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.

Yes, it's another teen coming of age / "slice of life" anime, it has many of the classic character stereotypes represented, and yes many of the classic tropes are represented, but unlike so many others it's well done.

What surprised me is how naturally the series develops.

The characters are simple but not one dimensional, depth is obtained through flawed but very human choices and the consequences of them. Tropes are present but instead of being shoehorned in they exist as integral parts of the story, often noticed after the fact instead of standing out like the "fan-service" we've come to expect (and often dread). Episodes flow well, without the gaps and jumps I've grown to expect and when the end is reached it felt natural.

It would be easy to go on, but in the end it's an enjoyable series that makes me interested in taking a second look at the "Slice of Life" genre.

Pro's:

• Quality story telling.
• Fairly consistent animation.
• Characters that feel natural.
• A compete story arc.
• Good depth and growth.

Con's:

• Some animation inconsistencies at the end.
• Ending arc could have used another episode.
• Some over the top silliness.
• Fairly predictable (still very enjoyable).

Last episode almost made me cry too, one of my most favourite romantic animes 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭👏😢

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

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.