First off, I figured I should mention production quality and musical composition for this show. To be rather honest, the animation was pretty standard throughout the anime for the most part, though it did have it’s moments of greatness later on in the series. Same for the music, though the series did have some very catchy and suitable OP and ED themes, such as “Pre-Parade” and “Vanilla Salt”, which complemented the show rather well. I’m personally more of a fan of Vanilla Salt, but most of the OP and ED themes in this show were suited Toradora rather well.
The first half of the series is purely light-hearted comedy, and while this is nothing groundbreakingly original by any means, the first half of this series does an excellent job on fleshing out our entire main cast, with the adorable yet violent Palmtop Taiga, the cleanliness-obsessive Ryuuji, the goofy Minori, the lovestruck VP Kitamura, and the sly yet pretty Kawashima Ami. Through the first half we get a good understanding of the characters, and really gets you attached to them.
Each character started off rather generic, yet as the story progresses the characters continuously show us a more complex personality to each of them that really gets you wondering about the cast. The characters get some great yet subtle character development which creates a very intricate, yet fundamentally human tale at heart. There’s tons of romance floating around, with hidden feelings and emotions really complementing the overarching story.
I certainly appreciated how this show had a great cast of side characters, with characters like Ami and Minorin ending up with some intriguing stories of their own. While these two might have provided a good chunk of the comedy in this series, they both were great at complimenting both Taiga and Ryuuji. Ami was definitely the most perceptive, sly yet mature character in the series; seeing her watch over (and at times guide) the rest of the cast really gets you to appreciate the subtle maturity in a lot of her actions, though at times Ami acts out the inner child in herself as well. Minori, with her naive, dark, yet earnest attitude, is a compelling driving force in much of the major events in this series. The support cast were all very well written, and not to mention, they all got some pretty satisfying conclusions. I’ll go off on a tangent here and say I wish Ami got a happier ending; while her ending was nice, my inner Ami fanboy wishes that she got that “ideal ending” that everybody loves so much.
Either ways, when you start watching the much more drama heavy and complex final few episodes, you really end up strongly associating and sympathizing with the characters, which makes every little plot twist and major event leaving a big impact on you. Just based on the title of this show, it was completely obvious as who the main couple would be, but the way in which Toradora got there was totally unexpected, yet very well done; Kudos to the writer for this series for such a captivating finale to this show.
This series is not without it’s faults, though. While Toradora was generally very tasteful in how it handled it’s dramatic moments with subtlety, there were at times where the drama was crazy, especially towards the end with it’s absurd nonsensical stuff going on. But I guess that, in the end, “absurd nonsensical stuff” describes teenage love rather well, no? The finale was filled with absurd nonsensical events that really makes you scratch your head, but in an at times oddly satisfying way. There were story arcs that felt dangerously close to filler, but in the end they all served to develop our characters bit by bit.
In the end, Toradora is an example of your typical coming of age love story, but the show itself was made of some great parts, with it’s funny comedy, heartwrenching moments, subtle moments of love and longing, all packaged together in a lovely, yet slightly flawed anime that really helps you appreciate the beauty of imperfection; it’s the imperfection to each character that makes them so human, and creates a compelling story that keeps you captivated until the end.
Animation/Art: 8.0/10
Music: 8.0/10
Characters: 9.5/10
Story/setting: 8.5/10
Overall Enjoyment: 8.5/10 (rounded up to a 9 on MAL)
P.S. Oh dang, I just read over my review and I feel like I’m raving too much about it. To sum up the entire review, it would be: typical story with some great execution, amazing cast of characters, with some imperfections here and there. Truly a charming little series.
