[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by houkoholic

The delinquent look is suitable. It's kind of hard to do the sharp-eyes as described in the novel without making him look ugly (like stereotypical yakuza anime characters). Augmenting it in other ways make it work better.

Well, to be fair, I really liked him in the manga despite his looks being not quite what was described in the novel. Moreover, strangely enough me and that delinquent "Midori Days Guy (what's his name again?)" and/or "Karin dude" design never get along. They always seem like misunderstood "delinquent" nice people (fine enough, that's their characteristic, and so is Takasu's) but they're neither captivating as bishies for fangurls to gasm over or the man's man-type to score points with us male watchers.

The novel illustrations for Toradora! just suck overall though, no offense to the illustrator of course. Style is a subjective thing.

All in all, I'd say that my personal opinion is unfavorable but everyone else should think differently, unless they have my baggage. Plus, it's probably rather hard to figure out an appropriate solution to create a proper pair of evil eyes and animate them properly. J.C. Staff is competent -- but I don't get that sense of imaginative genius that would be required to solve complex animation-characterization problems elegantly. And to scratch out the whole issue and just make him a cute guy like I want is out of the question. The anime is made for everyone and not for me after all, and it's supposed to at least partially stand alone.

It's sad but true - don't expect too much from JC Staff art I'd say. They're not really particularly known for breath-taking art. Besides I think if they try too hard to make her all doll-like, she'll just end up like Louis.

Like someone said above, I wouldn't mind her keeping the Louise look really. That's who she is in the other versions.

Plus, a pretty French doll > loli. I'd rather not feel pedophilic cheering for the main pair really.

somebody's going to neg rep me for that.

Actually Kitamura is suppose to be sort of baby-faced. Yuuji describes his face as being kind of pretty/nicely/cleanly make, also there were scenes where people where surprised at Kitamura's muscle body build despite his looks, so he's definitely not Hanai-type's square jaws manly. Kitamura is suppose to be really approachable as well hence he is popular with girls (as friends). I think this is quite the appropriate look.

Interesting; I didn't know that.

I always got the impression that he was like a mini-Hanai, but I wasn't exactly close-reading the novel (it's a school romance fluff, hey!) so you're probably correct.

Edit: Oh my, haha. Somebody actually neg-repped me for that comment^, about, erm, 15 days late. For some reason that's kinda funny.