DISCLAIMER:
This is a rant–and a rather poorly written one at that. I say some pretty caustic things about the show, and fans will likely be offended. You can feel free to agree or disagree with anything I said, but keep in mind that this is not a personal attack on you or your opinions, simply my thoughts. That being said, you have been warned about the content of this post and can continue reading at your own discretion.
Did I like the romance in Toradora? I’ll give that a resounding ‘yes’, but probably not for the reasons that most fans would. I liked the romance in Toradora because I hated Ryuuji and Taiga so much and found them so odious that I thought they deserved each other. This is not my first go at Toradora, I actually tried to watch it a few years back, but was so put off by the first few episodes that I saw no reason to continue. Anyway, more recently when I found out how popular it was, I figured I should give it another shot. Mistake. Should have trusted my first impressions.
Here’s a synopsis courtesy of MyAnimeList:
It’s a new school year and Ryuuji Takasu discovers that not only is he in the same class as his best friend, Yuusaku Kitamura, but also Minori Kushieda whom he’s had an undisclosed crush on for quite some time. Along with the two of them comes the “Palmtop Tiger”, tiny Taiga Aisaka and Minori’s best friend. Despite her small stature, Taiga takes nothing from anybody and is secretly in love with Kitamura. Ryuuji and Taiga, despite their oil and water relationship, agree to mutually support each other in their quests for their hearts’ desire.
So I think the caption of the picture below perfectly summarizes why I disliked this show so much.
- I hate you all. Every. Single. One of you.
I absolutely detested the characters and the story and the drama, but mostly the characters. My fundamental issue was that the show was trying so hard to make them multidimensional and well-rounded that it ended up turning them into caricatures instead of characters. There was the whole weird thing with Minori trying to hide just how much she cared about things and how dedicated she was. Then the weird Ami Kawashima ‘dual personality’ nonsense. It made me feel like I was in a mental institution. I understand that a prominent message of the show was that “everyone tries to hide his/her true self from others”, but the way they did it was stupid. It was stupid because it was so obvious. I mean really, they had an entire freaking episode dedicated to Ami and her dual personality. That’s way overkill. A show should let you discover something like that on your own instead of whacking you over the head with it, which is what Toradora did.
There were so many character failures in the show I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, Ryuuji was and idiot. Essentially it went like “oh I really like this weird girl named Minori, but I’m too much of a pussy to ask her out so I’m kinda just gonna waffle around and do nothing.” Then Taiga comes around and decides that she and Ryuuji are going to help each other out. It’s basically them setting each other up with each other’s friends. I mean from the very beginning of the show (even if you don’t know anything about it already) you can tell that after a series of stupid and supposedly funny events, Taiga and Ryuuji are going to end up together. Cool. Whatever. So let’s throw in some tropes then shall we?
Look! It’s an itty bitty tsundere bitch. Never seen one of those before. Very creative, Toradora.
You’ve got Taiga, the standard tsundere character who’s not so secretly in love with the class president who is best friends with the guy who has a slutty, absent parent and has to take care of himself and is in love with the weird girl who likes to play sports and be weird. Something like that. I know that totally incoherent not really a sentence was so awesome right? However, I think that pretty much sums up my understanding of the show. Yes, you could go on to say “oh, but it was so cute and sentimental, blah, blah, blah.” Bullshit. Ryuuji was an asshole stringing Minori along and giving her false hope even though he knew he was in love with Taiga. And then Taiga was a total bitch for kind of just accepting the fact that Minori wanted her to be happy instead of backing down and telling her clearly upset best friend that since she liked Ryuuji first then she should have dibs on him. Did that happen? No. Essentially Ami was the only character who actually had a brain between her ears. I can understand why she’s Josh’s favorite character. (Sorry if this is kind of incoherent, I’m sort of angrily word-vomiting at this point.)
Taiga and Ryuuji deserved each other because at the end of the day, they were both terrible people. I hated both of them and thought they went well together. However, that doesn’t mean I thought they were a cute couple or that they should live happily ever after with each other. It just meant that when they finally got together I was like “Thank God can the show PLEASE be over already?” At that point I was ready to tear my hair out and give up. I can understand why this show is so popular, but it’s probably for those exact reasons that I detested it so much.
Awesome, you morons finally got together. Let’s just stop the show here. Please. Right now. I can’t take much more of it!
Then there are some nitpicky things that further contributed to my dislike of the show. Another factor is my dislike of the premise. I mean I’m not a huge fan of the ‘school days’ genre as a general rule. I find them stupid and virtually identical to each other. The tropes are redundant and I’m sick of seeing girls wandering around in skimpy uniforms and knee socks. I know Josh said that girls in Japan actually wear the uniforms, but I kind of doubt that they have so much sex appeal built into them. Also, when Kitamura had that weird nervous breakdown it was so ridiculous and unrealistic that I couldn’t take him seriously. Really, if you meet someone who does that after getting romantically rejected please send him/her my way because I’d love to have a conversation with that person to try and understand.
Right because normal people would totally be allowed to wear that to school.
Then there was the weird, way too convenient nonsense with Taiga and Ryuuji’s parents and the fact that they didn’t really give too much of a fuck about their kids and what they did. I mean Ryuuji’s mom sort of did, but she was basically a hooker, which does a lot to invalidate her as a character. Prostitute with the heart of gold anyone? Look at that cliche. Agh! So much rage about this show. I think I’m going to go eat all the cookies I just baked as a consolation prize for finally finishing this post.
This is how I felt when the show was finally over.
Chromatic Aberration Everywhere 
Long comment, but…
Thinking about it, you guys *would* have been high schoolers right when it first came out (2008-09), right? Seems the show didn’t really hit you right, which gets me thinking about the demographical info for folks who had favorable responses.
I really think opinion on the show comes down to how much you care about chuunibyou, growing up stories, and how they’re presented. Because, of course, anime growing up stories tend to look the same way and emphasize the same things. It’s that simple, because Toradora isn’t really that skillfully crafted. Even as an immature adult, and even as a kid, I’ve had a certain skepticism to such works. On the other hand, I *do* tend to have more respect for them when the whole project is poetic (even if wrongheaded). I remember being totally messed up by Cardcaptor Sakura, because I realized that the theme was worked out and all that (most CLAMP works aren’t as good).
There’s a certain…smugness to Toradora. In the humor, the drama, and the melodrama (quite a bit of that). Where the fun kind of *is* just in deviating from the expected…even if it’s in ways that are morally trivial or menial. I never found myself thinking about the school social hierarchy, family, or growing up in a new way, even though you could *probably* wring something out. There was plenty of that in the blogosphere when the show came out.
I *may* be just the right litmus test. You see, when I saw it I was literally a hikikomori sophomore, a total chuunibyou fuck-the-world otaku. It’s slightly awkward to admit, but the show made me hate myself unreasonably. It’s full of bad vibes even now because when I think hard, it seems I loved it in response to the very things I immaturely hated about my own modus operandi—this letting alone all of the stuff I *disliked* about the show. And there was no balm for it.
The story didn’t make me care about the conundrums of life. Y’know, that way sometimes three or five different answers all look right but you can’t or won’t choose. You could say that a lot of teenage or “immature” life is irresponsibility, and not looking hard enough or letting go enough, but as I earlier wrote, this show isn’t a work of crafting genius. It doesn’t care about any of that, or carefully show you genuinely hateful, hate-able people grasping for something better (invisible love or whatever, right?) because the angle is very generic and heavy-handed. It’s no Catcher in the Rye, to be sure.
Toradora, and a great deal of anime, tends to lack this precision. It bleeds too much into the superficial, just to mess with it. So that you can say that some motifs were “shifted” or something, but what are you *really* getting?
It tries to feed you medicine with candy, but the medicine is weak and you down a hell of a lot of candy. Would you believe that I found myself wishing I lived Ryuuji’s life? That I *wanted* to have the shit beat out of me so that I could feel like I had friends? Wishing for a fantasy world, even though the point was to accept your world and make the best of it? What the flying fuck? Yeah, that’s when I think something’s gone wrong, trope or motif-wise.
I don’t even know where all this negativity is coming from, lol, because I feel great these days and I only shrug at these sorts of shows now. But I getcha. This post is pretty real, and it made me think. If I’m going to find family and growing-up shows super-special, I’m gonna need more than just supposed ideas, or oh-that-was-kinda-neato glimmers.
You have some excellent points in your comment! It gave me a lot to think about. This show didn’t really affect me on a personal level, the same way it seemed to impact you. Of course, unless you count the hours I spent being angry about watching it haha. I personally find most growing up stories to be very cliched, they have been done to death. Because of this, it is difficult to draw any new perspective from them and Toradora unfortunately fell into the unoriginal slush pile. I’m glad that you enjoyed my post though and that you no longer feel the negativity you once associated with this (and other) shows.
Wanted to add something Rebecca forgot to mention. Which is that she watched the show just a short while back, rather than in high school, and so that note about the target demographic is a little bit off.
I actually watched it in high school though, albeit a year or so after it had aired. It wasn’t relatable on a “visceral” level then to me either, because all these shows are set in Japanese high schools with strange parental dynamics and crazy love triangles. But it seemed a little bit more…close to home, perhaps?
Fair point. Thanks for bringing it up.
Shut da fuck up this was the best show iv ever seen in my life the story was great rhe romance was great and the ending almost made me cry ur proboly saying this becuse u cant get any love u probly raped a 5 year old because no one like ur gandolf looking ass dont hate on this show it wsa worth my time and every one who loves this shoe to thats why u look like a stept on roach u fat fuck dont hate on taiga’s size u might not like her hight because ur dick is as small as she is u derp face mother fucker
Lol I never thought of it that way. i actually liked the anime even if the ending sorta dragged and i actually did think the same way as you did after episode 22. As i read your review i couldn’t help but laugh. I LOVED YOUR REVIEW! XD Everything you said is true and if i had noticed the things you noticed in the beginning i would have just stopped watching it from episode 1 (btw i knew his mom was a stripper i just didn’t care about that part of the anime) Thanks for the review it was very entertaining hope i see more of these!
Thanks so much Stop1000! I’m glad that someone liked it XD. I haven’t gotten a positive comment on this post in a while so it’s refreshing :). In retrospect I probably should have given up on the show a lot earlier, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to write this lovely rant haha.
I cannot for the life of me remember this happening. It’s been too long since I last watched it, but I didn’t come out of that anime thinking that he was a terrible person. He was just… hopelessly unaware about everything until the last minute. Unaware of Taiga’s feelings for him. Unaware of the real reason Minori rejected him. Unaware of all the cryptic messages that Ami was giving him.
These characters aren’t shining beacons of humanity. Minori made some bad decisions and couldn’t deal with the guilt, Ami’s passive-aggressive behavior was entirely unhelpful when it mattered the most, and Taiga is just a little ball of TRUST ISSUES due to how she was raised. I can’t deny that they’re not great. I would say, however, that these traits don’t make them caricatures, much less bags of tropes: they make the cast flawed. Love polygons are a battle of priorities, where people pretend they can control how each aspect of a relationship progresses while expecting to receive no consequences in response. Of course people are going to appear terrible when they try to manipulate the polygon. No one really comes out as the person taking the higher road. I found that to be fascinating to watch, personally.
Concerning that whole school life genre thing, there’s a lot of anime out there where the aspects you complain about are either scarce or nonexistent. Wandering Son and Honey & Clover come to mind as some better examples of this, but generally I’m speaking of josei/shoujo anime.
Appropriant–thank you for the comment. You make several good points, but I politely disagree with your comment on character development. There is nothing wrong with presenting flawed characters, quite the contrary since these characters tend to be the most interesting and relatable. However, the problem arises when their ‘flawed nature’ is shoved into the faces of the audience, screaming to be noticed. A show shouldn’t have to rub our noses in the fact that the characters are flawed. A little subtlety goes a long way.
Time to line up and confess whether we liked the show or not, I guess? I enjoyed Toradora when I watched it maybe 2-3 years ago, quite a lot in fact. I mean, it made me laugh and cry, and either of those was enough to put a show on my good list back then (I like to think that my taste has matured a bit, though my criteria really hasn’t changed much). Since, judging from your reaction, the show did neither for you, except maybe cry in frustration, I don’t really have any basis to turn your overall opinion. However, I’ll offer my thoughts on your critique.
>> “trying so hard to make them multidimensional and well-rounded that it ended up turning them into caricatures”
Doesn’t a caricature basically imply simplified and exaggerated? Which sounds like the opposite of multidimensional and well-rounded? So they tried and failed so hard that it had the opposite effect? Then what would suggest they were trying to do the other in the first place? Sorry if I’m nitpicking, but the sentence just sounded really weird to me.
>> “It was stupid because it was obvious.”
I haven’t actually watched a lot of shows scripted by Okada Mari, but from what I can gather (and it seems to be the general consensus), subtlety is not her strong point. I just watched the first episode of Nagi no Asukara and groaned at the melodrama being set up all too quickly. Even Toradora waited till around halfway through the series to get to that level. I don’t really mind stuff like an episode to expound on a character’s particular trait, as long as it sticks in the long run. Lack of consistency is a worse sin than lack of subtlety, or something like that.
>> “Cool. Whatever. So let’s throw in some tropes then shall we?”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad
And of course josh has already written and analyzed more than I ever could about anime cliches and the otaku database.
>> “Look! It’s an itty bitty tsundere bitch. Never seen one of those before. Very creative, Toradora.”
I’m just wondering, is this in response to other people’s claims that Taiga was an interesting/creative character? Because I’ve read a fair amount of reviews and such that advertised her as a deconstruction (dangerous word to use) of the tsundere archetype. I personally wouldn’t paint it as revolutionary, but in Taiga’s case her personality problems do seem to stem from her insecurities and family problems rather than existing solely for the abuse of the male protagonist and the delight of otaku viewers, unlike the majority of Kugyuu’s other roles.
>> “Ryuuji was an asshole stringing Minori along and giving her false hope even though he knew he was in love with Taiga. And then Taiga was a total bitch for kind of just accepting the fact that Minori wanted her to be happy instead of backing down and telling her clearly upset best friend that since she liked Ryuuji first then she should have dibs on him.”
And Minori, who knew more than she let on, and could have ended it early on by claiming Ryuuji or rejecting him, instead let the whole thing drag on due to her “selflessness” and blow up into all that drama. The premise of the whole show wouldn’t exist otherwise. Is it even possible to have a love polygon story that isn’t frustrating in some way? And probably people enjoy it too (masochists). If you know of one that isn’t, do share.
>> “I mean Ryuuji’s mom sort of did, but she was basically a hooker, which does a lot to invalidate her as a character. Prostitute with the heart of gold anyone? Look at that cliche. Agh!”
That was low and uncalled for. You dare insult my lovely Ya-chan?! Better watch your back!
Hi Rikuo, always good to get another opinion. Time for me to address your comments!
1. Sure, a bit nitpicky. However, I do think that they would fall under exaggerated if not simplified.
2. Yes, the characterization was consistent. That didn’t make it’s blatant nature any less irritating. This seems to come down to pure personal opinion though.
3. Yep. Tropes. Josh talks a lot about those.
4. I didn’t think she was very creative. Tsundere is tsundere in my book. I’m kind of an anime neophyte (I haven’t watched too much of it compared to most bloggers.) I haven’t read other posts on Toradora so all opinions were purely my own and not in response to anything.
5. I laughed when you said, ” The premise of the whole show wouldn’t exist otherwise” mainly because that would have made me so happy. If the show didn’t exist I wouldn’t have had to suffer through it. Also, love polygons are destined to be a mess, so I agree with your point.
6. Eh. I’m sticking to my guns on this one (I’ll sleep with one eye open). The character was basically painted as a, I’ll use the term ‘floozy’ since it’s a bit classier than ‘hooker’. I’m assuming you’re male so that definitely explains the difference in opinion. (If you aren’t male I do apologize.)
I’ll have to disagree with #6. Ryuuji’s mom is a single mom who had him when she was a teen. Therefore being a hooker is the highest paying job she can get that supports both her and her son. She could let her son pay bills etc., but she refuses to let him do so and instead takes on this job and sometimes other jobs. She may not be the ideal mom but she does love her son, even if her job “invalidates” her.
That’s incredibly sexist to say that her job as a bar tender– using sex appeal to gain extra cash– invalidates her entire character, and saying anyone who disagrees must be male. You should be ashamed of yourself for insinuating such a shallow and flawed moral.
(No, but seriously, how does working in the sex industry invalidate anyone? It’s a job, she’s getting paid, and she’s not forced into it, nor is anyone forcing anyone to GIVE her money for what she does. It’s all consensual. What is your problem.)
And yeah, so what if she isn’t so smart? She knew that, she even directly admits she’s not as smart as her son, which is why she took two jobs at once to support him in school so he COULD do what she never could.
You know what that shows? Way more than the “prostitute with a heart of gold” trope. She has humility, honesty, and most of all love for her son. She starts out simple but becomes more complex. And in the end she even confronts her parents and apologizes. That’s brave. The show’s not even about her, but this detail of her life was not forgotten in the creation of the show. I don’t see how you could possibly call her an invalid character.
I’m sorry you feel that way! I guess I should turn in my second x chromosome since clearly I’m a terrible female who doesn’t laud every other member of my sex (especially the fictional ones in anime).
On Taiga and “deconstruction.” I’ve read that, too. I think she’s been called a tsunshun rather than a tsundere, because she gets visibly melancholic about her tsun. More importantly, she isn’t actually tsun toward the person she initially likes. Or…she was…once? Anyway, *we* never witness that. I too think there’s a…mildly-interesting swerve going on there.
FWIW, I hate “shun” and the ridiculousness that the dere periodic table has become.
Ami = Best Girl, fo’ shizzle.
I’m still surprised you reacted so negatively to Toradora! since you like shoujo dramas/romances so much. Regardless, it remains one of my favorite shows XD
I mean I’m sort of jaded at this point. I think I’m slowly phasing out of that genre, at least for now. Besides, I like my shoujo filled with ridiculous magical romance (emphasis on the magical aspect), romance in the real world just doesn’t do it for me haha.
5/8/15 the day I finished Toradora.I enjoyed it enough.Someone said that Ryuji knew he liked Taiga, but I didn’t see that till she stopped coming to his house and he missed her alot.Maybe Taiga had feelings for Ryuji, but it didn’t hit her till she thought she was going lose him to another.
□●○■Why wouldn’t Taiga realize her love after what Ryuji did coming dressed like santa so she could re live one of her happiest days so she would know somebody’s is watching after her.
I don’t know about anyone else but, the scene with Ryuji in the Santa bear costume might have been my favorite part of the whole anime.How can anyone not at least like that part.
To respond to some of the interesting discussion here…
I watched Toradora just months after I’d finished high school and I think it was the first high school anime I’d seen after graduating. Naturally, the fake nostalgia did get to me in a mild way – I say “fake” because of course the depiction of high school life in Toradora is very idealistic and hyper-emotional. It was basically the high school life I wish I could have led, surrounded by friends who would actually care enough about me to get angry and cry with me.
Another thing: I watched the show with my brother at the time and he didn’t like the melodrama much either. But we both liked the family-centric scenes, I guess because we’d turned our screenings into a kind of sibling bonding thing?
Anyway, I did like Toradora, though I don’t feel strongly enough to try and defend it. Just wanted to share how my personal experiences might have affected how I perceived the show and see how that compares with the baggage you took into your viewing. It is clear, after all, that you disliked the very concepts the series was trying to portray, which seems me that it would probably not have succeeded no matter how well-executed it was. But that could just be the way I read this review.
Hi Froggy! Sorry it took me forever to respond, I’ve been super distracted with my other blog (makes embarrassed, guilty face). I definitely agree with you that I disliked the show on such a fundamental level that it would have taken a miracle for me to like it. Unlike Seirei no Moribito, I didn’t even make a valiant attempt to like the show, even though I did manage to finish. It probably didn’t help that I am relatively removed from the high school experience, and I think I would have liked it better had I watched it at a different time in my life.
Pingback: J.C. Staff Is Not A Crap Studio | Fantastic Memes·
Also I hate this show because i shipped ryuji and kushieda alot. But this anime gave me the best quote ever,
“Crying is the nosebleed of the heart. If you trip while running down a hallway, you’ll get a nosebleed. If you trip in life, you’ll cry.” – Kushieda Minori
That’s a pretty great quote. Thanks for commenting! I’m glad someone else shares my views on the show.
Pingback: Toradora! Watchlog – Episodes 10-11 | Vimitsulog·
I was just having a Toradora discussion with Silvachief. He liked it more than I did but my main quibble was the fact that I knew how it was going to end from the first episode even though I prayed for something less predictable and more bittersweet.
Thanks for commenting, Lazarinth! I think having a less predictable ending would probably have made the show a bit more enjoyable for me as well.
No problem, I’ve got a few opinions to share and more to come. Added you to my blogroll, being about anime and all, hope you don’t mind.
Not at all! Thanks for adding us :).
if all of you hate it so much why did you watch it?
most of you sound like little children that dont get what they want. if you can complain about the story and characters so much, why dont you make an anime yourselfs…?
i think the ones who are flaming the most are the most jealous, because you didnt had a great school time or have other complexes
Although I tend to disagree with Rebecca’s opinion here, I just wanted to step in and try and answer this. In order:
1) There’s no reason that you only need to watch things you like: you can learn a lot by watching other types of shows, even ones you might have to force yourself to finish in order to get the resolution. And there are many reasons outside of just liking something that makes people watch a show!
2) Making anime is HARD yo (see, for instance, this episode of Sgt. Keroro). As is writing a book, running a blog (!), and pretty much any form of actually producing content (including commenting, so thanks for that!). Apart from it just being time-consuming and pretty damn hard, I think everyone has a right to critique and comment about things they watch, even if they don’t opt to make it themselves.
3) I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad I didn’t have a high school experience like the one in Toradora! And both Rebecca and I are pretty content living much quieter, less drama-filled lives ;).
Yes, I didn’t get what I wanted. If you paid for the content, then you expect quality for your money. That kind of gives me the right to complain, just like when you pay for food in a restaurant it gives you a right to complain once they bring you cold, stale chicken. And when I complain about the unexpectedly cold, stale chicken I sure ain’t jealous of it.
Despite disagreeing with your sentiment, I find your article thoroughly entertaining to read. Maybe it is just fascinating to see differing opinions but witnessing how you rip the show to shreds and perhaps overreact to it, is surprising hilarious.
I’m glad you found my post amusing. I try my best to entertain ;). Toradora was a terrible show, I don’t usually hate shows that much (my opinion is usually more along the lines of meh), but for some reason this one really got to me.
Yeah, let’s agree to disagree. I guess it is as special to me as it is “special” to you, just for vastly different reasons.
I completely agree, I love Toradors but this post made some very interesting (and rather true) points. Surpringly fun to read, even for someone who likes the show. There’s a lot of truth to those opinions.
I seem to always get attached to shows like this. Same thing happened when I watched Golden Time (Same creator of Toradora, just a few years newer). The one issue I seem to be faced by with the creator (Would Google his name but my internet is dying on me) is that he leaves the story hanging and then never returns to them. With Toradora I found that it might have been better if they slowed down and maybe added 2-3 episodes just to end it off at a nice pace. I felt rushed from one minute having them about to marry to suddenly having Taiga lie to Kyuuji and run off to her Mum only to meet him again 1 year later (That is if you exclude the canon OVA). I feel the same thing happened in Golden Time but I wont really get into it here.
Overall my opinion is the complete opposite to yours most likely because I have only recently started watching these types of Anime and cant really distinguish the difference between ultra cliche to original.
Thanks for the great post. Very entertaining to read!!
Thanks for your comment, Tomasu! I definitely think the show would have benefitted from a slower buildup to the finale. I’d be interested to see if your opinion changes at all once you’ve seen more of this genre of anime.
Yeah I definitely need to start watching a few more. I made the huge mistake of watching the 12 episodes of School Days.. I don’t think I have ever been so shaken up by an anime before.
Haha, watching School Days after Toradora! is the equivalent of eating a rotten piece of meat after indulging in a sweet and delicious cake.
Yeah it so is.
Here’s a million dollar question: If you dislike/hate this anime so much, then WHY BOTHER WATCHING IT AT ALL?? 0_0
It honestly doesn’t make sense to watch an entire series of anything, much less a genre you already don’t like, and “suffer” through it rather than just turning it off after you had all that you can stand.
Granted I do like the show, and my wife and I are lovers of anime, but if we see a show regardless of genre that we don’t like, we simply just turn it off or change it. Now I cannot tell if you and your boyfriend/fiance/husband like animes or not, simply from this single post, but I would like get some feedback.
I am not a fan of the show “2 Broke Girls” on CBS, nor was I fan of “Lost”, and though I have seen the show “Gurren Lagann”, and admit it is a good anime, there’s just something about it that never really caught my attention. I couldn’t really find anything wrong (at least wrong enough for me to spout off at the mouth about them) with any of these shows, but they just never caught my interest.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I can’t tell if you’re taking a perspective from someone who doesn’t enjoy anime, but is willing to see what all the hype is about, OR if you are just trolling (And I hope I used that terms correctly) people into a disliking/hating something just because YOU don’t personally enjoy it. I would be much obliged if I could find out the reason behind the madness so to speak.
Now as for your own personal reasons for disliking the show are your own and no matter what I say that isn’t going to change, just like you aren’t going to change my personal reasons for liking the show. But that is what civilized people do, they agree to disagree.
HOWEVER, I do have a problem with anyone lumping one thing they’ve seen, read, or done into a vast generalization of a topic. “Tsundere is tsundere in my book”. That’s like saying ‘Cake is Cake’, ‘A cookie is a cookie’, ‘a muffin is a muffin’, ‘a first person shooter is a first person shooter’, and so on and so forth. I could even go as far as saying ‘sweets are sweets’ and be extremely bias, but I digress. You should NEVER judge anything much less a book by its cover.
Don’t like it, Don’t Watch, Read, Do, and/or Listen to it. Simple as that.
The point is if you don’t like something, you are entitled to your opinion, as long as we all are civilized, but to base your opinion on a whole like that is uncalled for.
Now granted you made some fine points, mostly about the cliches of the series, but that’s the thing about cliches, no one really likes them, but some just put up with them better than others. Now I’m not here to say that the show was revolutionary, if it was it would have came out LONG before the year 2000, mostly like somewhere in the 1980’s, but it’s what captured the viewers attention that made it into something more. How much more is debatable, but that’s a topic for another day.
I’ll end on this note. Yes the show is popular, and many would say it’s good, some it’s absolute triumph, others it’s waste of media. But the fact of the matter is that it is popular for both good and bad reasons, are many unpopular things are. All I ask is PLEASE don’t be a bloody hipster and instantly hate/dislike or need to find a reason to hate/dislike something JUST because it’s ‘popular’ or ‘too mainstream’.
Thanks for the comment, Jon. I’ll try to address all your points in turn :).
1. I watched this show because it’s pretty iconic and thought that it was worth making myself get through just to say that I watched it.
2. Josh (my boyfriend) and I are definitely big anime fans and while we’ve been on something of a hiatus this summer, there are a bunch of other reviews I’ve written about shows that are much more positive. You can take a look at some here, here, and here if you’re interested.
3. I definitely wasn’t trolling when I wrote this post. I legitimately had issues with Toradora as a show and felt like sharing my opinions. People are perfectly welcome to agree or disagree with what I said.
4. I’ve seen my fair share of shows with ‘tsundere’ characters. I understand the point you’re trying to make and it was probably unfair of me to say that all ‘tsundere’ characters are the same, but my sheer dislike for the show caused me to be a bit hyperbolic in most of my statements.
5. I didn’t dislike this show because I was mainstream. I actually really enjoy Fairytail, which is about as mainstream as they come, but I understand why you might think that.
Thanks for taking the time to comment! We always appreciate feedback :). I hope you’ll consider reading some of my other posts to see that I actually am a fan of a lot of the things I watch.
I think I made it to the point in which you started “invalidating” ryuuji’s mom because she was a prostitute before I broke a little inside. I just don’t understand why somone would post an article with this much hate on an anime that really just doesn’t deserve it. I mean you are entitled to whatever opinion you want to have but to be honest most of this feels like less of a genuine opinion and more of you just trashing/hating on the show.
This becomes more evident as you literally go out of your way at every possible point to insult EVERYTHING about the anime. This includes aspects of an anime that you find perfectly ok in the other animes you have reviewed but suddenly hate with a passion in this one. I mean, I have watched my fair share of animes I didn’t like at all before, but I would never trash them to this extent to anyone much less write an entire article demeaning it.
On the other hand, I am sorry that during this comment I am probobly being a little insensitive as you were obviously not in a very good mood while writing it which does explain alot of the unessessary hate in the article. I just get really sad when i see somone hating on stuff especially if that “stuff” is anime. Anyway, I think im gonna go listen to some happy nightcore music to make myself feel better. I genuinly hope you have a good day and that you will find more animes that you can feel happier about than you did this one.
Hi Benton,
I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I’d like to say that I did truly dislike this show, and found that it had a lot of elements that made me irritated. However, at the time I felt much more strongly about it than I do now. If you did ask me now, I’d say that I really didn’t like it and leave it at that. Thank you for your kind wishes and feel free to check out some of my other posts for shows that I actually enjoyed.
The whole anime in my opinion was so/so. The only character I did like in Toradora was Minorin because of her energetic/loyal personality. And to be honest, I can see Ryuuji leaving Taiga in the future for her tsundere personality. In fact, there’s an well-written fanfic of it happening.
I finished Toradora on August 29, 1:00am and here I am researching what the fuck the anime was about. I genuinely didnt understand this anime because of how ridiculous it was. I legitimately felt overwhelmed by this anime. Not because it was good, because it was that fucking irritating, everyone was stupid. Everyone. Taiga and Ryuji have almost nothing in common, I was constantly thinking about this show and when I’do get to the next episode so I can finally finish it. (This is coming from someone who hasn’t watched a lot of these types of shows) Ryujii got his ass handed to him like a little bitch every 5 seconds. It gets old. No one was emotionally stable or Confident or strong by any means. I feel ashamed and disgusted because I am as old as these characters (17) and this is NOT what seniors in high school would do, this Anime is synonymous with shit. The swimming arc was SO cringey I wanted to barf all over my TV and throw it out my window. (SPOILER)- he made her pads because she was flat chested. What. The actual. Fuck. Anyways I’m tired and this rant will probably have an additional 9 pages if I kept going so I’m going to just leave it off at my reaction to finishing this show- “wtf?”
Please comment what you think, thanks
I agree with you, as I’m sure you can tell by the pretty scathing review I wrote. This is probably one of the worst shows I’ve seen based on characters. You’ll be glad to know that there are much better things worth watching out there :). I think this type of dynamic isn’t super unusual in the genre so I personally stay away from the school romance/drama category.
What can you recommend for me?
What type of show are you interested in?
I’m not particularly picky. But I find squealing tiny voices very irritating. Voice is important to me. Recently I’ve actually liked Romantic Animes which surprises me because i dislike romantic movies/shows in general and I never thought I’d like anime to begin with. Let alone romantic ones.
So, a prevalent theme of romance. (Whether the Sub-category is Comedy, Action, Horror, or drama it doesn’t matter to me. Just has to be romantic, and not immature!)
If you’re looking for a romance/show with romance in it that doesn’t have a super whiny female protagonist (or super whiny characters in general) these are the ones I recommend: Chrno Crusade, Karin (Chibi Vampire), Noragami, and Romeo x Juliet.
I don’t know how you feel about reverse harems, but if you like those I’d recommend: Saiunkoku Monogatari and La Corda D’Oro. Hopefully one of those works out for you! Let me know if you have any other questions.
I honestly hated this show and ima fan of this genre for many animes out there, however the only thing i found good about this show was the upbeat music in the intro other than that the show was SHIT. Heres why i only was able to get halfway through the show before being mad at myself for watching such a thing. First off as cliché as it may be with the whole setting up friends from the get go was so stupid when by episode 2 or 3 it is already implied that there both perfect for each other due to their unstable personalities that make it a classic master and dog relationship. However that being said on the whole chemistry between the main Characters the whole aspect of them not being true to their feelings was just ridiculous and horrible and how they were obviously just stringing people along for a ride with no satisfying ending. The fact of the matter any show that waste the viewers anime time is just shit there was no need this show had to be 24 episodes by episode 12 they could’ve gave a better ending or they shouldve just added a plot twist or something geez. My honest recommendation if your into this master and dog leash romance Familiar of Zero is much more satisfying and is a true harem, not this piece of shit.
Toradora is fucking great imo.
I like the caricatures. They are the spice of the show. Taiga is accused of being a trashy tsundere and I get that, but she’s far great than 95% of the “it’s not like I like this or anything…b-b-baka!” *turns away indignantly and harrumphs* bullshit out there. I felt as if the characters had enough depth and interesting interactions with one another to be worth at least one watch.
Sure, the writing’s contrived and stupid. It’s far from perfect. But a lot of you seem to imply that the other anime you watch isn’t contrived and stupid in their own away, which I call bullshit on.
For me, the fun of Toradora isn’t figuring out who’s gonna get together or the master and dog relationship soley; anybody who thinks that these are the main themes of the show clearly missed the fuckin’ point, to put it blunty. It’s the getting from point A to point B that is interesting. Sure, the melodrama that cropped up is fucking stupid, and it’s just my kind of thing, I can respect that people hate this part of it. But honestly, I felt as if the characters were people, regardless of the contrived or odd writing. Everyone had character development and changed in relation to one another. They felt like real people and that’s something I can identify with.
Anyway, whatever. To each their own.
I always had problems with the ways that both Taiga and Ryuji could just grab and hurt each other. and its just FINE afterwards! The show always pulled annoying bullshit but i still enjoyed the savagrey of it,
Pingback: Re: “They Deserved Each Other: Why I hate Toradora” – TheBigGreenAnimeBlog·
This post covers most of my concerns about Toradora.
I came to watch Toradora a few years back as well, only to find myself hating it. This past week, I have tried to watch it again (mainly because Rie Kugimiya) and still find myself back at square zero.
First off, let’s clear this out;
If you plan on making the “main pairing” stick out like a sore thumb in the first 2 or 3 episodes, then you should just end it at that. There’s no need to extend it another 24 episodes, I’m pretty sure.
Also, is this where the whole “tsundere” girl characters stemmed out from? I’m pretty sure it is, as Taiga is one of the most underdeveloped tsunderes I’ve ever seen.
Of course, there are the usual tsunderes:
“J-just because I’m helping you out d-doesn’t mean I like you or a-anything!”
And those are the absolute worst as well, but at least please have a better backstory so we can resonate with why you act all “tsundere-y”.
Also, in the first ep, I remember seeing Taiga accidentally put her love letter in Ryuuji’s bag. Then she throws a fit about it.
Later on, Taiga appears in Ryuuji’s house.
Instead of questioning why Taiga is in his house specifically at night, or how the hell she got his address, Ryuuji decides to play along and beg for her forgiveness.
So.. I think I get this now.
[How to Be a Tsundere 101]
1. Get mad at someone you hate.
2. Now, when they do something wrong to you, find out their address randomly and go to their house at night.
3. Try and beat them up.
4. Go to their house every single day afterwards and make them cook you a breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, don’t forget to call them a dog.
5. Make the person you hate fall in love with you, and fall in love with them as well.
Works every time. [100% guaranteed to make your enemies fall in love with you!]
i can understand why you hated taiga, but i didnt hate ryuuji
Hmmm We viewed the show very differently. It was absolutely flawed in a lot of ways and some of the characters made me genuinely angry sometimes but I truly found them to be engaging and complex. I really think its a good show. I could write a huge long post about my feelings on this, but… its been like 5 years since you’ve posted so, why bother? I have just a few things to say about your review and about some of the points you made.
1. Taiga genuinely tried to push Minori and Ryuji together for ages until Minori forced Taiga to face her own feelings. She wasn’t some selfish creature. She did her absolute best to give up Ryuji, pushing him away, not relying on him, and not coming to his home (even though Taiga loved him too and it obviously hurt her to do so!). She would have continued to hide her feelings and avoid him if Minori and the others hadn’t confronted her. After all that, how can you call possibly call her selfish? Also… why should Taiga have to give Ryuji up? Your argument just doesn’t make sense to me. Taiga had no idea how long Minori had liked him, so the “having dibs” argument is dumb. Also, he’s a person, not the front seat of the car. You can’t call dibs on a person. That’s such an immature, simplistic view of things. Plus, Ryuji found out that both of them loved him and he chose to go after Taiga. He knew his options and he picked Taiga. He loved her. All the “dibs” in the world won’t change that.
2. The fact that you called Ryuji’s mom a slut and an absent parent. Tbh after reading that, I basically disregarded everything else you said. What was the phrase you used? Oh yes, it “invalidated” your post. Yasuko was a single teen mom who did everything she could to support herself and her kid. Yes, Ryuji had to take on a bunch of responsibilities because of her work and yes, she could be very immature, but she absolutely loved him and was there for him. Yasuko was willing to do anything for him to go to college, including work so hard she got sick because she wanted a better future for him. Did you not watch the last 2 episodes of the show? That was kind of a major plot point. Also, she took Taiga, a complete stranger, into her home and made her a part of their family without a second thought. She was a good mom and a great character and you think she’s a worthless character because she’s a hostess? F you. The fact that you missed the mark on her so much tells me that your review is worthless and I’m sad I wasted so much time reading it.
Final note- why did you watch the entire thing if you hated it so much? Why would you waste time on something you obviously hated from the start? Idk. Why did I even read this? I knew it would make me mad. Whatever. Looks like I made a long post about this. Seems like we both did some pointless things.