To feel all warm and fuzzy inside. For those hearty moments where the characters slowly discover their feelings for each other. For when they suffer from angst and uncertainty until the inevitable collision of feelings finally happens. For when they end up in each others arms.
On a realism scale, I rate toradora 7 out of 10.
Taiga is a tsundere character at heart (rightfully referred to as the best one), frequently becoming violent. She is still a very lovable character who develops greatly and for me the main reason to watch the show. There is also a stupid, speaking parrot for comic relief and the always sleepy/seductive mom of Ryuuji. At times you will laugh or shrug at wierd, more or less funny situations that it seems only anime writers could come up with.
What stands out are the 5 main characters, their interactions and their development.
MINOR SPOILERS (you can still watch it after reading):
The story is summarized as follows:
Taiga and Ryuuji meet and decide to help each other with their respective love interests. Naturally, as everyone already knows, they grow to love each other instead, which takes some time to set in. It is however not the story itself that is original, but rather the sensible and very rewarding execution. Both characters grow up quite a bit and come to many realizations during the course of the show.
As events unfold and develop, we get to see the characters feelings develop over their crushes, until the first "bang" happens in episode 8 in the form of Taiga exclaiming her "ownership" over her "dog" Ryuuji (who nearly drowned in the pool) in tears in front of everyone. While exclaiming her ownership may not seem romantic at first, her tears gave a more accurate represntation of her feelings.
However, the next ~11 episodes, everything resumes back to normal and they more or less both go on about their days, with Ryuuji trying to pursue his own love interest, Minori (Taiga's best friend), when arguably one of the best episodes comes along: the christmas episode.
Here, Ryuuji is being his usual oblivious self and comforting Taiga, who spends Christmas Eve alone.
However, Taiga begins to realize her true feelings and this is followed by a tragic, beautiful moment, supported by the best track in the OST and worth all the build up to that point.
After that, nothing is the same, and everything gets concluded slowly, but yet so heartbreakingly well and satisfying over the last 6 episodes.
The last episode includes one of the best scenes I have seen from romantic anime, but I choose to ignore the controversial second half of it.
If I had to name a flaw, maybe it is that the whole premise is based on our main guy, Ryuuji, being completely oblivious to what is going on most of the time, but I did not care one bit: the homely day to day scenarios, the surprisingly great and deep character developments and the romantic conclusion made me completely overlook that.
So if you, like me, want to find out how exactly Ryuuji and Taiga end up together, do not hesitate one second to watch toradora.
