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View Poll Results: Toradora! - Total Series Rating
Perfect 10 154 42.78%
9 out of 10 : Excellent 113 31.39%
8 out of 10 : Very Good 53 14.72%
7 out of 10 : Good 23 6.39%
6 out of 10 : Average 7 1.94%
5 out of 10 : Below Average 0 0%
4 out of 10 : Poor 1 0.28%
3 out of 10 : Bad 1 0.28%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad 1 0.28%
1 out of 10 : Painful 7 1.94%
Voters: 360. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2009-04-07, 02:12   Link #61
physics223
In the Tatami Galaxy ↓
 
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Have you ever watched Honey and Clover, Vexx? Just asking.
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Old 2009-04-07, 02:14   Link #62
Tyabann
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Quote:
Originally Posted by physics223 View Post
Have you ever watched Honey and Clover, Vexx? Just asking.
Pretty sure he has, but not everyone loved Honey and Clover as much as you did, as I'm sure you know.

For what it's worth, from what I've heard of how it ends, I think I'd hate it... >_>
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Old 2009-04-07, 02:19   Link #63
Vexx
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Actually, H&C is one of my other favorites -- but they're not much alike in tone or plot. Also liked Lov*Com, REC, and a few others. So-called "harem anime" have a rougher time in my critiques.... but the few that survive are the ones that took unusual approaches (KKPR) or immediately dropped it to a couple or triangle (Lamune, Canvas 2).
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Old 2009-04-07, 02:26   Link #64
physics223
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon View Post
Pretty sure he has, but not everyone loved Honey and Clover as much as you did, as I'm sure you know.

For what it's worth, from what I've heard of how it ends, I think I'd hate it... >_>
I also think you would.

I know that a few people don't like it as much as I do. I don't act as if people should think the same way as I do, though. I can't call them wrong for disagreeing with me. Just because they don't see things the same way as I do doesn't mean they're wrong. Frankly, that kind of thinking is idiotic. They're free to hate on Honey and Clover, for all I care. Most of them aren't worthy of my time, anyway.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx
Actually, H&C is one of my other favorites -- but they're not much alike in tone or plot. Also liked Lov*Com, REC, and a few others. So-called "harem anime" have a rougher time in my critiques.... but the few that survive are the ones that took unusual approaches (KKPR) or immediately dropped it to a couple or triangle (Lamune, Canvas 2).
Ah, I see. Thanks. I was thinking that a guy as perceptive as you would probably like that show.

Guess I was right.
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:56   Link #65
AnimeFangirl
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Originally Posted by physics223 View Post
Also, Dorfl: if you want to continue the discussion kindly PM me. I'm very open and cognizant of Toradora's flaws, and while I deem it a better show than you I do recognize its failings.
Apart from the romance there's the character derailment I was talking about - mostly Ami and Ryuuji but not Taiga and Minori, the sudden little blow up with Yasuko, Kitamura, Kitamura, Kitamura, the pointlessness of those two girls and those two guys, the believablity-stretching reunions near the end, etc, etc, but I don't want to spend time discussing them. The parts of Toradora I enjoyed, I really enjoyed, and the parts I didn't enjoy, I really didn't enjoy, so it all averages out in the end. I'm ready to move on.
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Old 2009-04-07, 07:16   Link #66
typhonsentra
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I imagine that when you say Ryuuji's character derailed you're referring to him liking Taiga and his marriage escapades (I've already written more than I'd like to about this one.), but I'm curious to hear what you think was wrong with Ami's actions.
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Old 2009-04-07, 10:21   Link #67
Taken
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When I read about all this arguments about Toradora, it strangely makes me happy remember when it's still on air. But when I realised this is last possible place people will be talking about Toradora, I feel sad again. Fill my void now, oh spring season anime!!

About Honey and Clover... I think you have to watch it to understand why people say that it's good. But then again if you hate like the first 10 episode it's probably not for you
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Old 2009-04-07, 15:47   Link #68
physics223
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Taken View Post
When I read about all this arguments about Toradora, it strangely makes me happy remember when it's still on air. But when I realised this is last possible place people will be talking about Toradora, I feel sad again. Fill my void now, oh spring season anime!!

About Honey and Clover... I think you have to watch it to understand why people say that it's good. But then again if you hate like the first 10 episode it's probably not for you
Well, we all have to move on. While I'm sad that it hasn't been the anime it was building up to become, there's Eden of the East to look forward to. It's directed by Kenji Kamiyama AND designed by Umino Chika ...

... and the trailer is fucking awesome.
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Old 2009-04-07, 17:20   Link #69
Vexx
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yeah, that one looks like it will be a necessary eyecatch.
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Old 2009-04-07, 21:02   Link #70
Meatrose
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I gave it 7/10.

I had a hard time making up my mind about the rating. Toradora! was floating around at the border between a strong 6 and a weak 7 in my book but I decided to bump it up to a 7 based on my overall enjoyment of the show.

I think JC did a great job on Toradora! and even though I must say that the novel is (as always) superior the anime comes off as a great adaptation, especially considering the fact they had to turn 10 novels into 25 episodes. I think that 3 cours would've been perfect for this project as I feel that it would've turned out even better had they been able to include some of the stuff they now had to leave out - inner thoughts and in some cases, entire scenes.

So what made Toradora! a great show? I'd say it was the characters. The story/drama is good but definitely nothing spectacular. I didn't care for the comedy but then again... comedy is probably my least favorite genre. I'm glad there was way more drama and romance than comedy in the show. Anyhow, I was going to talk about the characters so let's get back to them. I liked the male protagonist, and I liked all (three) main girls in the show. This is very uncommon for me as male leads usually piss me off in romance anime, and I usually only like one of the female characters. They were all lovable in their own way and the best way to have the drama connect with the audience is to make them care for the characters as if they were actual people. Ami was my favorite character but I never rooted for her and Ryuuji since, from a storytelling point of view, TaigaxRyuuji was the only pairing that would've made any sense.

I for one don't think that the development was unnatural in any way. They'd been a married couple for a good while, they just needed to understand that themselves, and the true nature of their feelings for one another. This was the main point of the story and the way it was set up in my opinion, so it didn't come off as a sudden surprising development (I just love how perceptive Ami is by the way). If episode 2 didn't set the pairing in stone (which it did in terms of writing if you ask me) then episode 8 certainly did. Kitamura and Minori sure as hell knew what was going on when Taiga suffered an emotional breakdown after having saved Ryuuji from drowning and their faces spoke volumes about their thoughts on the matter. That was easily one of my favorite scenes.

I'm not going to go into details as I'm far too tired at the moment, but in the end Toradora! turned out to be a good story revolving around great characters. Like I said, I gave it 7/10 which means it made my "Top 20" list. I'm really sad that it's over.
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Old 2009-04-07, 23:02   Link #71
Ryuuji
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Animation Quality: 10
Voice Actors: 10
Script: 10
Soundtrack: 10
Editing: 10
Enjoyment: 10
Emotional Involvement: 10

10/10

This decision was to easy, I was laughing, crying, angry and happy through the whole anime, which I have only been for a few animes earlier.
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Old 2009-04-08, 08:51   Link #72
musume_no_hoshi
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Can I rate the series in two half?

For the first half
Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 9
Script: 7
Soundtrack: 7
Editing: 7
Enjoyment: 7
Emotional Involvement: 3
Average : 6.9

The first half seemed quite medicore to me, everything was fine, it just wasn't special. Taiga then felt like a normal tsundere loli. Nothing emotional really happen in the first half. It isn't something I recommend while I was watching the first half, only the tsundere fanboy (I'm a girl) within me continued to watch it.

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 9
Script: 9
Soundtrack: 7
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 9
Emotional Involvement: 10
Average: 8.7

The 2nd half, the character development was amazing. Taiga stopped being a typical tsundere, she tried to changed herself. Everything went uphill after and during Kitamura's arc. I dont really how to explain why I loved the 2nd half so much. The character's action feels so real, I do 'feel' the pain of the characters. I say I watched the 2nd half with a normal girl's feeling.

One of the best shows that J.C staff gave us. Thank you for making me forget on how awful you did for Zero No Tsukaima. Please keep up the good work for Hayate No Gotoku.
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Old 2009-04-08, 20:42   Link #73
brain
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I have to give this a 9/10. It's absolutely my favorite anime on all accounts within recent memory, even. Utterly beautiful romance, with all its quirks, not some formulaic and forgettable shojo or harem anime. The only real criticism I had was the pacing. The characters are esoteric... so what? Many people are in real life, too. I don't see what's supposed to be so hard to believe about the story.
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Old 2009-04-08, 22:24   Link #74
umesketch
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Animation Quality: 9
I found the animation like-able through the entire series. I rarely ever questioned it. It was simple when needed and demanded attention when time. And the colors I thought were great.

Voice Actors: 10
I loved the voice actors, so fitting. Kugimiya Rie and Yui Horie were perfect. I've never heard of Junji Majima before, but he was so great. I'd like to see more of him. Great job, great cast.

Script: 9
For the most part, great.

Soundtrack: 9
Just on the topic of OP and ED, they were great. Yui Horie's songs were the best. I love "Silky Heart" x3

Enjoyment: 9
At first, I didn't get what all the hype was about. The first five episodes or so were just ok, they were enough to put this series not at the top of my priority. But once the series began to pick up, oh wow. I couldn't wait for another episode.

Emotional Involvement: 10
Once the drama and character development really began to set in, it easily began to become a series I was emotionally involved in.

Overall series rating: 9
This series has made it into one of my all time favorites. What makes this series really stand out are all the underlying themes: figuring out who you love, finding yourself/being real or fake to others, the difference between being a "child" or "adult," a sense of school pride, and being in a family. The relation of characters in this series is also utterly important because it is what kept the story alive and going. Seeing Taiga's and Ryuuji's relationship develop was really great, especially towards the end. Also seeing how Taiga changes through the series was also a treat (The Cultural Fest and Christmas Party episodes were fantastic). There is a lot more to say, but overall I loved the series.

And can I say, am I the ONLY one who thought Inko-chan was annoying T_T;
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Old 2009-04-09, 03:50   Link #75
Karlson
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Ok first the animation. It was fine but sometimes inconsistent. As others I'm sure have pointed out the Taiga/Sumire fight was a golden moment that left them with a bad impression in this category. I didnt particularly like that scene's animation either but it wasnt as bad as my personal favorite...Minorin and Ryuuji chasing down Taiga in episode 24. In fact I'm surprised that more people didnt complain about that scene because (with the exception of JC Staff's handling of Taiga's mother) that was the low point of that episode for me.

As for the story itself. I found it was rather basic and simple and nothing special but it made for an interesting watch thanks primarily to a very solid presentation of the second half and the cast of characters as well as its talented VAs that voiced them. The first half of the series was a roller coaster for me. Some episodes were good; some were even really enjoyable. But there were also episodes I didnt really care for either. Some even left me thinking that the plot hadnt moved forward at all which really concerned me given how little time JC Staff had to work with to cram the novels' full story into these 25 episodes. It didnt help that Taiga was quite an annoyance at this point in the series.

I also felt there coulda been some more development on Ryuuji's part to build on as far as his attachment to Taiga leading up to the Cultural Festival arc (where I truly started to see it pretty clearly) cause good lord there was plenty of said development with regards to Taiga's attachment to Ryuuji thanks to some of the TaigaXRyuuji hints. Some of Ryuuji's monologues would have fixed this issue for me... *glares at JC Staff*

Speaking of the Cultural festival arc, that was about the point where the series was really starting to take off for me. After that, the pacing for this pairing had progressed at a naturally fine rate all the way to the end, I saw nothing wrong or out of place with it. In fact the entire second half was nothing short of excellence until the issue of pacing inevitably came back to haunt JC Staff in the final few episodes.

Ami's shift in development in episode 23 with regards to Minorin still leaves me scratching my head (yes a re-watch might just be in order for me to clear that up lol). And then there's the handling of Taiga's mother. This especially was a glaring flaw in the adaptation since it is essentially why Ryuuji and Taiga decided to go through with the plan to elope and get married. Cutting out the build up of that tension between Taiga and her mother effectively made the situation look less urgent and ultimately came out rushed. Had they done it properly I'm sure alot less people would be complaining about episode 24. Oh well...nothing can be done about it. The low time budget is the enemy here once again.

On the plus side the ending couldnt have possibly been executed better. They wrapped up the series at a good pace in the final episode, brought closure to all the main characters. We even got a happy ending to boot.

Overall this series as a whole gets an 8/10. Most of the problems with this series unfortunately were due to the inevitable compression for the adaptation thanks to the awesome idea of trying to fit 10 volumes of light novels into 25 episodes. Otherwise the first half of the series felt noticeably weaker as a whole compared to the second half both in terms of enjoyment and emotional involvement towards the characters themselves. Admittedly the comedy aspect of this show diminishes substancially as the plot progresses so if your the kind of person that likes to have a consistent amount of comedy for these kinds of shows your probably not gonna enjoy the later half of Toradora anywhere near as much as I did.

Would I recommend it to anyone? No unless its someone who is really into romance dramas. Would I watch it again? At some point I probably would just to see if I actually missed anything really important that I didnt notice before
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Old 2009-04-09, 08:37   Link #76
Seraphis
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Hm, I think this is the only anime in which I would have been happy with any pairing =D
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Old 2009-04-09, 12:14   Link #77
Taken
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The only anime with three b***h slapping in recent times..
1) Taiga vs Sumire
2) Minori vs Ami
3) Minori slapping Ryuji (you know the shippers love this)

Eat your hearts out Code Geass. You really wanted a four corner b***h slapping contest between Shelly, C.C, Kaguya and Kallen, but guess what you can't pull it off haha even with 2 seasons of 25 epi.
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Old 2009-04-09, 17:39   Link #78
Meatrose
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Originally Posted by Gebs- View Post
I've noticed that those who came into the show after having read the source material didn't enjoy it as much as those that didn't. Granted this is a problem any adaptation has to deal with, I feel both the anime and novels should be able stand on their own and be analyzed as two different entities. Am I the only one who didn't feel like the excess monologues were necessary and would've lessened the overall mood of the anime? I didn't need the monologues to tell me who felt what as the show did an adequate job of doing so through its acute use of subtlety.
I don't know if my last post made you include me in this group of viewers or not, but I just wanted to say that I did not read the source material before watching the anime. I began reading the novels after having watched more than half the show, and I never read a novel until it had been fully covered by the adaptation. The only exception would be episode 19 as I finished the seventh novel before it aired.

Also, 7/10 is a very high rating coming from me. I use proportional comparative scaling when I rate my anime which means that every show that I see is compared to the best anime I ever saw (the 10s) as well as the worst anime I ever saw (the 1s) before I decide to which section of the scale this anime that I recently finished watching belongs. I'm also kinda strict and out of the ~450 anime productions I've seen, less than 20 got rewarded with 7/10 or higher ratings. My average rating is 4,1/10. Me giving Toradora! 7/10 points does not mean that I thought it was just "good", it basically means I'm praising it. It's in my "Top 5%" after all.

About what you said about the monologues; I also don't think that they're absolutely necessary. I love how Toradora! attempts to show the audience the difference between deep love and a crush without claiming that it's strictly impossible for a crush to grow into love over time. The anime made it pretty clear that Ryuuji and Taiga had much deeper feelings for one another than they had for their respective crushes, and did so pretty early in the show. Some things are definitely lost in adaptation though. Already in the first novel (= episodes 1 and 2) we learn that Ryuuji's heart tends to beat faster when he makes eye contact with Taiga, that he has to force himself to remain calm when he realizes he's going to get to touch her body while helping her with the stretching exercises in PE, that he's very aware of her warm body when he puts his hands on her back and the fact he can almost make out the outline of her underwear under her PE uniform. While standing behind her he even lets us know that seeing the smooth, white skin on her neck is enough to make one's heart race. The anime does not convey the characters' thoughts and feelings this well, as it would be impossible to do so. I still think that by implementing some of these inner thoughts they would have been able to add some extra depth to the main cast, and that would've made the show even better, especially since the best part about the show (in my opinion) was its characters.

The characters are incredibly important to me. They're even more important than the story itself. Don't get me wrong, the story is of course incredibly important too, but a great story is wasted if it revolves around characters you don't really care about. To get to know their inner thoughts means that we get to know them and their feelings to a degree that is more or less out of reach for an adaptation to a visual medium. This does not mean that the adaptation failed in any way. All it means is that books are generally far superior to movies and TV series in terms of character depth in my opinion. That's also why I never compare movies and TV series to books when I rate them, only to other movies and TV series.
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Old 2009-04-09, 18:21   Link #79
Karlson
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gebs- View Post
Actually, I found this scene to be much more powerful without the buildup of tension. It did a wonderful job of demonstrating just how far Taiga had come since she met Ryuuji. The situation doesn't need to be urgent at that point for Taiga to realize what needs to be done. One of my favorite lines in the entire show is from Taiga after listening to her mother's messages when she says "She's just like a kid...". This effectively reverses the roles Taiga and her mother play at the beginning of the show. While Taiga used to be the one running away, it's now her mother doing the running which leads to Taiga being symbolically represented as the "mother" figure.

I've noticed that those who came into the show after having read the source material didn't enjoy it as much as those that didn't. Granted this is a problem any adaptation has to deal with, I feel both the anime and novels should be able stand on their own and be analyzed as two different entities. Am I the only one who didn't feel like the excess monologues were necessary and would've lessened the overall mood of the anime? I didn't need the monologues to tell me who felt what as the show did an adequate job of doing so through its acute use of subtlety.
No some do back the notion that using all those monologues would slow the pace down a little too much for their liking. I merely stated that it woulda been nice to use a little bit of it to build on Ryuuji's character towards the Cultural Fesitival arc.

I think part of my problem with JC's handling of Taiga's mother is just the situation itself was presented too suddenly for me. And I needed time to let it sink in, along with everything else that was happeniong one after another in that episode. Granted it goes hand in hand with that sudden decision by Ryuuji (which oddly enough came out making sense to me the second time I watched it. )
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Old 2009-04-09, 18:38   Link #80
Meatrose
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gebs- View Post
I wasn't singling out anyone in particular. I've merely noticed that, in general, my statement does have a level of validity.

Also, your avatar is Kallen so I would be hard-pressed to fault you no matter the rating you gave as you obviously have a good sense of taste .
Hehe, I didn't feel singled out, I just felt like posting a somewhat random disclaimer. I also think you've got a point. It's usually like that. I remember when the Lord of the Rings trilogy was released and how those who had never read the books generally liked the adaptation more than those who had read them. That's definitely not a rule without exceptions though, since a lot of the readers were hardcore fans of the franchise and simply loved watching it on the big screen.

And yeah, she's awesome. When I checked out your public profile I actually thought for a second that I had for some reason ended up viewing my own since we're in the exact same social groups. I think this calls for a friends invite.

Edit: [/offtopic]
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