YMMV / Toradora!

• Accidental Aesop: Since the reason why Taiga falls in love with Ryuuji is because he was able to fill an empty part of her heart left by her parents and Minori, and for a good majority of the series, Ryuuji and Taiga come off as Platonic Life-Partners, it can be interpreted that platonic or even familial love can never be as strong as romantic love. In other words, it implies that Ryuuji would've never been able to "fix" Taiga, had their relationship stayed purely platonic. Granted, this may be a byproduct of the series being a romance story, but either way, it has rather Unfortunate Implications.
• Adaptation Displacement: The anime series has done this, as happens a lot with anime based on light novels outside of Japan. However, the original novels were eventually made available in English in 2018.
• Arc Fatigue: There are some who get sick and tired of Taiga and Ryuuji failing at getting together even though it was obviously the series mission statement from Episode 2.
• Awesome Music:
  • The second OP, "Silky Heart", marks a definite shift in the series' tone. It appropriately gets even more awesome.
  • "Pre-Parade", the first OP of the anime.
  • "Vanilla Salt" (the first ending theme) is also insanely catchy.
  • "Startup!", the OST's first track, is both heartbreakingly beautiful and incredibly inspiring.
  • "Lost my Pieces", probably the most popular theme from the show. Every time it sounds, tears ensue.
• Base-Breaking Character: There are as many people who see Taiga as The Scrappy or Creator's Pet as much as there are people who like her.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Haruta's Christmas dream about his classmates getting naughty. Out of nowhere? Check. Bizarre? Check. Never brought up again? Absolutely.
  • The ramen chef demonstrating the "Secret Art of Endless Transmigration".
• Broken Base: The second half of the series, which goes into Darker and Edgier territory, focusing more on relationship drama than humor, polarizes a lot of fans. The ending does not help. Ryuuji confesses to Minori, but she rejects him because she thinks he likes Taiga. He then starts to realize he likes Taiga and confesses to her. Half of the fans think this is an awesome ending, but the other half brings up that beforehand, Taiga and Ryuuji looked more like siblings and he — for about three-quarters of the show — liked Minori and had much more chemistry with her.
• Cliché Storm: Although it does play with a lot of the typical slice-of-life anime and romantic comedy tropes, it doesn't make the work worse. If anything, it's proof that Tropes Are Not Bad.
• Designated Love Interest: A large part of the fan base has argued that if Taiga or Ryuuji were not the alpha couple, for at least half the anime/manga/LN can come across as Platonic Life-Partners or Like Brother and Sister rather then what it actually is.
• Die for Our Ship: Ami is the biggest target of it, which is odd considering that despite her flirtatiousness she is the least involved in the Love Dodecahedron.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Inko. A fair number of comments are made about the bird.
• Funny Moments: The beginning of Episode 9. "They're yours."
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Toradora! has a considerable following in Italy, to the point of producing a professional-quality doujin.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The dub of the second SOS short has Ami annoyed with her director and cameraman over pudding, saying they both have "pudding for brains". This dub was released in 2014, the same year the Twelfth Doctor was introduced, the same doctor who calls people "pudding brains".
  • In episode six of the anime, Minorin uses her "Divine Fist of the Convenience Store" on Ami, a reference to Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken technique. Two years later, guess who just-so-happens to be running a convenience store...
  • Taiga's English voice actor would go on to voice Morgana, another character who constantly picks on a guy named Ryūji.
    • Also in Persona 5, Ami's English voice actor ends up voicing Ann Takamaki who happens to be another fashion model. Even better, both Ann and Morgana end up getting along much better than Ami and Taiga.
• Jerkass Woobie: Taiga, at first. Due to her Dark and Troubled Past, neglectful father and horrible family situation, she has become a pretty surly person, though she still does have a good heart deep down. By the end of the series, however, she's just a plain Woobie.
  • Ami in her debut appearance, where she was perhaps at her most Jerkass while also being caught in the frightening situation of being stalked by a creepy obsessive fanboy.
• Les Yay:
  • Minori seems awfully close to Taiga at times.
  • Taiga also returns the favor in the dub. Episode 13 has her openly proclaiming that she loves Minori multiple times (after Minori, in a boys only competition, wins with Ryuuji, where part of the prize for winning is that the winner gets a dance with Taiga). Then in Episode 14 Taiga declares that nobody can touch her except Minori.
  • Possibly due to height difference, Taiga tends to do a bit of face planting when she goes to hug Minori.
  • There's also some Les Yay between Minori and Ami toward the end. This is Ami's character song; there's really only one person she could be singing to.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ami is a bro.
  • Its Matchmaker Romance directly inspired Keit-Ai (which now has twice the Taiga and Ryuuji!)
• Moe: Taiga, for certain. She even went on to win both the 2009 Anime Saimoe Tournament and the 2009 Korea Best Moe Tournament.
• Narm: In the English dub, during the romantic climax of the series' last episode, we get a beautiful "Epic fail," courtesy of Ryuuji. Way to kill it, bud.
• Narm Charm: Ryuuji dressing as a bear Santa in order to cheer up Taiga at Christmas. It's both completely ridiculous and completely heartwarming.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • To some people, Inko manages to be both more and less creepy in the manga version, as well. Or just disturbing in different ways. Others find him more Ugly Cute than anything.
  • Taiga herself can also be Nightmare Fuel to some, due to how violent she was.
• One True Threesome: Tagia x Minori x Ryuuji is the most popular, considering Taiga and Minori share a bunch of Les Yay moments, and Ryuuji is canonically in love with both of them to some extent.
• Pair the Spares: Combined with the Les Yay up above.
• Shipping Bed Death: Notably averted. Taiga and Ryuuji getting together didn't make the interest for their relationship wane any bit. If anything, it amplified it.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Sumire Kanou, the Student Council President, although it is debatable to what extent it is intentional or not. Although it was harsh to reject Yuusaku's on-stage confession by treating it and his feelings for her as a big joke to be laughed at, he had backed her into a corner that there was no easy way to get out of, and her rejection by indifference was probably just about the least painful thing she could think to do. Taiga's incredibly immature reaction afterwards (starting a fight, then refusing to take responsibility when the predictable outcome happens) was just icing on the cake. To some, the whole plotline sends the uncomfortable message of "if someone loves you a lot and puts a lot of effort toward you, they're owed the same from you even if you don't feel the same way about them".
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • In episode 8, viewers are meant to root for Taiga in her swimming competition against Ami, but her plan to win is to pull off her opponent's swimsuit. Although given that Ryuji calls her on playing dirty and she ultimately doesn't win the competition, this is debatable.
  • Some had this reaction to Kitamura in episodes 15 and 16, where he essentially abandoned his responsibilities, wouldn't say a word to his friends about what he was going through, and confessed to his feelings to Sumire on public stage.
  • Taiga's reaction got a similar response, since she physically attacked Sumire over her not liking (Taiga's) friend while screaming and throwing a massive tantrum, so it's not uncommon that even fans of Taiga are willing to concede that she deserved the two week suspension she was given for starting that fight. Cementing her petty immaturity is when Taiga wrote an apology letter for Sumire during the latter's stay on America, said letter only contains the word "FOOL" written on it, a clear indicator that she wasn't sorry at all.
  • Sumire herself gets it from some viewers, as her I Want My Beloved to Be Happy mentality falls flat for those who view her public rejection of Kitamura to have been a step too far. Even if she was attempting to make him give up on chasing her out of his own good, the fact that she never thought to just sit down and talk out a plan where they could continue a long-distance relationship until he graduated makes her come off more as trying to force her own idea of happiness on him rather than letting him decide for himself what he wants.
• Values Dissonance: Western viewers may be a bit confused as to why everybody freaks out when Kitamura bleaches his hair blonde. In Japan, where school dress codes are strictly enforced, dyed hair is seen as a sign of delinquency. Many Japanese schools have even forced students to dye their hair black if theirs was any other color, which has naturally led to problems when the small handful of Japanese students whose natural hair color was, for example, brown are also forced to dye their hair.
• Wangst:
  • Some had this reaction to Kitamura's outburst over Sumire. Considering that there was little to no foreshadowing for it, that Kitamura essentially abandoned his responsibilities, wouldn't say a word to his friends about it, and confessed to her on public stage, some felt far more understanding to Sumire's perspective.
  • Taiga's Love Epiphany and subsequent breakdown at the end of Episode 19 can come off as this, since it's very sudden and rather poorly worded, making it sound like she can never be with Ryuuji again in any circumstance if he gets together with Minori.

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