Toradora!

Me: an occasional anime watcher. Very lazy, so dubs for me.

This is a real gem. It's a story of 5 friends as they come of age, grow together, and the overzealous love of teenagers.

What sells this is that the two primary characters are both quite believable. You have Ryuuji, who is a deeply caring guy, and Taiga, who is aggressive, cocky, and also vulnerable. While the story is told from Ryuuji's perspective, the most interesting character throughout is Taiga as she handles the trials of growing up. Fundamentally, she is not a cookie-cutter "cute girl" to stick in the centre of what is essentially a romantic series; she is needy and often unpleasant, while also caring for her friends deeply.

A lot of anime have craaazy hijinks and characters who are incredibly dense at reading others. The joy of this series is that for the most part, these guys are limited by their own inhibitions in a relatable way and often guess what each other is feeling. It's rare that you want to punch characters for being stupid, at least. Although they may punch each other.

Voice acting in English is pretty solid, certainly above average for anime dubs.

It's your typical "Will They Won't They" for the majority of the episodes, and by "They", I mean everybody. It's not a love triangle, it's a love circle, and that's probably one of the things that make Toradora! so entertaining and fun to watch.

Toradora! does fall in its genre's tropes sometimes, and there are times when things get a little bit too predictable story-wise. But in the end, I felt like there were a lot of things that it did right, and the story was overall satisfying.

I am trying to describe what I felt for Toradora and it really complicates me, it was such a beautiful and sad trip at the same time that it left me with a warm feeling of having seen a story that caught me from beginning to end. I know that Toradora may seem to some the development of a toxic story and it may be true, but you have to look beyond that. It is, for me, a story of unions, of fitting in somewhere, of belonging, of learning to feel important for others and for others, a story that is and will be precious to me. Because that's the way it should be

Probably one of the best and most underrated romance animes of all time! Great plot/storyline, characters, animation, and amazing music! (although will admit i thought they kept the first opening and closings themes for a bit too long into the show, the second opening/closing themes were great!)

Not much else to say other than one other random point - first watched this anime as a younger teenager and sort of overlooked it a bit because i didn't completely understand it (and there wasn't as much ecchi and comedy as other anime i had watched at the time (lol) but after rewatching it a few years later i came to fully understand the story and just how great it was made!.... and now randomly saw it on IMDb so giving it a review :P

I found this anime while I was board and just searching for anything to watch and I came across Toradora! and I must say that it is one of the best shows I have ever watched.

The characters are simply amazing in there design and the plot is fantastic. Also the protagonists are very unique and well thought out and out of all of the anime I have watched the protagonists are probably some of my favourites.

I never expected to be moved so much by it and I was so hooked I had watch all the episodes without even thinking about sleep. By the end of it I was nearly in tears and didn't want it to end so I had to watch it again.

And although this show does not seem as if it should stand out it is out of this world. If you have never watched Toradora! you need to start right now because you are missing out on something that is truly amazing!