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.
Obviously, things did not work out that way. As it turns out, love is not some medal you are assigned for crafty romantic subterfuge, and does not exist apart from your existing relationship with your object of affection. Love is an accumulation of incidents, a scrapbook of shared moments and feelings that amounts to something more than just one person and another, that creates a shared space, an us with a warmth of its own. Love is doing something silly and knowing your partner will laugh in just that certain way. Love is staring into a face and seeing the trials and joys you’ve shared. Love is finding home in someone else, a place where you can curl up and feel perfectly yourself, perhaps even more yourself than you are alone.
And no, Ryuuji and Taiga’s experiences with their crushes did not resemble love. For the two of them, the space that’s supposed to be most comfortable was actually a nightmare of anxiety and disappointment. Even with Kitamura offering easy openings to a conversation about their mutual feelings, Taiga was overwhelmed by the intimacy of the moment, and said basically nothing. Meanwhile, Ryuuji’s attempts to probe Minori on her romantic feelings revealed that Minori has actually never felt that sort of love, and is unsure if she’s even capable of it. If their trap provided anything, it was a sliver of that shared experience necessary to actually become close – but if the actual substance of that shared experience is anything to go by, their quest could not be more hopeless.
This makes some sense, given neither Ryuuji nor Taiga are actually in love with the object of their affections. They’re certainly enamored with them, and happy to fantasize about idyllic shared experiences, but the characters populating those fantasies are not the friends they know in real life. What Ryuuji and Taiga truly seek is the confidence they see in their friends, which is a far thing indeed from the warm mutual understanding of genuine love. Fortunately, alongside their confidence, Minori and Kitamura also possess working eyes and brains, and have long since deduced the truth of this situation. With their help, a fresh set of ghostly encounters might actually provide the push our leads need, or simply the time to realize how they truly feel.
Episode ten opens on our leads in defeat and disarray. Having discovered seaweed and a mysterious dress dampening their beds, Ryuuji and Taiga spend the whole night awake downstairs, holding the fort against any spectral intruders. After Minori’s speech conflating finding love with seeing ghosts from the previous episode, it seems fitting that the lovestruck Ryuuji and Taiga are the ones who actually believe in supernatural spirits. Like with their romantic feelings, Operation Scare Minorin is an attempt to impose their own emotions on their crushes, generally with less than impressive results. And what is their response to actually getting scared? To huddle together all through the night, which is apparently the action that makes each of them feel safest. With just one bundle of seaweed, their friends accomplished everything Ryuuji and Taiga were hoping this ghost drama would achieve – but of course, the two of them are still too thick to realize it.
Staring blearily out at the morning sun, Taiga reaffirms their mission plan in the starkest possible terms, stating that “we have to, or else our future is set in stone.” Her phrasing here points towards one reason adolescent love tends to be felt so intensely: not only is it your first experience with romance, but the myopia of youth also frequently convinces you that it’ll be your last experience with romance, like you either secure this relationship or are doomed to permanent unhappiness. Like a child wondering if the anesthetic haze of a doctor visit is just life from now on, adolescents have a tendency to assume their big emotional tides are permanent changes to their lives and personalities, as they have yet to cycle through enough versions of themselves to realize change is constant and inevitable.
Overhearing their conversation, Kitamura agrees to help their scheme, and even promises to rope Ami in as well. Then Minori herself arrives, joining Ryuuji in the preparation of their picnic punch. The two strike up a surprisingly easy rapport as they work, with Ryuuji’s compliments regarding Minori’s kitchen skills prompting her to explain that both her parents work, and that she’s used to making lunches for her brother. Though Taiga and Kitamura seem genuinely hopeless, conversations like this demonstrate that Ryuuji and Minori could actually be a couple; after all, it is precisely mundane conversations like this that build common understanding, and foster a sense of mutual comfort.
Unfortunately, what Ryuuji and Minori want from each other is tragically mismatched. Minori’s feelings towards Ryuuji are made clear in a rare moment of self-consciousness, when she asks Ryuuji to keep their discussion of ghosts and belief a secret. Though Ryuuji is dazzled by Minori’s bravery, all of the times they’ve talked seriously have involved Minori reflecting on how she’s not actually that brave, is genuinely full of her own anxieties, and has to work hard to perform the confident attitude that everyone else sees. Her willingness to admit this truth to Ryuuji reflects just how much she trusts him as a friend – but Ryuuji’s inability to understand that this is Minori’s true self, rather than the confident figure he admires, is precisely why he doesn’t work for her as a romantic partner. She feels comfortable letting down her shields around him, but Ryuuji is in love with the shields.
Overhearing this tortured mismatch of desires, Ami rallies back in classic Ami fashion, cornering Ryuuji and inviting him to admire her body. Using the same weapons she’s mastered to navigate the professional world, she pointedly asks Ryuuji to consider her bikini top’s detachable flower. But she soon realizes Ryuuji’s simply too passive to be engaged this way, and thus prods that passivity directly, giving him five seconds to admit why he really wants to scare Minori. Having directly witnessed the mismatch between Ryuuji and Minori, Ami’s ultimatum carries a clear subtext of “if you can’t be honest even with me, I’m not going to support your delusion.” And Ryuuji predictably fails this test, proving he lacks the courage to fight for his convictions.
Ami may not understand Ryuuji fully, but she certainly understands the cowardice and hopelessness of his current course of action. To seek your romantic prize without even naming it, hoping your desired end can simply be engineered to fall in your lap? That’s not Ami at all! In this dog-eat-dog world, naming your desire is just the first step in claiming it, and what you seek must be fought for tooth and claw. Ryuuji’s plan is antithetical to Ami’s understanding of the world, and also just plainly juvenile in any respect. But ultimately, Ami also lacks the full courage of her convictions; in spite of her protests, she’s fond enough of both Ryuuji and Kitamura to assist the plan anyway.
In the Cave of Terrors, Kitamura’s allegedly terrifying traps prove to be less horrifying than advertised. Fortunately, whatever “spirit” left those soggy strands on Taiga’s pillow also returns, prompting a glorious freakout from Minori and a general splintering of the party. Isolated from the others, Ami resumes her assault on Ryuuji’s intentions, stating frankly that “I don’t think she’s a good match for you.” Having judged their rapport across this vacation, Ami sees the same issues that Minori sees, and doesn’t feel they’d result in a workable couple. Ryuuji can’t really handle the “real” Minori, while he’s actually comfortable talking to the real Ami, and even helped Ami embrace greater honesty in her presentation. Ryuuji is in love with a version of Minori that Minori herself will likely grow beyond, whereas he’s already friends with the version of Ami she’s hoping to become.
Their mutual comfort is further illustrated through a prank by Ami, in which she briefly pretends to have gotten lost, prompting first gallant assurance and then a flash of fake-anger from Ryuuji as he whacks her with Kitamura’s tofu trap. Ami as the outrageous cynic to Ryuuji’s optimistic straight man simply works; even as Ami refers to him as “kind of lame,” she clarifies that that’s “not a turnoff.” She clearly finds his chivalry and certainty comforting, and presumably enjoys being told everything will be alright by him more than she’d ever admit. The two aren’t necessarily a perfect pair, but Ami at least is finding something she desires in her life in Ryuuji’s actual personality, as opposed to Ryuuji and Taiga’s search for something that doesn’t really exist.
“She’s the sun, and you’re like the moon,” Ami reflects, a line that makes clear the kinship she sees between Ryuuji and her own moon-like self. And then she offhandedly sums up this show’s central dramatic disconnect, stating “you wouldn’t be able to whack Minori with tofu, right? Adoration never leads to a balanced relationship.” That’s it, that’s the show, that’s the core lesson Ryuuji and Taiga both need. The way each of them practically worships their crush means they will never, ever be the right partner for them. But even our seer Ami leaves a little room for her personal desires; having summed up the show in one sentence, she allows for just a hint of her own feelings to color her reasoning, saying “what you really need is someone like me.”
It is unclear if Ryuuji truly needs a dash of Ami’s world-weary cynicism, but it’s by this point obvious that Ami appreciates how Ryuuji makes her a better person. Just as Ryuuji and Taiga wish to embody the strengths they see in their crushes, so too does Ami wish to latch on to some of Ryuuji’s fundamental decency, and quiet the voices shouting at her to perform perfection or be condemned as a monster. Even Ryuuji can see this pain; after admitting he’d be lonely if Ami weren’t around, he states that the more important question is if she’d be lonely without him. It is their moon-like nature that allows these two to understand each other, and why Ami is so certain they belong together. But hopeless as it may be, some moons can’t help but reach towards the sun.
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