The charakters' arcs are of solid pace, their motivations are pretty clear and while seeing a bit more development in the earlier episodes would have helped me to get more invested, I can assure you, that it reaches a nice conclusion in the end. But what is really surprising for a show of a genre that is otherwise drenched knee deep in cliché and annoying characters, is the multiple layers, almost every character has going for him or her. There is almost no one dimensional character in this cast, beside maybe the student council president, but her voice is sexy so I will let that slide just this once. They are all multi layered, interesting people with their own struggles and hobbies, that don't just exist to merely move the plot forward. While at first I was lead to believe that I didn't like the crush Taiga had on Kitamura for example, because I did not get, what she would see in him, I quickly came to the realization, that this was kind of intentional.
Taiga and even Ryuuji had to slowly realize their own feelings and come to therms with themselves, rather than kissing awkwardly in the first episode and then freezing the plot for about ten others. That is the case for far too many of these kinds of shows but that and many other cliched tropes are far beneath Toradora!
When you have to boil this review down to anything, it is this. Toradora! is above so many things in this genre, that even I, a person deeply drenched in cynicism and highly allergic to even the slightest bit of good intentions found this show to my liking.
While still being above many of the more generic kinds of shows, it leaves many things to be desired though. But many of these problems are actually contributed to the genre itself and my personal taste, than to the show itself. It is no character study, no deeply cerebral piece of art, just something to warm my cold, frozen heart.
There are no people acting like Uber Nutzoid Crazypants McGee, but rather tame and with that much more believable. But when you don't like RomComs even this will have a hard time convincing you. I caught myself at a weak moment liking this show, but it stuck and even now, after a while of letting it sink, I still like it. You will too, probably, maybe not, maybe you will hate it. The ending is predictable, but that is the point so there is, besides of lacking depth for certain characters, while for the most part still not being one dimensional, nothing else to fault the show for. A bit more depth to some of the cast would have been even better, but I still liked what I got. So will you love it or hate it?
Only one way to find out, isn't there.
