Toradora! 1:Tiger and Dragon 「虎と竜」

Based on a light novel series, Toradora is a story that centers around "Tora" and "Dora". The first episode mainly introduces these two.


The story starts as Ryuuji is preparing to enter the second year of high school. His hangover mother, who does not seem able to take care of the house by herself, told him that he looks just like his father. For some reason, Ryuuji is not happy about this. They also talked about the building next to their house, which looks extremely expensive.

On the way to school, he got bumped by another student from his school. Because of his look, he has quite a reputation, apparently. Without prompting, he got some wallets as an apology. As he is not actually a delinquent, he hands out the wallets as lost items when he arrives at school.
At school, he is glad to find out he is on the same class as a good friend of his, Yuusaku and his crush, Minori. Everyone else seems to be afraid of him though!


On the way to class, he bumps into another girl who has quite a reputation also, Taiga. Different from him, this girl seems to fully deserve her reputation. Even though she is the one who bumps into Ryuuji, she punches him without hesitation.
It turns out that Taiga is actually Minori's best friend.

Later on after class, when Ryuuji went back to retrieve his bag, he is surprised to find Taiga making a mess of the class. For some reason, she is unwilling to let Ryuuji retrieve his bag too. However, Ryuuji managed to retrieve it after some tug of war. He even tidies up the classroom that was messed up by Taiga.

At home, Ryuuji is surprised to find a letter from Taiga to his best friend, Yuusaku.
Intending to give the letter tomorrow, he goes to sleep. In the middle of the night though, there is an intruder into his house! Taiga has sneaked in to retrieve the letter. After a lot of fight and argument, Ryuuji said to Taiga that he found out that the letter is empty, so she is worrying about nothing.

There seems to be some kind of deal struck afterwards, with Ryuuji agreeing to do anything Taiga wants, even to be her dog:b That's after Taiga meets Ryuuji's pet, a parrot which looks weird...

In the morning, Ryuuji got a phone from Taiga. It turns out she lives right next door in the expensive building! When Ryuuji went to her house to deliver breakfast, he is shocked to find out the inside of the elegant building stinks! Looks like Taiga is living alone, and the house if in a mess and garbage is piling up on the kitchen sink. Ryuuji finds out Taiga went back to sleep, and comment that she looks like a doll when she's sleeping.


When Taiga wakes up she is surprised to find her house to be a lot cleaner and organized than before. She finds hot breakfast ready for her too. But when she sees Ryuuji she got mad because he enters without permission....

It can't be helped that Taiga has all the Louise vibe here, as they have the same seiyuu, and similar character too, it seems so far. I am sure it's intended that way too.

If you are wondering where dragon and tiger comes from, Ryuuji's name has the dragon character, while Taiga is one of the word for tiger in Japanese. The title of the anime is the combination of the word for tiger and dragon too.

Impression
The first episode looks good, and there is hope of some kind of balance between Ryuuji and Taiga. Ryuuji looks like he can stand on his own despite the abuse from Taiga. While it's part of the joke, I hope Taiga has something that differentiate herself from Louise of Zero no Tsukaima. Otherwise, this will feel like the 4th season of Tsukaima....

Toradora! 「とらドラ！」 official page

Ending theme:Vanilla Salt　「バニラソルト」　by Horie Yui　「堀江由衣」

Note:screen shots to follow later