I'm fairly new to anime, and one thing that i'm constantly noting is how writters and producers have so many good, ingenious ideas, just to execute them terribly bad *cough* SAO *cough*. Aaaand Toradora is not exception to this. The anime comunity praises this show as one of the greatest romances ever, and it could have been, if it wasn't because the creators of this series forgot one tiny tiny detail : SUBTLETY.
STORY 6/10
Ok , this was for me the biggest dissapointment of the series, by far. They have all this great ideas for the different arcs, and then they are doing a great job in executing it, aaaand just when you are on the climax, waiting to see the grand finale, it turns into this over the top over dramatic ridiculous story that leaves you with a giant WTF!!! moment. Don't know what I mean:
For example, you have this arc about Kitamura, that deals with the conflict of having the person you love go far away from you, and the burden of taking a position that involves a lot of responsability, especially since the loved one was the person in charge of said position. Great topic for a story, and you have genuinely emotional moments, like when Taiga wants to watch Kitamura's sleeping face ( after he escaped home) and she sees he cried to sleep.
But then by the end of the arc, you have the confession where Kitamura starts to scream at the top of his lungs in front of all the school that he loves the council president (whose name I don't remmeber) , and as if this wasn't ridiculous enough, Taiga gets in a overly ridiculous and over the top sword fight with the president, because Taiga was furious that she hurt Kitamura only because president wasn't able to accept the feelings she had for Kitamura, and even though the explanation as to why she couldn't do it made sense, after all those ridiculous events I couldn't give less of a shit.
Another example, Taiga showing her affection for Ryuji while they were friends. Good example: When Ryuji is trying to convince Taiga to give her father an opportunity to fix their relation, and when he starts to explain how lucky she is that her father is still alive, and is on the brink of tears, Taiga only caress his face and says: ''Ok , i'll go but don't put that face''
Bad Example: During the swimming competition, when Ryuji is drowning, and Taiga, who two seconds ago couldn't swim, suddenly becomes a profesional diver, and to make matters worse, when people try to approach Ryuji to help him , she starts to yell histerically ''DONT TOUCH MY RYUJI!!! even though she wasn't even in love with him yet.
Why does the first example works? Because of how realistic and relatable it is. The second one isn't only over the top, but ridiculous and stupid.
This example sumarizes all the problems I had with the story of Toradora, there are tons of other examples but it's gonna take me an eternity to describe them, so i'll just leave it at that.
Art: 7/10
It does it's job for the most part, but there are a lot of scenes that felt to stale because of characters just talking and the only movement yo could see was that of their mouths. Character desings , were kind of cliche, and the one for Taiga feels like a direct rip off of Louise from Familiar of Zero.
Sound: 5/10
The only reason why I think sound deserves 5 is because of the song ''Lost my Pieces'' that is the main theme of the show, such a beatiful song. There was another one that I liked a lot but can't remember it's name. The rest are just there to accompany the animation. I didn't like at all the openings and endings, but a lot of people like the first opening, not sure why.
Character: 7/10
This is another really dissapointing area of this show. In one hand you have this characters that feel like cookie - cutter characters, but then you see there is a extra, a twist to all of them. Taiga is your typical tsundere but also can be very childish, shy and a klutz. Minorin is your typical hyper, happy go lucky character, but also can become extremely angry (and frightening) or just aggresive. The rest of characters have similar characterizations, which is good, because they felt kind of realistic. The problem is that , except for the blue haired bitch and Taiga, characters don't develope that much. I wish I could have seen more of Minorin, she was by far my favourite character (strange thing since I usually hate her kind of character) and it was doing a great job during episode 3 that was more focused on her (my personal favourite episode) , but after that she is mostly forgotten until way latter into the show.
What does develope however are the relations between characters, and this probably was the strongest point of the show. Take for instance Taiga and Ryuji, for the most part they stayed as friends, but not the kind of ''I wanna be with you but misunderstandings dont allow it'' friends. Both were in love with different people, and that was great to see how they supported each other as friends. Another relation I loved was the one of Ryuji and the blue haired bitch.
Enjoyment 7/10
I had a decent time watching this show, I mean I pretty much marathoned it, but except for some occasions , I never felt like it touched me emotionally, and hell, I cry with ease when it comes to storytelling.
Overall 6/10
It's a shame how the final product resulted, especially because you see the creator had a lot of good ideas, and even some excellent executions, but then wanted to force you to feel, force you to get emotional, and then is when it failed miserably. But as said , if you are a fan of romantic comedies, then you will enjoy this one for sure.
