Rann:  

But a love that’s only sweet is a bit
different from what I seek for.
I can’t help saying black when told white.
I’m a contrary person who can’t be mild.
If I’m told “I love you”, I answer “I hate you so much”.
Why am I saying that when I’m so happy?

Toradora! is a high school anime and manga, largely about the usual stuff… confessing to the one you like, dealing with the hardships of getting along with people who don’t understand you, and trying to overcome the obstacles that your own weaknesses present. It dares to break away a little from the usual anime tropes, though, because while it does have the male lead getting abused by the female lead a bit, it’s not quite the same… he doesn’t just lay back and take it passively, nor are we just left to infer why she might be acting the way she does. We don’t have to wait and wait and wait for characterization payoff… who these people are and why they act the way they do is made clear very quickly, so that we can move on to seeing them interact rather than spending forever and a day peeling back the layers to get to know them.

Ryuji Taikasu is the main male character. He’s had a tough school life, because he’s a dead ringer for his father, who was clearly some sort of gang member or lifelong delinquent (whom it’s implied may have come to a rather messy end). Despite his fierce looks that inspire everyone to think he himself is a violent delinquent, Ryuji’s a fairly even-tempered person, who’s had to develop a strong sense of responsibility due to his mother; it’s not like she’s bad or neglectful or anything, but she works as a hostess at a bar and is, in general, just a free spirit who has no interest in settling down and acting like a stereotypical mom. Ryuji has a longtime crush on his classmate Minori Kushieda, but has so far not managed to work up the courage to confess to her.

The main female character is Taiga Aisaka, nicknamed the “Palmtop Tiger” for her diminutive size and fierce nature. Taiga is almost as feared as Ryuji, but for much better reason, as she has a temper roughly as short as she is. Despite her amazonian nature, she’ actually got a crush on Yusaku Kitamura. Kitamura is Ryuji’s best friend, and Minori is Taiga’s. This and a string of other coincidences, including turning out to live in apartment buildings with the windows directly facing each other, bring Ryuji and Taiga together in a plot to confess their feelings. At first it seems a bit lopsided, since Ryuji winds up promising to “work like a dog” to help Taiga, and she proceeds to act like she’s taken him at face value.

But rather than just hopping on this concept and riding it for 4/5 of the series, as most anime would, we not only quickly get an explanation of why this is so, but a straightforward admission of the actual feelings behind it. By the second episode we’ve been shown that Taiga is actually a desperately lonely and hurting person trying to protect herself by keeping her friendship with and dependency on Ryuji defined this way. Taiga’s living by herself because she got in an argument with her parents and shouted “I can’t wait to get out of this house!” Typical enough stuff, every teenager’s thought or said that at one point. The difference is that Taiga’s parents immediately took her out, found a furnished apartment, rented it for her, and left her there. She apparently hasn’t seen or spoken to them since.

Too, by the second episode, Taiga works up the confidence to confess to Kitamura. What’s more, when asked about her relationship with Ryuji, she’s up front by saying that she owes a lot to him, including the confidence to make her confession. How kind he’s been to her, and how much he’s helped her. At one point in the second episode she says much the same thing directly to Ryuji, that she’s really grateful for everything he’s done. She goes out of her way to try and fix other peoples’ incorrect impression of him, and even pave the way to letting him hook up with Minori, though at that point she thought their association was done and she had nothing to gain by it, not even a friend. These are traits that would be doled out to us in dibs and dabs in other series, and when things go back to normal at the end of the episode, there’s not a feeling of enforcing the status quo of the series, but more like this is a conscious decision on the parts of the characters. They weren’t just falling back into their roles haphazardly, or forgetting what had gone before… rather, they both realized they’d actually come to be rather happy with the way things were, and made a deliberate decision to go back to it.

The second episode also contains the “electric pole” scene, which is one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen for connecting you to characters and engendering empathy. Taiga and Ryuji are walking home, having suffered a defeat, and Taiga suddenly lashes out, slamming her foot against an electric pole. This doesn’t come off as some typical anime lash-out, but instead as someone just at the end of their rope absolutely having to have an outlet for all they’re feeling. She kicks the pole again and again, with Ryuji joining in with her, venting his own frustrations. When they finish, Taiga points out that they actually managed to make it lean a little, and lets out a whoop of pure victory. The manga version of this scene has Ryuji muse that the world would probably run a lot more smoothly if every so often everyone just stopped to beat up on an electric pole. It’s a scene that everyone that’s ever just been so angry and frustrated and hurt that they wanted to haul off and punch the nearest wall can identify with.

The lyrics from the end theme that I quoted from the top are pretty clearly meant to describe Taiga. She’s a contrary little bitch, but that vulnerable side really isn’t very far under the surface. Scratch her and you’ll see it, and Ryuji seems drawn to her in large part just because he doesn’t need to scratch. He seems to instinctively see just how vulnerable she is under the tough front she projects, probably because he’s spent so long living a version of that life himself… being treated like the terrifying tough guy when he really, seriously just wants a hug.

(And no, he’s not clutching her and being emo. The little klutz fell down the stairs and he caught her.)

While I stress the emotional moments and the depth of feeling, this isn’t a heavy series or anything. It’s mostly light and energetic, just that as is my wont I wind up looking at the depth of character that’s also going on, and these are the moments that show it off. But there’s plenty of goofy to go around, even in the midst of those, such as when Kitamura observes, during the confession, that Taiga’s been making a lot of interesting faces since she started hanging out with Ryuji, which causes her to… well…

Also, something I love about the series is that it clearly has a sense of humor about standard references. Anime, like a lot of American comics, likes to use “one-off” references to stuff in the real world. An expy of McDonald’s with the arches inverted to make a W (sometimes explained to be Wacdonald’s in some series) is one of the most popular. So at first when you see this, you just think it’s the normal sort of thing:

Except Ryuji then comments with:

All it really needs is Eddie Murphy in the background mopping the floor.

And then, in episode five, Ami Kawashima shows up to fuck up everyone’s shit.

Basically at this point, things had settled into a holding pattern for the four characters. Ami shows up and, well, it’s definitely an element of chaos. She’s like the bizarro universe Taiga. Where Taiga actually respects people and is very friendly and loving, but cuts loose with her anger, defiance, and haughtiness to protect herself, Ami does the exact opposite; her true self is arrogant, haughty, and prone to insults and snideness, but outwardly she fakes a convincing air of sweetness and light learned from being a small-time idol and model. Taiga hates her because she’s phony and has a connection to Kitamura, while Ami hates Taiga for, well, for hating her, but also because Taiga has the courage not to hold back when it comes to other people pushing her around. You could probably see them as the ultimate expression of how Japanese girls deal with the possibility of being picked on or bullied, which is apparently an even more severe problem over there than over here. Ami, being tall, pretty, and the daughter of someone famous, chose to shield herself from this by ultimately subverting who she was and wanted to be, and instead becoming the perfect, proper girl that everyone could love. Taiga, tiny and awkward, instead reacted by never allowing anyone to push her around or overlook her.

There’s one more opposite aspect to Ami, as well, though it manifests in a weird way. When Ryuji and Taiga met, it didn’t take long for Ryuji to see through Taiga’s behavior and find this sensitive, hurting person that needed him underneath it, and to respond to it. When Ami meets Ryuji, she fairly quickly seems to realize that he’s someone that can look through outer appearances, and care about someone for who they are inside. Basically, she really hopes Ryuji would be able to love her for the condescending bitch she really is.

Oh, also:

It’s bright pink and you use it to check out other girls. I am so sure that radar’s intent is to detect “cuteness”, aren’t you?

I think the thing I find most amusing about Ami is that she’s apparently a skilled enough manipulator that even people watching the show will buy into it. I’ve seen fan comics depicting her real self as the gentle, soft-spoken waif that she acted like when she first had a try at scamming Ryuji into thinking Taiga started the argument the first time they all met. I guess what this proves is that for some people, their brains really do shut down when they’re presented with someone they find attractive, even if that someone is completely fictional. I mean, a large portion of Ami’s role on the show is dedicated to showing us that she’s an utter cunt, but even when the show’s practically grabbed you by the hair and rubbed your nose in the concept of “Taiga is a nice girl even if she’s violent, Ami is a phony cow who hates everyone”, some people will still sniffle and say “Poor sweet Ami, being persecuted by that evil Taiga”. I mean, in Ami’s first appearance, towards the end of the episode, she spends one entire scene blatantly looking for absolutely anything she can do to hurt or upset Taiga. The girl’s a mad cow! Get with it, people!

Ahem.

Anyway, I recommend Toradora! if you like romantic comedies (though I guess you could almost call this a romantic dramady). It’s got a good mix of comedy and seriousness, cute character designs, good animation, and a neat story. I do not recommend this series for people that prefer a series to confine itself to one genre, people who don’t like high school animes, or people named Gerbera Tetra.

You can find the anime on torrent sites, or probably officially released on DVD. You can find the manga here at OneManga.