It's probably the dullest, most clichéd, yet best romance anime you're likely to see. Why? Because the competition just isn't there. Before I paint the devil on the wall at this point, I need to make it clear. I liked Toradora as an anime, it entertained me, and I also liked the character relationships, the romances, and the sometimes amusing humor. As a whole, the anime is quite entertaining, as long as you're looking for a simple teen romance. And since the market only has either harems or some over-the-top cliché bombs with no content, Toradora offers a counterbalance worth mentioning as a relatively over-the-top romance drama.
First of all, what exactly did the anime do wrong? The biggest problem is the appalling lack of creativity. The anime drags on from one scenario to the next and the same sequence of events always happens. Taiga is blunt, Ryuuji has no idea what is happening and tries to help her although he receives no gratitude anyway. Minori and Ami, meanwhile, try desperately not to let the boat sink by acting as the two one-sided best characters.
This isn't enough in the long run, unfortunately, and the fact that the whole thing has so many episodes and too little content to balance it out works hard on the atmosphere. Either you just see Ryuuji acting like a hero, giving swimming lessons, cleaning his apartment or you get an overdose of drama that only 14-year-olds can experience. On 16 episodes this would be very decent and you could keep the most important, but 25 episodes are way too much of a good thing.
But as said, the anime is better than one could claim. So despite the flaws, it manages to offer the viewer what he came for. To watch a subtle, slow, cliched anime romance. And that is exactly what one finds here. I don't like the choice of the protagonist at all, as Minori or Ami would fulfill a better lead role by far, but it is what it is. Regardless, Taiga and Ryuuji have a decent tsundere x protagonist relationship that builds over the series. You learn more about each character's relationships in between, and there are some amusing events and relationship problems.
[Story 4]
As mentioned before, the biggest problem with anime is that it drags from one event to the next. You skip everything along the way and practically find yourself in the next arc, where the romance either gets a plus or provokes a Dramatic Event.
Although the characters have appropriate backgrounds and their relationships are the biggest strength of this show, this is significantly watered down from this.
[Characters 5]
Taiga is the only obstacle among the characters. If she were not such an aggressive Tsundere, there would be much fewer complications. Unfortunately, she is deaf in both ears and always averse to good suggestions. She acts like an angry 10-year-old and creates one problem after another. From time to time I am not sure if she goes to the right school. She's not bad from the ground up, but hurts the romantic potential and could have been plain better.
Ryuuji is...I like his personality and traits. Unfortunately, he's almost more of a side character than the protagonist. He simply has too little charisma to make himself noticeable. He gets lost in conversations and scenes and as long as he doesn't handle a main event, you almost forget that he is the protagonist.
Ami and Minori are relatively similar as characters and that has nothing to do with me being too lazy to write and therefore summarizing it. Both are part of the drama of the relationship and both are the parents of the protagonists, who despite everything offer them constant support and manage to present the best and most amusing dialogues in the whole series. Ami through her adult nature and Minori through her maternal one. I also like the variation between their serious and silly personalities.
Only the character drama could have been left out here or at least done better, it's an unhealthy dose of over-dramatization.
[Animations 6/ Music 7]
Toradora has one of the most famous intros which almost everyone knows who watches at least a few years of anime. It's not to my taste, but I can't deny that it fits the style of the series and has a strong recognition value among other things.
The animations in Toradora are strongly above average when it is needed. Unfortunately, the animations are not consistent and often vary greatly in quality.
[Conclusion 6]
A big problem with Toradora is that the series is just too cliché and just can't offer enough variety to the viewer. It's not so much that the series has too many weaknesses, but rather that it has too few strengths. It can just about prove itself as an above-average romance, and just barely at that.
And that's coming from a person who has watched this Anime 3 times by now.
