There are few scholastic touchstones more beloved by anime than the vaunted high school cultural festival. And it’s not hard to understand why; such festivals provide a natural disruption of their attendees’ standard, frequently unconsidered school activities, offering events that both force collaboration between unlikely student alliances and also challenge characters to move outside their comfort zone, prompting reflection on how they’ve changed over the preceding year.
Tag Archives: Toradora
Toradora! – Episode 10
Toradora’s ninth episode was, if anything, a bit of a backslide or regression for our luckless heroes. After the eighth episode saw Taiga passionately acknowledging her connection to Ryuuji, the allure of a summer trip and its attendant opportunities found both our leads slipping back into old habits, and attempting to contrive some ghostly encounter that might push each into the arms of their destined love. Not only have they failed to recognize the mutual affection they already possess, but they’ve also returned to seeing romance as some sort of solvable logic puzzle, wherein love flowers not from the steady march of shared time and meaningful experiences (like, say, Ryuuji and Taiga’s desperate episode eight training), but through the engineering of some arbitrary situation that flips some theoretical “love switch,” jetting its participants from awkward acquaintances to comfortable lovers in one turbulent motion.
Toradora! – Episode 9
Toradora!’s eighth episode found our leads fumbling around an emotional breaking point, unable to admit their feelings to either themselves or each other, and more fundamentally uncertain of what those feelings are. Taiga’s proclamation that “no one could understand me. After all, I don’t understand myself” basically embodies their feelings at this moment – having gone past the point of collaborating purely for the sake of their romantic goals, they are now closer to each other than anyone else in their lives. They are each other’s confidant, and even though their understanding of romance is still informed by the lofty dreams that push them towards their chosen crushes, their experience of romance is all contained in this odd dynamic they alternately call a partnership, a friendship, or something in between.
Toradora! – Episode 8
Having survived Toradora!’s darkest hour, we arrive at an episode that announces itself with one of the franchise’s greatest assets: Minori Kushieda, and her inexhaustible inventory of weird noises.
Minorin’s Whole Deal is one of the most compelling ways Toradora! pushes back against anime romance convention. For as complex as they are, Taiga and Ami still resemble recognizable archetypes – in contrast, Minori is both weird and intelligent in ways that aren’t often recognized in anime, much less framed in the context of the “perfect romantic ideal.” Minori is always too unabashedly herself to fade into her narrative role, always doing things that push others out of their comfort zones, and steering the narrative when you might expect her to be stepping aside. As we’ve discussed, her play-acting is ultimately its own kind of defensiveness, but her behavior is unique in a way that makes her feel far more alive and distinctive than many romantic heroines.
Toradora! – Episode 7
“Just be yourself” is well-intentioned advice, but frankly a little incomplete. What if your genuine self isn’t actually a nice person? What if your most honest instincts aren’t the most charitable ones, and your greatest talent is tearing people down? The truth is, being yourself is a luxury within society, a privilege that demands either an unusually charitable disposition, or an unusually forgiving audience. To truly be yourself, you must first find your people – the soil that fits you, and the dynamic that rewards your natural instincts. Growing up is a process of both tempering your own instincts, and feeling around for an environment that accepts you – and until you reach that point, most advice about self-presentation is just going to sound like a sack of lies.
Toradora! – Episode 6
“Are you tired of being nice? Don’t you just want to go ape shitt?”
– Anonymous
It’s a little ironic that Ryuuji and Taiga initially bonded over their mutual inability to truly express their feelings. Though they have the same fears anyone might have about directly confessing to their crush, in a general sense, Ryuuji and Taiga are both unusually transparent, straightforward teenagers. Ryuuji would never lie or manipulate to get ahead, and Taiga wields her emotions like a rhinoceros driving a go kart, crashing through social niceties with the force of her feelings. And though they can’t really appreciate this, it’s actually that transparency and sincerity that their friends like about them. Kitamura respects Ryuuji for his straightforward decency, and Minori regularly lets Taiga’s rage be the vehicle for her own feelings. Our heroes envy their friends for their seemingly effortless cool and grace, but those friends in turn understand their own actions are in part performances, while Ryuuji and Taiga are always, unabashedly themselves.
Toradora! – Episode 5
As teenagers, we should all probably be collectively forgiven for our trespasses in misunderstanding the feelings and identities of other people. Heck, even adults are constantly misunderstanding each other – and as an adolescent, it’s enough of a struggle to understand yourself, much less any other person. We cast around for a stable, reassuring identity, and when we fall in love, it is often not another person we are enamored with, but rather what we feel is missing from our own lives. So it went in Toradora’s fourth episode, which was ostensibly centered on the roots of Taiga and Ryuuji’s crushes, but ultimately revealed far more about how they view themselves.
Toradora – Episode 4
Toradora’s third episode is largely dedicated to Ryuuji having his preconceptions about his classmate Minori forcefully challenged, first through Taiga’s defense of her close friend, and then through confessions by Minori herself. Trapped in a tool shed with a distressed Minori, he learns that the strength and energy which he sees as an effortless component of Minori’s base nature is actually anything but. Minori isn’t naturally confident or naturally strong; she simply plays the part, putting on an appearance of strength in order to inspire real strength.
Toradora – Episode 3
Toradora’s third episode opens with cherry blossoms blooming in sunlight, their petals shaking free and dancing in the breeze. A bright blue sky and the sounds of birds chirping complement the petals, leading into Taiga yawning as she wipes the sleep from her eyes. Every element of this episode’s first moments convey a firm sense of rebirth and growth, a new beginning. After the torrential drama of the show’s first two episodes, Toradora has at last established its neutral mode, leading Taiga and Ryuji through calamitous confessions to arrive at an honest, genuine friendship. Ryuji and Taiga are no longer “partners in crime” or otherwise forced to share space; they’re just friends, and so they hang out.
Toradora – Episode 2
Toradora’s second episode is essentially one entirely self-contained love story, though its participants don’t really understand that. I wondered in my last writeup if my memories of Ryuji and Taiga’s rapport were a little rose-tinted, and whether Taiga’s tsundere schtick would get tiresome in the long run. Well, I am happy to report that that’s absolutely not the case – these two are still wonderful together, and through this episode, we see them essentially perform their first dates, first fight, and first reconciliation, ultimately arriving at a comfortable and engaging neutral. I’m always on the lookout for more romances about couples who are already in a relationship, and though Ryuji and Taiga would argue heatedly to the contrary, I’m now realizing that part of this show’s strength is that in many ways, it’s already there.