages the feat of essentially having its cake and eating it too. It’s the reason why initial episodes seemed unremarkable to those versed in this genre of anime; the characters were easily pegged into standard archetypes like “tsundere,” “airhead,” “nice guy,” etc; it was sufficient to reel in audiences who like that sort of thing, but perhaps no more. Yet by the mid-point of the fall season it was apparent that these were only surface characterizations. As in all good stories, there is more than meets the eye to these group of characters, particularly when they revealed their vulnerabilities to each other and to the viewer. This was rarely done in a way that felt contrived (save for a few rushed moments near the end). Rather, moments like the famous dialogues at the villa or the multiple physical confrontations grew out of characters behaving like themselves in the midst of the circumstances.

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And those moments served as more than just emotional catharsis for the viewer, hungering to hear them finally speak truth to one another. They actually changed the characters. Sometimes the change came slowly, as in Ryuuji’s halting, awkward encounters with Minori that finally evolved into normal interaction; sometimes they came with abrupt force, as in Taiga’s willingness to accept that she and Ryuuji belonged together. The Ryuuji and Taiga of the beginning and end of the show are recognizably themselves, and yet much more mature, and it can be explained by everything that happened in between. That’s why Taiga’s “typical tsundere” reaction at the very end to Ryuuji’s confession does not strike me as being regressive or a “reset” ending. Behind it is an entire history of knowing each other well and being themselves. It’s a true closing of the circle, and with the repeat of the first lines of the show, the writers knew it.

Perhaps most startling of all is the final episode’s resounding affirmation of family ties. Here I think the charges of abrupt pacing are somewhat justified; Taiga and Ryuuji move from wanting to elope and having harsh words with their mothers to speaking in very mature terms about what marriage really involves: the public blessing of their families and friends. A vow. And, almost breathtakingly for anime, an understanding that they might not even be ready for that at their age, and that to run away from their families was not going to give them real happiness in the end. This, realized in the space of 10 minutes and in the shadow of one of the most compellingly and realistically awkward teenage kisses in anime romance, is quite frankly too much to realize so soon.

Yet, thematically, it just works. Especially when paired with Yasuko’s own history of abandonment and the consequences of a teenage fling: the importance of family is most stark when its past is full of brokenness. What Taiga and Ryuuji did was to break that cycle, which would have continued had they gone through with their elopement. It is why her departure to live with her mother makes so much sense, even if it was paced abruptly.

In the end what we have is a portrait of the intertwining of friendship and family. Earlier I commented on how the characters were beginning to realize that friendship was at best an incomplete substitute for it, and what the ending begins to hint at is how the two kinds of relationships can overlap and evolve into each other. The class picture to Taiga, at once hilarious and touching, is a great portrait of an entire community standing behind one of their own; Yasuko’s comment that she, Ryuuji, and Taiga were a family of three is a literal statement of present and future.

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All this, while peppered with wonderful uses of visual metaphor and symbol: the single star, the Christmas decoration, aliens/ghosts, the images of a tiger and a dragon. Is there anything this show cannot do? Well, yes.

Romance and Life

I think Author had it right, ultimately, that while this show is a stellar–perhaps the stellar–example of the high school romance genre in anime, with plenty of inroads into friendship and family–that’s where it remains. This is why, though it bats in the same league, Toradora! is ultimately not the equal of a Karekano or especially a Honey and Clover. Considering that those two are, in my judgment, the finest and most genuine portrayals of the stages of life they represent in anime, that’s no shame. There are even moments, like when Taiga is being carried on Ryuuji’s shoulders, when Toradora! comes close to matching the poignance and power of those shows.

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To begin with, Honey and Clover is still unequaled in its use of music, both insert songs and general soundtrack. Music should not be discounted in its importance for setting the tenor and memorability of a show. Especially when paired with insightful lyrics, the insert songs shed light on the characters as much as they filled the aural background. Most of the soundtrack of Toradora! was forgettable. The OP and EDs were better (especially lyrically), though nothing has yet to match the brilliance of the two best H&C EDs by Suneohair in capturing the mood of the show. Considering that the director of H&C II is in charge here, though, he gave a valiant effort to come close, and the effort was worthy.

Most importantly, however, there is the sense that what H&C and Karekano had going for them was their scope. Both were not just about love; they were about life, period. That is why those shows gave me, at least, that veritable chill of frequent recognition, something that I primarily felt in Toradora! in the context of emotionally awkward romantic scenarios. Toradora! constantly elicited more sympathy than empathy from me, with the notable exception of Minori’s guilt-driven self-sacrificial behavior.

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Even as I write this I hesitate, though, to call this a weakness. One could make a very fair argument that much of the substance of life is love, friendship, and family, and Toradora’s laser-like focus on those aspects is merely the correct choice of its staff to do what it does best. Toradora! is still to be commended for expanding the normal romantic hijinks to include friendship and family, for all the reasons I listed above. Ultimately, this is probably a purely subjective judgment that prevents me from calling this the equal of my two favorite shoujo/josei stories. It might be my age, or my interests; just like for Author, as compelling as the characterization and writing was, high school romance feels more distant and unrelatable to me now than it once did.

Which leads me to wonder about the uses of entertainment/art in general. For me the highest end of anime–or film, or TV–engage both the head and heart, speaking in a fundamentally truthful way about particular parts of life they represent. Good storytelling and characterization are crucial for that, because if either the characters do not seem like people or the ideas seem glib or false, I cannot actively engage the work. I suppose for this blogger, at least, active engagement can be judged by the length of reviews :), and as such Toradora! is a roaring success, a top 10 anime for sure. It’s just not quite a top 5…but rankings are only so important. What matters is that I enjoyed the entire journey from beginning to end, and got more out of it than mindless pleasure.

This was, in the end, a show whose popularity was deserved. How utterly refreshing.

Anime Diet Daily Recommended Allowances

Animation/Quality: 85%–Very attractive character designs and vibrant colors made the show a pleasure to watch. Some evocative shot choices, paired with H&C style voiceovers, mark this as the work of JC Staff’s finest working on their strengths. Some deterioration of animation quality becomes apparent near the end, as motions become herky-jerky and character designs become somewhat contorted.

Acting: 90%–The two leads hit it out of the ballpark with warm, emotionally rich and nuanced performances. Junji Majima’s monologues as Ryuuji were nearly and sometimes as good as Takemoto’s in H&C and were delivered with the same gravity and feeling. Rie Kugimiya gives what is probably the performance of a career, going far beyond her typecast as a “tsundere” into territory almost never seen for that character type. Major props, too, for Eri Kitamura as Ami, whose character was consistently fascinating and complex, and whose mysterious and wide-ranging vocalizations reflect that. Horie Yui as Minori was frequently hilarious and also moving, though Minori’s character was not quite as varied as some of the others and thus her voice performance often fell into two distinct “modes” (genki and melancholy) and little more.

Music/Sound: 80%–There are a few memorable, emotional tracks that often accompanied the show’s cathartic climaxes, particularly a track called “Startup.” Heard during the final race in episode 13 and the climactic battle between Taiga and Sumire, it was probably the emotional high point of the soundtracks. The ED songs often captured the sense of the show very well in its lyrics, though musically, they tended toward forgettability. The appropriate-but-strained analogy about oranges in the second ED is still no “Waltz” by Suneohair.

Story: 88%: See the whole review! A genuine, nuanced tale about friendship, love and family, pretty much unrivaled by its contemporaries, and only bested by the best of the best.

Overall: 85%–a far above average outing that will leave a genuine mark in the heart. If I were to introduce someone to the genre of anime romance, told from the male perspective, this would be my first pick.

More thoughts

Honey and Clover Live Action Review

Other reviews by Mike:

True Tears Review

Kimikiss Pure Rouge Review

more

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.

19 thoughts on “Review: Toradora! (85%)

  1. I won’t really give the animation quality a 85%, while it is subjective, the vibrant colors used in the anime was kind of excessive in some episodes imo.

    it was the other parts of the anime that shines ..particularly the overall development of the story and the cast in the show that portrayed the personality of the characters  =)

    juz my 2 cents

  2. And, almost breathtakingly for anime, an understanding that they might not even be ready for that at their age, and that to run away from their families was not going to give them real happiness in the end. This, realized in the space of 10 minutes and in the shadow of one of the most compellingly and realistically awkward teenage kisses in anime romance, is quite frankly too much to realize so soon.

    Yet, thematically, it just works. Especially when paired with Yasuko’s own history of abandonment and the consequences of a teenage fling: the importance of family is most stark when its past is full of brokenness. What Taiga and Ryuuji did was to break that cycle, which would have continued had they gone through with their elopement. It is why her departure to live with her mother makes so much sense, even if it was paced abruptly.

    Yes, this (though I’ve less to remark about the pacing of the final epsiode it seems). I too have compared it favorably to Honey & Clover some time ago, but only a few moments ago did it occur to me that it also stands up well to Kare Kano (http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/toradorafin/#comment-2044);. I feel validated reading your review.

  3. oOgA: I have to admit I’m generally not all that picky about animation quality in general, especially if the strength of the story and characters makes up for it. I hardly noticed the rather large lapses in art quality in Welcome to the NHK! until it was pointed out to me, for example. Toradora! was similar, though I personally didn’t feel the colors were excessively vibrant.

    ghostlightning: the show invites comparisons to H&C from the same names of the staff to many of the small stylistic flourishes that they do have in common, but for me the Kare Kano comparison is more from the high school setting and the focus on family and comedy. What Kare Kano has going even further for it is its focus on a working post-confession relationship, though I suppose one can think that in Ryuuji and Taiga have a solid relationship from nearly the start in all but name until the end. In either case, I’m glad you don’t feel alone in your thinking. 🙂

  4. This was an great anime i have nothing bad to say about it except…no i have nothing bad to say about this. 

  5. BAggu: well, whatever I said that was “bad” is far outweighed by its virtues too. So yeah, I’ll always have good memories of this show!

  6. I think what made the animation was the lighting and smoothing.

    The sound was wonderful, from voices to music, the timing was nicely done. This ties in with acting, which fit the animation, even if there were a lot of overly melodramatic scenes.
    Story. At some points I felt it was brilliant, at other points I thought it was just..eh. Maybe this doesn’t tie in, but the whole coincidence-driven plot and the like didn’t keep me from cringing near the end of the series.
     
    *shrug* who knows. I always talk crap about the show before I watch it, where I go googly eyed after the episode ends :]

  7. i think this anime is the best ive ever seen. even better than action anime

  8. Ugh….Honey and Clover was an honest, heartfelt portrayal of transitioning from teenagers to adults.  Toradora is superficial typical anime melodrama that parades as something meaningful.  Particularly all that ridiculous emo overload in the last few episodes.  Can you imagine Takemoto, Morita and Hagu screaming and crying at each other over their love triangles.  No, cause that’s not reality.  That’s a soap opera.  High school romance belongs to shows like Kare Kano, Touch, Kimagure Orange Road, even True Tears….this is just soppy manipulative angst with bright colors.

    I just don’t get how people who praise H&C can see anything similar in vapid shows like this one.

  9. i personally found the soundtrack much better then you talked about, particularly the song “lost my pieces”

    but obviously this is simply my opinion, and i agree with pretty much everything else you said.

  10. louie: it may not be the best, per se, but it’s better than any action anime I’ve watched. 🙂

    kistories: you know, I did acknowledge that this isn’t on the same level as H&C or Karekano. Those are masterpieces of realism. I would, however, put it on roughly the same level as True Tears, which I did like a lot but acknowledged it had some implausible twists (like Toradora). They both have a lot of emotional honesty and genuine moments. I’d also add that screaming and crying over love does in fact happen in real life; the emotional restraint of H&C works for those characters because 1.) they’re older; 2.) that’s who those particular people are. Now, I do tend to prefer that mode which is why I rate H&C higher; I relate to people who tend to internalize their struggle and pain better. However, if you can’t see some of the same reflectiveness and character growth in Toradora! that marked H&C I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree. It may not have been to the same highly calibrated degree but it was definitely there, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence given so much of the staff overlap.

    Andrew: I like that piece too. It’s one of the ones that play in the emotional moments and so I do remember it more than the other pieces; the jaunty, happy ones to me were relatively forgettable. But that’s probably because it’s correlated to the more memorable moments of the show.

  11. I think commenters like kistories have never experienced a real-life “love triangle”. I had a couple of teary and angry confrontations that resulted from mine, and ToraDora’s portrayal didn’t seem vapid to me – it hit home pretty close in fact. I know several others who have been in similar situations who also felt that this aspect of the series wasn’t over-dramatic. I found the Kitamura arc was needlessly overwrought, but the central romance of the story was done pretty well.

    In fact, I am more annoyed with H&C using the tired cliche of using unrequited love to define a character (several of them, in fact).  I like the friendship/personal growth aspects of H&C, but the love story aspects are pretty trite and convenient, making H&C feel more like a soap opera to me than ToraDora ever did.

    Perhaps it’s just the fact that ToraDora’s characters are pigeonholed into modern anime stereotypes that upsets some older viewers? ToraDora is not a josei, it’s a shoujo for younger audiences.

  12. Hey
    Thanks for your Review of that certainly moving Anime, that I’ve finished just 10 Minutes ago =)
    Although I’ve never seen H&C, being a male in his 20’s, I wouldn’t hesitate to rank Toradora equal to KareKano when it comes to the Effect they have. I have always enjoyed Hideaki Annos deep views into the psyche of his characters, and I enjoyed, in the same way, the clever metaphores, especially ghosts/aliens and tiger&dragon, of Toradora.
    I got the feeling of watching not only a story, but being allowed to learn something, in a philosophical way. something i cherish in anime series.

    Anyway, this was a very enjoyable Review to read, and made me smile a few times as I remembered what I’d seen the past days.
    Keep up the good work!

    Greetings from Switzerland

  13. Topspin: sorry for the belated response, if you’re still reading this. Yeah, if you’ve lived through certain things, a lot of the stuff in Toradora! actually rings true. As I said to a previous commenter, sometimes in real life people really do scream and shout, and to that I would also add that some people are also very quiet and can hold a torch for a person for years. Honey and Clover of course is full of the latter, and I would say that just in the same way that Toradora! at first seemed cliched but revealed its depths over time, so did H&C in its love affairs, which were intimately connected with the rest of the lives of the characters. I did enjoy the non-romance aspects of it more, to tell the truth, but someone like Yamada can be annoying until, well, you meet people just like that. And fortunately there was plenty else to make up for it.

    Someone: you’re very welcome. I enjoyed writing this review all those months ago for a show I really appreciated, and one of these days I should rewatch it and see whether I still would say the same things about it. 🙂

    I think for me, Karekano stands out for a couple of reasons: one, it is a story that focuses on what happens during an actual dating relationship (they get together in episode 4), which is rare in romance anime; two, as you mentioned, it delves into the inner lives of Yukino and Miyazawa in ways that are very true to life and psychologically insightful, something Anno does well at his best. I basically went to school with competitive kids like those two and recognized their character traits and their flaws. With Toradora we have archetypes who have hidden depths, and whose situations are slightly less believable, though, as you also said, you get the feeling that you are learning something about maturity and life by seeing the way the characters grow. That passage toward maturity is the most moving part of Toradora for me and something there needs to be much more of in anime. Badly.

  14. I realize the last post was two years ago, but I just wanted to say thanks for the refreshing review. I was glad to see someone really go in depth with toradora and likes it as much as I do.

  15. I agree with Dada. Thank you for noting things I missed, and most importantly, refreshing analyze.. I will watch it again with a different mindset

  16. Mike, thanks. I just finished this anime last night, and I found the ending frustrating. I think there were things I just couldn’t sort out, and after reading some people’s reviews, I finally found yours, and that’s where everything began to click. Things I had seen, and noticed, but failed to connect, and you helped. So, even though this is two years later after you’ve seen it, thanks for your write-up, it helped me with this show that, despite feeling frustrated at the end, loved from beginning to end.

  17. spoonTRex, freud, Dada: thanks for your kind comments. It looks like this show is going to be remembered, and that’s a good sign. Go and support them if you live in the US and buy NIS America’s deluxe box set! It comes with a beautiful hardcover book.

  18. I watched Toradora! when I was 13, and since then I’ve rewatched it several times. I think this show has a certain audience age, let’s say, early teens to late teens. It’s the best I’ve seen so far ( though I haven’t seen H&C yet), since it focuses on maturity, and its level of realism is incomparable to most anime. I will never forget how this anime taught me to grow up, and to face reality. I also really appreciate this review, you’ve done a fine job good sir!

    and also, I would like you to give another shot to Toradora’s soundtrack — nevermind forgettability, it’s the emotiona and timing that counts! 😛

  19. Thanks for a well-written review. I have to admit that I wasn’t really expecting much when I first started this series, especially since the characters seemed like shopworn stereotypes in the beginning. But what surprised me was how the relationships in the series were developed. It was refreshing to see two main characters build a genuine friendship that the romance that came after, though predictable, felt completely justified. Of course, some of the scenes were greatly exaggerated but at its heart, Toradora works hard to capture the nuances of high school friendships and relationships, which makes it far from superficial in my book.

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