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Being as ill-prepared as a I usually am, I kind of totally forgot about Valentine’s Day until literally the day before. Because of that, I did not actually have any kind of holiday related post planned, so think of this as my extremely late and now totally irrelevant Valentine’s day post. Yeah? Cool.

So, I was like really in my feels right-

Sorry, my inner gen Z just came out, anyway,

Man, I was feelin down bad-

Sorry, happened again.

Not being in an active relationship makes Valentine’s Day a little awkward for a lot of people. After all, what are you even celebrating at that point? Personally, I spent the day hanging with a couple of friends and then meeting a few co-workers at their house for some drinks and games. But, I also have the habit of thinking about things that bother me for way to long, and of watching re-watching shows that end up matching my mood. I hope you can see where I am going with this…

So yeah, I started re-watching “Toradora” and, well…its alright. I also have the tendency to make a lot of conclusions about shows before I get to the end of them. Granted, it is a little different because I am vaguely aware of what happens, but the last time I watched the show was the middle of high school…there are a lot of things I am still missing.

This is more or less going to end up as a “first impressions” type of post, so lets just go good and then bad. For starters, the animation is a lot more fluid in certain scenes than I remember. Slice of life/Romance anime tend to get chewed out the least for sub-par animation because the storytelling often does not require it outside a couple of really important scenes. However, shows like “Kaguya-Sama” are definitely upping the anti in that respect, even if the romance in that series is not the primary component.

Still, for what it is, the series does really well. There are definitely a lot of movement heavy scenes even in the first couple of episodes, and the quality stays fairly consistent throughout.

The show also has a solid, albeit fairly unimpressive soundtrack. While there are not any tracks that stand out in particular, the moments where the soundtrack needs to be present it is there, and sounds fairly good all things considered. The first opening song, “Pre-Parade,” performed by the three main female voice actresses, is also a catchy bit of j-pop that helps to sell the idea that its main characters, Taiga and Ryuuji, are both calm and collected but also both a total mess. At least musically that is what it sounds like.

Actually, hold on let me read the lyrics…ok well its actually more about Taiga, but the general idea still stands.

Since I had originally watched the series before there was a dub, or at least before I knew about it, I decided to give the English version a try and…maybe I should have just re-watched it in Japanese.

Ok, ok, that is a little harsh. After all, Cassandra Lee Morris honestly does an amazing job portraying Taiga as the feisty asshole she is, and also appropriately gives her voice the more high pitched tone you might associate with her stature. As for everyone else, well, they did fine. Since I am not as familiar with dubs as I used to be, its hard to gauge any of the actors performances against their other ones. That is, aside from Johnny Yong Bosch, who sounds pretty average all things considered.

Its hard to say what exactly my feelings are on the show, but it feels safe to make the statement that my overall view of the show, at least for now, has gone down slightly. Whether its the high school mellow-drama or the really odd story choices, I am unsure of. However, if I do decide to finish the series, I will be sure to give a more detailed summation.

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How do you all feel about “Toradora?” Let me know in the comments. Also, fellow bloggers Moya and NegativePrimes finished an extensive write up of the series around the middle of last year, one that I plan on reading relatively soon. So, if you’re looking for more in-depth analysis, be sure give that a read as well.

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If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!