To find out, I recently decided to rewatch this show that I've already finished a decent amount of time ago, and even though I already immensely enjoyed it the first time I watched it, surprisingly enough I loved it even more as a second time viewer. I genuinely and desperately didn't want it to end, yet I couldn't stop watching every single episode back to back. Maybe that comment wasn't for nothing after all.
Toradora follows Ryuuji, who is a gentle guy but has an intimidating face that makes people afraid of him, labeling him as a delinquent. Taiga is the Palm-top Tiger of the school, a little but vicious girl who IS actually the violent character here. These two are in love with each other's bestfriends, so they decide to help each other out to win the affections of the ones they love, hilarity ensues.
Now if you have ever seen a love story, you know damn well that Ryuuji and Taiga will end up with each other instead, and the show doesn't act as if it's a grand reveal either, so it's the way the show builds up this premise that makes it so damn enjoyable. The anime does a great job to come up with scenarios where drama could take place too and execute it beautifully.
The artstyle while not the most unique still looks great. I'm especially fond of Ryuuji and Taiga's character deisgns. they're simple yet very iconic. The rest of the cast kinda pale in comparison to our two leads in terms of design, but they still have interesting if not likeable outer appearances.
The show has beautiful backdrops that sell it's strong atmosphere. The cinematography is great, there is a nice sense of reality to the world. When Ryuuji is at the christmas party and Taiga is holed up in her home, the show does a great job to make you feel the long distance between them. It builds up it's atmosphere and convey the feelings of it's characters through it's visuals just like how a good picture should and it's absolutely great.
I didn't particularly care for the opening or ending themes (the first op was much better than the second though) but the show has a great soundtrack that accompany it's emotional moments. Especially the track "Lost my pieces" destroys my heart everytime I hear it, even after finishing the show. And it's obvious they were aware how good a song it was too, as it's used to great effect during emotional moments.
The characters are all well written even when they're not particularly likeable people. For example, I can say that I hated Ami with every fiber of my being, but I can't call her a poorly written character because she simply isn't. In fact compared to more blandly written characters like Kitamura, she has a lot more going on.
Of course the strongest characters of Toradora is Ryuuji and Taiga. Their journey as they learn about each other and also themselves is the main source of light that makes this show shine.
Toradora is a show that made me experience a wide range of emotions during it's run. And even though it has it's problems that I'm willing to acknowledge (like the ending that was kind of rushed and not completely satisfying), I simply can't label this show as anything other than a must see, expecially if you're into romance and/or drama as a genre.
It's not a perfect anime, but there is no perfect anime, and because there is no such thing as a perfect anime that I can give Toradora the 10/10 rating it deserves. There's simply no other romance anime that compares to this.
Yuuji and Taiga's journey is just too compelling.
