Toradora! Ep. 01 - I love Tsundereko~

Yaaaaaaay! ::cheers for all tsundere:: I've already ready some of the Toradora! manga, so I pretty much knew what to expect. Thankfully they didn't drop the ball, and I actually enjoyed watching this more than reading the manga (which is pretty rare for me). Ryuji is a docile guy who likes cooking and cleaning, but his appearance makes him out to be a delinquent. He wants to make friends, but people always assume the worst of him. When a boy accidentally bumps into him, the boy and his friend are so terrified that they offer Ryuji their wallets before he can tell them it's fine. And so his day goes with students and teachers alike being completely terrified of him. The only exception is his best friend Yuusuke, and the object of his desires, the adorable Minori. Ryuji accidentally bumps into the diminutive Taiga, known throughout the school as the palm-sized tiger. She unleashes her fury on him, but he thinks it's the last he's seen of her until later that day she attempts to take his schoolbag from him. At home, he discovers a love letter from Taiga written to Yuusuke. He realizes that Taiga put the letter in the wrong bag and thinks it's cute until she bursts in wielding a wooden sword, ready to kill him so that she can retrieve it. He finally pacifies her by promising to help her win Yuusuke's affections. In return, she'll aid Ryuji in winning her best friend, Minori.

Poor Taiga. I've totally been there. Ou-bento is a short, short bento and in high school people would bump into me all the time and then apologize "I didn't see you there." I had something of a vitriolic reaction to moments like that, because it really gets quite annoying after awhile (on the bright side, no one brought any lawsuits against me). That being said, what a tsun tsun reaction~ Taiga is a little more tsun than my favorite flavor of tsundere, but her dere is so adorable. Rie Kugimiya brings in a solid performance without straying too much into Shana/Louise territory, which is nice. The scene with the boys with the wallets was really funny. I like the comedic timing in this and the over the top voice acting from all the characters really brings the story to life. The animation isn't as nice as it could be, but it's not distracting enough to really bother me. Also, Ryuji's mother is pointless and his bird totally freaks me out.

Wawawa-wasuremono~

Mai husbando

--Ou-bento