They delve into the emotional texture of teenage life, each in their own way. Both writers took on Toradora relatively early in their careers and went on to prove their work wasn’t a fluke, Takemiya in the excellent college rom-com Golden Time and Okada in literally every genre all the time. Light novel author Yuyuko Takemiya and anime screenwriter Mari Okada freshen up canned ingredients. One would be forgiven for assuming that a light novel like Toradora, overwritten prose and multimedia adaptations and all, is a spin-the-wheel collection of romantic cliches, but being glib sells Toradora particularly short. Even the story’s thematic spine - the artificial social selves that people construct to avoid vulnerability also limit human connection and love - is a mainstay of young adult fiction. Throw in some goodhearted friends and foils and you have the main cast.
Anyone who’s been misunderstood for some physical coincidence like that - which is to say anyone at all - can relate to that.
Taiga’s counterpart Ryuuji is perhaps less immediately identifiable as a trope, but he’s a soft neat-freak who’s thrown off his social axis by the beady eyes he got from his deadbeat yakuza father. In the anime, she’s even voiced by the “queen of tsundere” Rie Kugimiya. She beats people up with her wooden sword when crossed or made to feel vulnerable, hiding her bruised heart. Taiga, the “palm-top tiger,” falls squarely in the tsundere archetype. The light novel turned manga and anime is about a mismatched couple that falls in love after trying to set each other up with their best friends. The major pop culture anniversaries of 2022 10 new anime to watch out for this winter season