Toradora! (2008-2011)

Damn fine storytelling

“Me: an occasional anime watcher. Very lazy, so dubs for me.

This is a real gem. It's a story of 5 friends as they come of age, grow together, and the overzealous love of teenagers.

What sells this is that the two primary characters are both quite believable. You have Ryuuji, who is a deeply caring guy, and Taiga, who is aggressive, cocky, and also vulnerable. While the story is told from Ryuuji's perspective, the most interesting character throughout is Taiga as she handles the trials of growing up. Fundamentally, she is not a cookie-cutter "cute girl" to stick in the centre of what is essentially a romantic series; she is needy and often unpleasant, while also caring for her friends deeply.

A lot of anime have craaazy hijinks and characters who are incredibly” read more

Simply Beautiful

“Warning: Spoilers

When I first heard of this anime, I was given a link to the site with episodes and a series summary. I didn't watch it then because even though my friend told me it was the best anime he had seen, I didn't see a potential for greatness. It looked decent. He had mentioned it other times since then but didn't push me into it. I think it was mostly a "why not, I'm curious" attitude that got me to see this show. I watched the first four episodes, not long after I was tempted to see more, and then only stopped because I required sleep. Then I got up early, started again, stopped only because a friend wanted to see me, then finished the show. In short, I was hooked and by the end as close to crying as any anime got me.

The story is about an odd boy named Ryu” read more

My Top 50 Anime List (50 tv items)

"My problem with the most romance animes is the big focus on the main duo, boring side-chars and a predictible way how the story goes. All of this is like a ball and Toradora is Lionel Messi and kicks it out of the stadium. The setting of this show is simple but what they do with it is such amazing. Two neighbours help each other to get the love they want because its the respective best friend of the other one. The most part of watching you get tears of laugher and at the end tears of how the sto"

4,000 Animated Series to See Before Death... (3001 tv items)

" TORADORA! Review coming soon... "