Ah-ah... Disappointment. Nanka saa... I guess I expected more from the person who wrote Watashi-tachi no Tamura-kun...
WnT's drama and characters were more interesting.
If there is one thing Toradora wins at though, it's the fact that the illustrator's artwork has improved slightly.
Overall, like I thought before reading this, it turned out to be decent. A light read with a good amounts of funny moments. But, it turned out predictable in the drama department.
Characters are pretty likable, but there are times when they are more on the irritating side.
If I rated vol. 1, it'd be 8/10.
Found it nice that the manga is following the novel pretty close.
The novel's advantage is more detail and thoughts.
The manga's advantage is pictures with everything (which is a great thing).
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Story thoughts:
Typical love-comedy. I will state it here, but I will be absolutely surprised if Taiga doesn't end up with Ryuji at the end and it becomes Taiga x Kitamura and Minori x Ryuji. If that somehow happens, I will have a lot of respect for this novel. One thing that helps is that I don't have any favorite couplings yet. Ryuji and Taiga had good interaction with each other, but I only saw them as "friends" and don't think they suit each other as "lovers".
The comedy was pretty good. From Taiga trying to kill Ryuji at night, to the whole plan in P.E. about throwing the ball to knock out Kitamura's partner, to Ryuji's and Taiga's reactions to the people they love.
Plot-wise, it was solid in a normal way throughout the book. The only part I didn't really like was at the latter half of chapter 5, where Taiga and Ryuji start attacking inanimate objects because they are depressed and angry at being misunderstood by people. Of course, this was a pretty important scene because the two open up to each other a bit more.
The ending was pretty irritating. Giga-dense Kitamura misunderstands (AGAIN...), leaving Taiga depressed. Ryuji makes up with Taiga, he says he'll become a "dragon" to stay at her (a "tiger") side (thus, "Toradora"), because he can't just leave her alone because she's so clumsy, Taiga cries a bit, and the volume ends with Taiga shouting and being "tsun" at Ryuji, as they run off to buy food and plan another way to get Kitamura.
Who didn't expect that?
The only thing that took me by surprise was when Kitamura revealed that he had confessed to Taiga in the past...
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Character thoughts:
Taiga - The girl with the funny name. This is the second time I've encountered such a name though, so it wasn't as amusing. I've seen people compare her to Louise, but I don't see it. The only part I find similar is the "dog" part.
+Very cute when she isn't on her violent side. Her reaction to Kitamura when he went "thanks" after receiving the ball from her was absolutely adorable.
+Her clumsiness results in the strangest things at times, like when she hid from Ryuji only to roll out.
-She's criminally dangerous. Please don't commit murder or do anything that normally would result in going to a detention center in real life.
~(neutral)-I blame the story, not her, but her "tsun" at the end wasn't amusing at all.
~The fact she lives by herself and has lived a rather inconvenient life of eating store-bought food is, at the root, her fault for saying she's going to leave the house to her parents, despite not being able to cook for herself or anything...
8.5/10
Ryuji - The kind guy with scary eyes. The scary eye thing in this story is pretty funny, but I started to skip over the text when the "scariness" of the eyes were repeatedly described.
+A diligent guy who is great at housework
+Overall, a kind guy. He's also really funny when it came to Minori.
+He can stand up to Taiga (a bit)
9/10
Kitamura - Dense-o.
+Nice guy.
-Dense, extremely so.
7/10
Minori - Denso-o 2.
+Bubbly and energetic
+She kind of talks in a strange way
+I can understand why Ryuji fell for her, a bit.
-Dense... The root of problems at the end, perhaps.
8.5/10
Yasuko - To be honest, I don't really like her personality. Probably the only character in Toradora so far that I don't like and can't find good points.
-Her existence; hasn't been interesting or funny
5/10