Toradora! Generic discussion thread

[stormy001_M1A2]

The thing is, some people are expecting all out romantic tsundere comedy just because of Rie is the star (this is problem when a voice actress/actor got typecasted way too much) and when most of them cut out by the anime crew, they flipped badly. Personally I will drop this series if they going by traditional route of slapstick tsundere comedy since it offers nothing new. However episode 2 surprised me a lot and I have a great interest in following this anime like Houkoholic said. I am curious to see how the anime will wrap up this story thanks to their decision to focus on character development instead of more "baka inu" scenes.

I don't want another ZnT in modern setting (which I detested a lot).

[Darknemo2000]

stormy001_M1A2, again Toradora was never an Tsundere slapstick comedy to begin with... Even if anime followed it very close it will never be a typical Tsundere comedy or as you call ZnT in modern setting. I dont think ZnT was as well, but JC Staff made it into one when they animated it.

[Sinestra]

That confession was so cute i thought i was going to start bawling. Even tigers have a soft side if you can get past their fangs.

[stormy001_M1A2]

Originally Posted by Darknemo2000

stormy001_M1A2, again Toradora was never an Tsundere slapstick comedy to begin with... Even if anime followed it very close it will never be a typical Tsundere comedy or as you call ZnT in modern setting. I dont think ZnT was as well, but JC Staff made it into one when they animated it.

The problem is, if the anime included those scenes that you wanted in 1st place, it will be become tsundere comedy slapstick which I don't want.

[REEPER]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

That confession was so cute i thought i was going to start bawling. Even tigers have a soft side if you can get past their fangs.

Yeah if you manage to get past the teeth I hear the stomach's quite comfy

[Darknemo2000]

What scenes?

The only one which I viewed to be more important was the staircase scene and more emotional confess scene. But how would those scenes made it into tsundere-comedy?

I was never aiming at the particular scenes my main problem was that it should have gone slower splitting into two episodes.

If you would look at my first post then you would see that I said nothing really essentially was missed yet because of the rush you don't have the same feeling of details being important.

[musouka]

I think the issue is, exactly how many scenes do we "need" to explore and express Taiga and Ryuuji's characters? What exactly are the novels scenes putting forth about these characters that the anime isn't?

Taiga is sharp but clumsy when it comes to emotions? Uh, yeah, that's pretty obvious. She cares more about Ryuuji than she lets on? Also obvious--she doesn't need to go to his house for breakfast if she only wants to be around him so that he can hook her up with his buddy.

Ryuuji is a good guy that wants to help Taiga out to the best of his ability? Uh, yeah, got that too. Both of them are frustrated that people judge them before getting to know them? Yep, got it. He likes having Taiga around more than he would admit? Yeah, when you miss the freeloader at breakfast time, that's what generally comes across.

Just because something wants to pound a point into your brain doesn't mean you need ten billion scenes of Taiga and Ryuuji failing to get Kitamura to fall head over heels. You don't need ten billion scenes of "oh wait here comes the dere--NOW BACK TO TSUN". We get it. We're not dumb.

[Darknemo2000]

It was too fast. Taiga changed too fast and also we loose some info in process and details about them - like about Taiga's parents, and not all of these points are clear - they are your own interpretation of some scenes that are so rushed that can be easily missed by others. Thats not saying you have to make a huge posters about the feelings, you can be subtle just do not rush one scene after another in such a pace because the way those details that you claim to be obvious and explored are easily missed. I am not saying that they do not exist but they are easy to miss in the haste. And I do not think everything you claimed to be showed was actually showed. It sounds more like your interpretation which not all of us share.

Thats why they needed slow the pace to make those details sink in better and to look more credible like Taiga opening for Ryuuji or rumors spreading about them.

[musouka]

I didn't feel there was anything rushed about the second episode. Not a thing.

"Taiga changing"? She hasn't changed. There was nothing different about her from episode one to episode two. The only thing different was our understanding of her. We've already seen that she can be sweet back in episode one, in her reaction to Ryuuji's offer of assistance--how the mere offer from someone else is new to her. In that respect, it's perfectly natural that she would feel close to Ryuuji with the effort he put forth in the second episode. He cooks for her, eats her nasty cookies to make her feel better, and they bond over kicking a telephone post. What more is "needed"? You can't bond with someone unless you've been slogging away at their love life for months?

Those scenes weren't and shouldn't be Huge. Emotional. Deals. Just like the confession in the manga previously posted is a clumsy attempt at EMOTION, so would be dumping Taiga's parental situation or her and Kitamura's mutual past. Those were alluded to--so it's very likely we will get more on them later--but right now the anime seems more focused on building the relationships in a non-bombastic sense. We don't need three episodes worth of tsuntsunderedere scenes to understand that Taiga isn't an irrational bitch, just a poorly socialized young lady, when that's already been adequately expressed.

It's like people complaining that Kitamura was cruel, when that's possibly one of the kindest "rejections" I've ever seen in an anime. I like the gentle understanding Kitamura showed about her situation.

[Darknemo2000]

Thats again your subjective interpretation just like mine is mine. thats why you do not see it rushed and loosing the details, while I see it otherwise.

There is no chance for me to convince you, nor for you to convince me as we simply stand on differnet subjective positions to begin with.

[HayashiTakara]

We lost a lot of information in the translation.

We lost the fact that Ryuuji knows everything about Taiga and Taiga knows everything about Ryuuji. And not just information but their true faces...

For instance this is the scene when Taiga was telling Ryuuji about her past and that she's gonna confess, so that he doesn't have to help her anymore...

Spoiler for manga images for comparison.:

I don't know about some of you, but I enjoy scenes like this. But the emotions that existed in this scene was lost as well, as the anime cut it into a 30 second clip.

The anime fails to show that Taiga at this point in the story should be known to Ryuuji and the viewers, is that Taiga is actually very lonely and fragile. And that Ryuuji is the only person in the world that understands that about her.

But alas, its completely lost.

[Vexx]

Caveat: I've not read the manga nor the novels (though I've recently started acquiring them)

Hmmm, I have to counter a bit that I thought the anime DID express her loneliness and fragility ---- the anime carried the spirit of those manga pages HT posted in my opinion. I'm glad to see my interpretation matches the manga at least. But I'll also concede that I have a knack for catching subtext and implications in stories. I always did way too well in story critique and analysis in school.

Someone paying not quite as much attention or just not having that skill might miss it (just like all those males in those romances that fail to "notice the feelings" of the girl chasing them).

So I have to say, as a Toradora neophyte - I'm seeing the texturing --- BUT I certainly wouldn't have minded seeing such things as that manga sequence animated explicitly.

I still think a lot of growling could have been avoided if they'd done an initial OVA of that "first year" with the details the fans were hoping for - and then done these first two eps as they did as sort of a "Here's the story so far...".

There.. now I'm on everyone's hate list

[Traece]

Originally Posted by HayashiTakara

We lost a lot of information in the translation.

We lost the fact that Ryuuji knows everything about Taiga and Taiga knows everything about Ryuuji. And not just information but their true faces...

For instance this is the scene when Taiga was telling Ryuuji about her past and that she's gonna confess, so that he doesn't have to help her anymore...

Spoiler for manga images for comparison.:

I don't know about some of you, but I enjoy scenes like this. But the emotions that existed in this scene was lost as well, as the anime cut it into a 30 second clip.

The anime fails to show that Taiga at this point in the story should be known to Ryuuji and the viewers, is that Taiga is actually very lonely and fragile. And that Ryuuji is the only person in the world that understands that about her.

But alas, its completely lost.

... Yeah, that's not as different from the anime as you think. All of the most important dialogue is their, and all the secondary dialogue is implied. They don't really give Ryuuji the dialogue that he doesn't really have to begin with, but her life's story still remains very true to the very links you posted to contrast.

I'd say you're sort of mixed up there Hayashi. The only thing that I noticed wasn't implied or said at all was the part about her forcing her way into the house, as well as the extra detail of her parents taking her to the apartment and her not being visited (the visiting, a little more important, but the rest of that is really just extra detailing).

She admits she's a clutz, we know she can't do housework, and she said everything else.

That's really where it stands in comparison.

There.. now I'm on everyone's hate list

Vexx: Better to accept the anime for actually remaining true than to hop on the hatemobile. So many people seem to be disappointed that the anime doesn't properly do the important scenes, and then show all these manga scans and by comparison they're almost exactly the same. Maybe it's because I haven't read that manga that it's easy for me to compare them and realize that there's not much of a difference, but I think it'd be the same even if I did read it.

[HayashiTakara]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Caveat: I've not read the manga nor the novels (though I've recently started acquiring them)

Hmmm, I have to counter a bit that I thought the anime DID express her loneliness and fragility ---- the anime carried the spirit of those manga pages HT posted in my opinion. I'm glad to see my interpretation matches the manga at least. But I'll also concede that I have a knack for catching subtext and implications in stories. I always did way too well in story critique and analysis in school.

Someone paying not quite as much attention or just not having that skill might miss it (just like all those males in those romances that fail to "notice the feelings" of the girl chasing them).

So I have to say, as a Toradora neophyte - I'm seeing the texturing --- BUT I certainly wouldn't have minded seeing such things as that manga sequence animated explicitly.

I still think a lot of growling could have been avoided if they'd done an initial OVA of that "first year" with the details the fans were hoping for - and then done these first two eps as they did as sort of a "Here's the story so far...".

There.. now I'm on everyone's hate list

Actually, I think you're being quite civil and understanding on both sides.

Originally Posted by Traece

... Yeah, that's not as different from the anime as you think. All of the most important dialogue is their, and all the secondary dialogue is implied. They don't really give Ryuuji the dialogue that he doesn't really have to begin with, but her life's story still remains very true to the very links you posted to contrast.

I'd say you're sort of mixed up there Hayashi. The only thing that I noticed wasn't implied or said at all was the part about her forcing her way into the house, as well as the extra detail of her parents taking her to the apartment and her not being visited (the visiting, a little more important, but the rest of that is really just extra detailing).

She admits she's a clutz, we know she can't do housework, and she said everything else.

That's really where it stands in comparison.



Vexx: Better to accept the anime for actually remaining true than to hop on the hatemobile. So many people seem to be disappointed that the anime doesn't properly do the important scenes, and then show all these manga scans and by comparison they're almost exactly the same. Maybe it's because I haven't read that manga that it's easy for me to compare them and realize that there's not much of a difference, but I think it'd be the same even if I did read it.

Actually, the way I read Ryuuji's face in the anime is like, "Damn, why is she saying all this? I don't know what to do!" in the manga, its like his heart is breaking.

Like I said earlier, I hate trying to interpret facial expressions.

Also, in the manga, its obvious that she's hurting, and forcing a smile. But in the anime its kinda... meh.

[Vexx]

Thanks, the only thing I'll say with certainty is that I'm enjoying the anime series a LOT so far (especially when compared to much of the rest of the offerings this season). If the anime gets me reading/buying the manga&novels, then its done its job. And yeah, I'll be ordering it all next week. I'd order a figure too, but the only pre-order available at the moment - I'm not fond of; and the one I'd like -- appears to be sold out everywhere.

I can almost always find things wrong or insufficient with adaptations of pieces of literature. It is particularly cruel when a favorite scene fails to make it to the screen. But if they can get the spirit close enough, I'll usually deal with it.

[musouka]

Well, again, to me, an adaption isn't necessarily "bad" if it has to condense and leave out stuff as long as the essence of the characters remain. For example, I'm not upset that the Kyou Kara Maou anime left a lot of scenes out from the Maruma novels, or chose to rearrange stuff, what upsets me is that they deliberately refuse to let the character relationships progress like they did in the novels, and whitewashed the motivations and turmoil of other characters.

If this episode had Taiga beating up on Ryuuji constantly, or had Ryuuji bowing and scraping to her constantly, then that would be character assassination, and a bad adaption. But having Taiga talk about her parents on the way home instead of at a family restaurant isn't grounds for claiming that the the feelings and emotions present in the original haven't gotten across.

I mean, am I wrong about what I'm saying about these characters? Have I somehow "misread" them using the anime as a guide? Is Taiga really an evil tsundere bitch, and Ryuuji a total asshole? Because if I haven't, then, yeah, the adaption is just fine in getting the characters across, even if the circumstances aren't the same.

[HayashiTakara]

Well, after some quick thinking... I'll hold off on further judgement as its still really early. I'll continue watching and see how the rest of the series pan out. How they work on the development between Taiga and Ryuuji.

[Kouvley]

Not another JC Staff production with a tsundere loli main character voiced by Kugimiya Rie!

.....was my initial reaction like many others but both eps1 and 2 turned out better than I expected.

On the hot topic about the pacing, having not read the manga I thought it was ok, maybe slightly rushed but nothing major. Personally I feel that if the majority of the non manga readers felt it was ok, which I think is the case here, then the "problem" lies more with the manga readers than the anime itself.

But having said that I know it's very hard to avoid comparisons to the source material and more often than not the anime will come out second best, which is why I tend to watch the anime first then seek out the source material afterwards to fill in any gaps.

[Vexx]

I can safely say that Taiga is not an escapee from ZnT (that series seriously annoyed me especially since the premise was very interesting to me). Even given the rough sketching of anime time budget, Taiga's clearly her own personality -
chewy and tough on the outside, creamy nougat filling on the inside.

And the same can be said of Ryuuji.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Vexx

There.. now I'm on everyone's hate list

Why would you be in ''everyone's hate list''?
Everyone on this forum have the right to his opinions, and should respecting other's opinions.
Like HayashiTakara said , ''you're being quite civil and understanding on both sides''. and I would add than you even taked care to give the context surroundind your opinion.