[houkoholic]

Originally Posted by BetoJR

You know, I have a little problem with people inferring that the male protagonists in romantic comedy/drama series are always dense. Maybe sometimes that's true, but here, on Toradora!, it's just not applicable.

Actually it most certainly is. As a lot of the things I'm inferring is also based on the novels and it becomes a serious issue later on and gives rise to much drama. Ryuji might not be dense as a rock, but he is definitely a little bit on the thick side when it comes to the signals that Ami is sending out. In fact this becomes an issue really soon....

And I do not agree with your point that Ami isn't romantically interested in Ryuji. At least to me, that's still very ambiguous. You could be over analyzing the situation a bit, there.

Not at all, again I'm inferring a few things from the novel here along with what they have shown in episode 14 to come to this. Episode 14 shows how Ami tried to play adult in front of everyone (but always showing a sad smile afterwards) but only Ryuji saw through it shows preciously why she took an interest in him - she's longing for someone to cuddle her as a child. It's made pretty clear here and with some more knowledge from the novel towards the end it is quite obvious that emotional comfort is more of her priority than anything else.

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

houkoholic I am not so sure about your point that Ami like Ryuuji is not physically attracted.

Er yes Ami is not physically attracted to Ryuji, it only takes a review of their first meeting to see that physically, the impression of Ryuji on Ami was very negative. Ami is really only attracted to Ryuji emotionally, whether that attraction is romantic or not is sort of debatable (but I'm saying it isn't), there's no debate that Ami doesn't find Ryuji not physically attractive.

We do see in novels a descriptions which do indicate that physically Ryuuji does find Taiga attractive.

Not the point of the discussion, I never said anything about what Ryuji thinks of Taiga. You're losing it. Unless you mean Ami, but unless you are picking on word sematics the fact is that Ryuji is still virtually unmoved or phased by the beauty of Ami unlike practically every other male (except Kitamura which is like the only other male besides Ryuji who don't fret over Ami) in the story whom worshipps Ami like a goddess and will fall head over heals for her. Don't tell me you don't see this. Also the scene in Sudobucks in ep14, the conversation between Ami, Nanako and Maya is *exactly* about how Nanako and Maya were envious of the beauty of Ami and how they think she can win any boy Ami wants, which leads to Ami denying it as she thinks of Ryuji who sees her in more than just her physical attractiveness. The story slaps this over the viewers head so many times it is not even funny.

But the physical attractiveness exist in the novels it just never really gets expanded and is suppressed to show a dysfunctional relationship where one part of the relationship is overemphasized over the other.

Again stop you dysfunctional BS. You've already acknowledge that the romance in ToraDora is a fantasy utopian sort of emotional love, a lot of love stories are written like that and people call it romantic and pure. Heck there's a term for this genre, "純愛" (Junai, lit. pure love). It's romantic fantasy and it's in entertainment for decades, get over it, because it just starting to look like you're disagreeing with everything I'm saying just for the heck of disagreeing without providing any support for your argument.