Toradora! - Episode 8 Discussion / Poll

[Darknemo2000]

frubam it is not set in stone that a lot have to be left out even upon the novel adaptation.

Lets say Spice and Wolf did everything pretty well, changed few things but in general it was rather close to original novels.

Of course the pace was not ridiculous - 2 Volumes in 12 episodes. While Toaradora do 2 volumes in 4 episodes meaning that the pace is three times as fast and because of this a lot of stuff is left out.

One could say that you have to be faster in anime than in novels, in a sense, but again S&W proves that you can make it very enjoyable even at a slow pace. So for me it is regretful that they are doing everything in such fast pace.

On the other hand they will have to slow up a little, or else they will run out of novel material at episode 18-20, leaving 5-7 episodes to be only a fillers.

[roan]

About that. Evidentally, 11-13 (volume 5) will be taking up 3 episodes. If they continue with the 3 episode per volume pace, it should fit in nicely.

[Darknemo2000]

It is still faster as normal... But oh well, at least it is not a ZnT where one volume sometimes took only one episode if not less...

[Myssa Rei]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

Shiroth, I do understand that you are a Gurren fanboy/fangirl but I cannot see Gurren as an revolution in the genre. Or maybe I am getting too old to realize it's innovations (considering that Evangelion is still my favorite anime for more than 10 years it is obvious that I am rather conservative). It could be also that Evangelion fans do not like Gurren all that much too seeing it as nothing impressive (the opinions on evageeks and als seem to be rather similar in this aspect).

I can't say I agree. I loved Gurren Lagann. However, it's different from how I also loved Evangelion (before finishing college, I was VERY active in the fan community too) all those years ago. Entertainment value isn't something that you can easily quantify, after all.

Moving back to the topic at hand... I felt that the episode stayed true to the spirit of its source materal. Note that I say here 'felt', as unlike another old hand (Haesslich) I've never read the novels. However, I've been the hobby long enough to recognize when a series is being faithful -- again, faithful in spirit if not completely accurate --and when its just pulling out scenarios out of its director's nether regions. It flowed right and the interactions weren't forced, meaning the experience was all-in-all enjoyable.

[frubam]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

Of course the pace was not ridiculous - 2 Volumes in 12 episodes. While Toaradora do 2 volumes in 4 episodes meaning that the pace is three times as fast and because of this a lot of stuff is left out.

I'll just say this since i went off-topic to address this and leave it at that. You want to expand the content of the first 4 episodes(and content within) to 12 episodes? You really want to go through several episodes of the completely 'abusive' Taiga you deftly hate; the one who calls him a dog and actually means it because she thinks she's better than him? No thanks, I'll pass on that.

[satuross]

erm, i have no fetish for slow slice of life anime's.

anime's like toradora should be fast, i think the current pace is fine by me. afterall, within the next month we will all be able to find out what happens in the later volumes of the novel.


and as long as they dont be too accurate on each chapter, we viewers will still look out for the novel releases via baka tsuki

look at how SnW did too good in the anime? now they are skippin volume 1 and 2 of the light novel altogether. thats BAD

no BAD BAD
no... REALLY BAD
no....... REALLY BAD BAD
no.............. i mean, you get the point right nemo?

anyways ill always look forward for your releases @ baka tsuki and e-hent .

cheers~

[HashiriyaR32]

I swear that some of the time, Taiga's treating Ryuuji the same way Etna treats her Prinnies.

[satuross]

hoho, please dont put taiga at the same level of awesomeness as etna k :/

if taiga was the moon, etna's awesomeness would be something between the size of jupiter and saturn, if u get what i mean.
Anyways, i think her stings are mainly on her words (dog, slave, yadayada) rather then physically abusive.

yes, she sometimes pokes/kicks/slaps. but who wont want to if your friend in front of you is staring shamlessly at a waitress/ hit you with a broom first thing in the morning/ talk bad about your physique##


thats what i think anyways. ill probably be bombed for still being a newbie but.. hehe *runs away*

[KeitaroNagato]

Taiga... yea!!!

Taiga... yea!!!

Taiga... yea!!!

Doing my Minorin impression

[therationalpi]

A lot of people are saying that the momentum of the show was saying that Taiga didn't care about Ryuuji, so the thing at the pool was out of left-field. I disagree. If you ask me, Taiga is in serious denial about her feelings, and she's acting very consistently with that. She acts like she doesn't have any interest when it's unimportant, but when things get big, she can't deny it anymore.

That is to say, girl spending time with Ryuuji not worth it, girl making pass at Ryuuji not worth it, girl making serious attempt to snatch him away is worth challenging, Ryuuji is in trouble and you throw all of the lying to yourself out the window to help him. And just because she is in denial doesn't mean that her feelings are any less strong. If you think about it, she really cares more for Ryuuji than Kitamura, but she is willing to admit her feelings for Kitamura.

[Vexx]

well, at the very least - she spent the majority of ep 8 stewing over her feelings. She actually tried to tell him that she was doing all this for him in the rain by the pool but the idiot kept interrupting her til she gave up and knocked the table over.

I could relate to that.... some of the more absurd arguments I've ever been in with my wife have been because me, the "baka buddha-head" kept interrupting with my own stupid-ass guesses like Ryuuji rather than just let her speak.

A lot of what Taiga *really* means is non-verbal and says it in her eyes while the mouth is flying in the other direction -- pretty much that is what Yacchan says pretty directly before she passes out. The poolside scene is pretty extreme emo --- but really pretty believable (sorry, work with too many teens and know that they're often pretty scrambled emotionally; stuff like that just burbles out sometimes).

I was fairly impressed with her directness at the ending diner scene. Still broken.... but the smiles show that Ryuuji and Taiga have some screwball understanding of each other for now.

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by therationalpi

A lot of people are saying that the momentum of the show was saying that Taiga didn't care about Ryuuji, so the thing at the pool was out of left-field. I disagree. If you ask me, Taiga is in serious denial about her feelings, and she's acting very consistently with that. She acts like she doesn't have any interest when it's unimportant, but when things get big, she can't deny it anymore.

That is to say, girl spending time with Ryuuji not worth it, girl making pass at Ryuuji not worth it, girl making serious attempt to snatch him away is worth challenging, Ryuuji is in trouble and you throw all of the lying to yourself out the window to help him. And just because she is in denial doesn't mean that her feelings are any less strong. If you think about it, she really cares more for Ryuuji than Kitamura, but she is willing to admit her feelings for Kitamura.

Actually if you are referring to my post, then I have to correct you - I never said she didnt had those feelings, they just were not so intense as at swimming pool, and because there is no longer episode gap between the scenes it is very hard to explain such big difference in intensity.

One could say that because pool scene was life threatening situation she let it all go, but the point is that in both scenes her possessiveness was targeted meaning that if she already harbored those feelings she should have made bigger issue from the Ami issue, but she didn't.

As I said the whole cliffhanger ending looks odd considering how easily it was forgotten. Thus it would have been better if director worked either on build-up better or edit the actual scene to be similar to the way Taiga acted in Ami scene (without such loud outburst).

[SuperKnuckles]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

For me Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Akagi, Misato are much better/stronger characters than anyone from Gurren. Gurren really failed to impress me on the characters level first thats why for me this anime is not mature, but rather trying to look mature. But again we should not be discussing this in Toradora thread.

They definitely are 'deeper' at least on the surface and quite a bit more dour. But that's precisely the antithesis of what makes a Gurren Lagann fan prefer something that has a lighter view on the world's problems and characters that are easy to root for without getting entangled in their Freudian problems of existentialism and all their ugly psychological sides. To me, Evangelion was a great show, but it came out as pretty pretentious in its themery. Anno, to this day, grates on my nerves whenever he waxes philosophical about anime or Japanese fandom of anime in general. His attitude towards otakus in general is just plain offensive no matter how you slice it. That said, I COMPLETELY agree with Shiroth in that issue. You just don't need fatalism and dourness to be a 'serious' show. Just because a show aims to be a bit more family friendly like Gurren Lagann, it doesn't mean it's automatically a 'kiddie' show in comparison. It's like saying a Mario game is instinctively and forevere 'kiddie' compared to Grand Theft Auto. I don't think the way a show appeals to a demographic (even for Evangelion, which clearly went for the adult market head-on), is indicator of maturity of its viewers.

As for Toradora, it's just a cute, straight, tsundere-feature type of show. I don't see the need to put one anime over the other to like it. I like Toradora just the way it is. I don't know about other people, but I rather watch anime on their own merits unless the manga in question is that much better than the anime. Even with discrepancies like with Hajime no Ippo, Claymore, Berserk's adaptations, when judged on their own merits, they actually tends to stand pretty well in the midst of their peers. Even with shows that COMPLETELY goes off the track like Trigun, in the end people have come to call it a masterpiece or some other hyperbole due to its own merits and not because of how people compare it to something else (like its source).

[Darknemo2000]

SuperKnuckles, obviously you do not read Toradora novels if you think that Toradora is just a tsundere-feauture type of show.

In anime it is not so obvious but even here you can pick up the character dysfunctions. It is like ancient Greek comedy - it colors light something that is not that light at all. What later Camus in his "Myth of Sysiphus" called a theater of absurd.

Toradora is actually pretty deep if you know where to look at. Yes, anime has tuned down its level but it is there and

Spoiler for possibilities:

may become darker and more angst driven in the future. Don't be surprised if it happens.

Thats probably it about Gurren. For me what I enjoy the most are characters and their relationship, since in Gurren this part felt shallow compared to other shows like Evangelion or Texnolyze it gave me an impression taht the whole show is shallow and just attempts to be deeper but do not really have the means to do it.

AndI do know that lighter toned animes can still carry a deeper meaning. Toradora is one of those actually. But what made me be disappointed about Gurren is that the key-feature and core of what I imagine depth to be was missing in the show - characters.

Lol, and what makes you not like Anno, makes me like him a lot.

[ddwkc]

Damn, I lol'd hard at this scene:

Spoiler for Minori Class Survival Tactic:

Minori is full of win!

[BigJimmy]

Yeeesh, I make one comment about Gurren's manliness and it turns into a bitch-fest. Kamina would be turning in his grave!

Originally Posted by ddwkc

Damn, I lol'd hard at this scene:

Spoiler for Minori Class Survival Tactic:

Minori is full of win!

Haha, I had to rewind that part a few times before it dawned on me what she was doing. Pure WTF? moment.

[SuperKnuckles]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

Thats probably it about Gurren. For me what I enjoy the most are characters and their relationship, since in Gurren this part felt shallow compared to other shows like Evangelion or Texnolyze it gave me an impression taht the whole show is shallow and just attempts to be deeper but do not really have the means to do it.

AndI do know that lighter toned animes can still carry a deeper meaning. Toradora is one of those actually. But what made me be disappointed about Gurren is that the key-feature and core of what I imagine depth to be was missing in the show - characters.

Lol, and what makes you not like Anno, makes me like him a lot.

I think that's where you're misunderstanding something. For one, at least characters don't mope TOO much in Gurren. Also, it's pretty forward moving in terms of action and plot progression instead of sometimes getting stifled in the emotion like in Evangelion. Evangelion is still great for what it is, but it had the tendency to mope around to be passed as a 'deep' show. And the thing that grates on me with Anno isn't the 'deep' characters, but the way he nonchalantly waxes arrogance about it. Even then, I don't know how 'deep' you can even get with Eva characters when most of them fit the descriptor of a few words. Oedipus complex, father-complex, you name it. I think you're mistaking the seriousness that is portrayed as inherently serious and more mature when they are not necessarily the requirement for the other.

And I don't entirely disagree that Toradora has its share of deep characterizations. Hell, most romantic comedies nowadays have their share of them. Can't wait to see what makes Kushieda tick, for example. Also, I'm not entirely confident in JC Staff of converting novels/manga to anime anyway. But at least they got the basics of it right with this one. I think from what we've seen so far, I think it gets the message of each episode right. Even for a studio that tends to fumble with conversions quite a bit, I don't have that much bad to say about it here. I do think light novel conversions are a bit more tricky than usual. Sorta like in Kurenai for example, because with visualizing a novel, everyone has their own take on it. Including the director of an anime's.

Originally Posted by ddwkc

Damn, I lol'd hard at this scene:

Spoiler for Minori Class Survival Tactic:

Minori is full of win!

How very... 90's anime-ish.

[KeitaroNagato]

Originally Posted by ddwkc

Damn, I lol'd hard at this scene:

Spoiler for Minori Class Survival Tactic:

Minori is full of win!

ddwkc... I'll trust you with Taiga in my sleep.

I'm still doing my Mirorin impression. Its driving my brother up the wall, specially when I sing offbeat tunes of whatever comes to mind . hehehehehe.

[Mushi]

This one totally cracked me up.



I love odd, little surprises like that.

Excellent episode! Wonderful development between Taiga and Ryuuji. After the hate I was feeling for Ami from last episode, this was the perfect antidote. So glad to see her getting something she deserved after her phony parading around in her bikini. Taiga's "strategy" was great. Even if she did get distracted and lose. But then, I pretty much expected that the summer at Ami's place would turn into a group thing, and that had to be set up somehow.

[kir44n]

Originally Posted by Mushi

This one totally cracked me up.

Spoiler for size:

It's moments like these, and Minorin's quirks that make show truly memorable. Though I think everyone died alittle inside (from laughter) when Ryuuji asked her what she thought about Ami XD