A bit of random trivia, Spaceballs was the first movie I ever saw
I’ll say it right up front, this Kitamura bitch angst arc fucking sucks. I hated it in the novels and I hate it now in the anime. Sometimes it’s really obvious that a woman wrote the source material. Anyways, I’ll flame on a bit here and make fun of he who lacks stones.
I always disliked Kitamura’s character, I found him rather irritating. However, that wasn’t a problem when he was just on the sidelines or letting his little soldier flap in the open air. It became a problem when his angst took up two full episodes. We all had disappointments in our high school love lives, but holy shit take it like a man. Get over it and move on. What did Masa-san teach us? A man only cries when his parents pass away.
Of course, instead of actually doing this he just went and had a fuzzy talk about his feelings. What he actually needed was yet another beating for being a stupid ass. I’m not big on beating children, but I don’t blame his father for being pissed. After all, I’m ready to kick his ass.
Oh a confession in front of the whole school! How romantic! Oh wait, I stopped giving a shit a long time ago. Plus he got rejected, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Fansubbers certainly enjoy embellishing don’t they? The fight was probably the only amusing part about this arc, I do enjoy myself a good catfight. The crying and such afterwards? Not so enjoyable. I just couldn’t bring myself to care much about the aftermath. What happened to my comedy? What happened to my dear Ami? Will someone please deliver us from this hell!? Ami in a Santa costume from next week’s preview may help a great deal…
43 Comments
you are obviously too biased to appreciate the subtleties of this episode.
kitamura aside, the rship mechanics between the main characters are yet again advanced. besides, kitamura is a SNAG, that’s why the angst. we need to stop thinking that all guys should be GAR and all that crap
I also felt this Kitamura arc was unnecessary, but I guess it’s needed to form the ensuing love polygon that’s about to take place since Minorin’s gonna join the race now. What awful timing though..
Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show. Toradora is not a comedy show.
How many times will I have to say it, everywhere?
Also, this isn’t a “race”. This isn’t about the love polygon. It isn’t about who “wins”.
All of you who think like this are going to be sorely disappointed.
Ami is going to fade into the background heavily. From now on.
So if that’s all you care about, stop watching the show and save everyone who’s watching it for, you know, the characters from your incessant complaints.
“It’s really obvious it’s a woman who wrote the source material”. Wow. Sexist much?
@Kaisos
I don’t see how expressing one’s opinion about the show can affect anyone that’s watching it but it obviously affects you since you seem to be irritated. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a blog and not everyone share the same view as you. By your logic,I can say if you hate others’ opinions of the show so much, stop reading their blog entries.
Well at least his arc is over, so you could be happy with that. I’m not sure what happens in the novels. I’m not a novel reader but if you look at it Kitamura just made the character relationships shift gears again. Now Minorin is entering the stage because of Ami, though Ami kinda regretted helping her out after a few seconds. Taiga either starts aiming for Kitamura more or doubts her feelings towards him. Exciting stuff ahead.
i liked it
(dont hit me)
@ Kaisos: If even thinking about all that for the fun of doing it… complex polygons, who wins etc… is wrong in your thoughts, then how else can we enjoy the show? Not everyone likes the story like how you described “the way it is”, you know; even if they liked the show. And they have the right to say so.
I don’t like Yuusaku’s arc either. This episode’s whole 30 minutes (or something that should come up that far) became an instant 3 or 4 minutes for me. (Well that’s just right for me, since I skipped directly to the end of the episode, while skimming through the rest of the episodes.
Ah, I knew a comment uttered in an irrational state of anger would promote responses such as this. Heh.
Toradora is not a harem show. It is not about “who wins”. It is about the journey, and the interaction between the characters, regardless of how cliche that sounds.
I’m just more sick of irrational complaints such as “There isn’t enough Ami in this episode, ergo, it sucks!”. And yes, I am aware of the irony.
@Boku Yuna
Being GAR and having the stones to not angst over a woman are two separate things.
@Kaisos
It’s not a comedy? Oh man obviously not, I mean look at how ANN describes it:
“Genres: comedy, romance, slice of life”
and MAL’s tags:
“Slice of Life, Comedy, Ecchi, Romance, School”
Add that to the fact that the first several episodes that drew me in were primarily comedic and wow you really convinced me there.
I really find it amusing how people like you have this outrage that I have the audacity to express my displeasure of a show in my own blog. I mean, have you had much experience with blogs before? Generally they are a place where one gives opinions, and is not intended to be all-inclusive. It’s not like I went on AS and started flaming the show on the forums there.
And I do watch it for the characters, mainly Ami =)
@Quint
I don’t hate on other’s opinions, I won’t hit you~ I just disliked it =)
@Kaisos again
Once again, why are you so offended that I get irritated when my favorite character is pushed aside? Obviously when the light in one’s life for this show is subverted by an angsty little sissy boy such a person would be enraged.
Little sissy boy? I think confessing to someone in front of the whole school would require some testicular fortitude, don’t you think? And maybe you can substitute Ami for Sumire since they don’t really differ much in comparison. At least not physically.. heh
I miss Ami-tan, Sumire was pretty good though, she gave Taiga a well deserved beating.
@Aimless
Courage can easily be substituted by stupidity. Ami and Sumire are distinct entities, besides Kitamura could have exercised a bit of discretion, and running away was pretty damn cowardly even if desperation forced a change in the end.
Ami is the best: http://www.eej.srsfkn.biz/2009/01/20/it-has-come-to-my-attention-that-there-isnt-enough-love-for-our-bro-ami/
In any case, I think it’s kind of amusing how much love there is for Ami in the English-speaking anime community. If you take fanart as a popularity metric, Taiga art on Danbooru outnumbers Ami art almost 5:1. If that isn’t an injustice in the world then I don’t know what is.
God I hate Kugimiya Rie.
I think somebody needs a hug.
Astronaut? LOL. You gotta be chosen to be an astronaut, its not something that you can achieve
Where is my Ami Chan??? After well development in episode 14 Are she going slowly fades away??
Damn Kitamura He never understand how to confessed properly. THAT’S not romantic way to expressed his feelings, but seems so irritating.
@Crusader = Sure, ChickFight is amusing and Taiga faced tough opponent. But yeah Sumire throwed her shoe to Taiga face and i think is the worst insult i’ve ever seen
@Eej = Nice Fan art For The love of Ami Chan, And F*** all kugimiya Tsundere characters… (Except Mizore Shirayuki chan)
I’m only curious about the very last part when the whole bitchfight between Taiga and the president ended. What exactly did Ami mean when she asked Minorin “is your guilt gone already” ? I’m a bit lost here. What guilt? Is it because Minorin didn’t do anything to stop the fight?
an anime won’t always focus on one character of course. That’s why there are supporting characters along with their arcs… If you can’t stand it then I just can’t think of any to recommend XD. I also personally like Ami and Minorin and dislikes Kitamura but oh well…
His hair bothered me. I was hoping for a nice bubblegum pink shade instead of a gross mustard yellow. Though I don’t know what it says about a show, but these were the only episodes that actually made me cry. I don’t even know why, but at the ‘tear jerker’ scenes that apparently were supposed to make you tear up, I didn’t o___O I hate it when they over accentuate the cursing, most of the time you can tell :/
srsly I tot wii gghot ohver dis ei lllooonngggg thyme ahgo. QQ TT ;_; why are you even watching the show then? Wait for some other blogger to tell you when Taiga comes back on.
@Aimless
No, but since 95% of the time he was being a little sissy boy that name is appropriate. Just because he had a 5% moment of some balls doesn’t erase the rest of the two episodes of crap.
And Ami and Sumire are absolutely nothing alike, I don’t understand how you can liken them aside from both having blue hair. Their personalities are drastically different.
@Eej
BROFIST
@Omisyth
That would be nice, wanna come over?
@Haruko
Presumably she’s referring to Minori’s guilt over liking Ryuuji. She was feeling guilty because she thought Taiga liked him.
@Lelangir
Getting all riled up and flaming something is fun once in awhile though =)
I think this arc rocked. It was very emotional and made me feel very happy. Kitamura is a great character, and everyone can relate to his pain.
Who needs comedy when you have excellent drama and character development?
I love how people take the arbitrary tags assigned by English speakers who probably never read through all the source material themselves when they created entries in ANN and MyAnmmeList as gospel with regards to what the show is about. It’s like asking an isolated tribesman of the 17th century Polynesian islands to tag what the Catholic Church is about.
I have a man crush on Calawain. There I said it.
Wait, if you’ve read the novels, then you know Ami isn’t going to be getting much more screen-time because there’s no more arcs with her as a main cog in the source material. You knew it was coming, so why complain? They even cut out her ‘moment’ right after she speaks to Minorin.
I think confessing in front of the school is neither ballsy or particularly romantic, it struck me as selfish. Also I think this arc was handled very clumsily. At first I didn’t like how Kitamura’s personality change was so sudden but it makes some sense as the series is mostly through the eyes of the two main characters who either don’t pay much attention to him or see him through a rose tinted lense. However, the whole election thing was stupid, it took a leap of logic I did not follow.
Regarding Ami: what I like about Ami is that she is in a similar situation to the viewer. She doesn’t get involved very heavily in the love triangles but isn’t really part of the student body, I think I and others empathise with this outsider status and her to-the-point attitude, even if she doesn’t have any more stories focusing on her it feels like she could be a catalyst to other relationships.
Oh and while Toradora isn’t a straight comedy show, denying it has comedic elements is wrong.
Doesn’t really matter whether it’s comedy or not, those last two episodes were really boring ; the dialogues were very poor, the plot quite lame, though not as much as the character developpement. It is also very cliché ; public confession ? check. Angsty emo character ? check. You need to stop running away lines ? check. I’m sorry, as much as I liked Toradora in the beginning, those episodes are poor and I regret even seing them.
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CRIED THAT TORA DORA 16 HAD A BETTER FIGHT CHOREOGRAPH THAN JIHAD VS BOB?
And yes, Ami is the carry. A lack of Ami always forces me to take 2 hours to watch an episode because watching it straight through is too painful.
Hm… I’m kinda neutral about this. sure it was a stupid arc idea. But Toradora (up till now) is definitely better than Tsukaima and various parts of Shana. It’s good that it’s not all about Aisaka, but the whole friend group as a whole. Rather than saying it’s just another tsundere crap, it feels more like a high school “honey and clover”
nice team blog oh wait it’s just one angry fool spitting out a couple of sentences and pictures.
If this were a team blog it would also have included the good parts.
The part with the wallet and ami/minorin didn’t even get highlighted. Shame on you
i thought episode 16 was the best episode by far
i mean this is a ‘romance’ show having comedy as a by product not the other way round
@Miraploy
“excellent drama and character development”
OH YOU
@Haesslich
Why would you have to read the source material to tag how you view a series so far. The first several episodes had a lot of comedy so people start to tag it comedy. Makes a lot of sense to me.
@Amyable
Considering what Maria+Holic is doing to me that really doesn’t bother me. Are you a twintailed blonde by any chance?
@Veggies
I’ve read the English-translated portions of the novel, which end at this episode’s content. I don’t know how the rest goes.
@Marmoset
Oh, rare intelligent discussion in these comments, kudos~
@Nemo
Haha, yeah “stop running away!” is such a huge anime cliche.
@D=
Mmmm, it certainly is possible, because Jihad v. Bob also ended quite abruptly with no real substance.
@Random Passing Dude
Because it’s a team blog you are free to not read my entries and instead read others. Or maybe start your own blog? I would suggest learning how to capitalize and use periods before doing that, however.
@calawain:
It has nothing to do with ending prematurely. It has to do with the fact that they fail to highlight any small techniques or fancy moves either side pulls off. They just both go super saiyan and get a hard on. I would go further, but this should be saved for Crusader’s article. Actually no, there WERE NO TECHNIQUES, it was as bad as claymore once Claire got her SPEED ARM (AKA WE CAN SLACK OFF ON ANIMATION ARM)
And yeah, Mariya’s hair is the best part about him. When it’s serious, it looks better than all other hairstyles in the show, but it can be converted to twitch when in SD mode.
@Vin-nii:
I can’t agree with you completely on ZnT. ZnT felt more immersed the first season, and perhaps the second. The third was terrible, but I really enjoyed the first for what it was. Tora Dora however flat out disappointed me whenever Taiga comes along with her embarassing points, and Ryuuji is nowhere near as entertaining as Saito. Of course, this may be just an overload of Rie because I watched ZnT first (DUR) but I still think Saito is a better male lead than Ryuuji.
Ryuuji’s character is like Ami’s, only taken away all the awesomeness. You aren’t a girl, you don’t have a mean streak, you don’t tease, you always help people, and you go along with Taiga’s really dumb ideas without even a pause.
Saito v. Ryuuji… I’d say Ryuuji
Saito is fairly immature, not much thinking in his head… and his relationship with Louise is mundane.
Ryuuji is one of these ordinary high school students that are clueless about the future but are honestly living his life. Not to mention his relation with Taiga (accomplice?) is much more interesting than the love-hate situation in ZnT.
Then again, I like slice of life a lot more compare to tsundere based anime. Everyone has their opinion
^You are basing that on a preference. I am basing it purely on things like character art design, voice actor, etc etc that is more “general” if I may be so bold to claim.
Saito is immature, doesn’t think, and has a silly relationship with Louise. But he does the job well. I can’t currently think of any series within the close timeframe of ZNT with a similar “fun” feel to him that beats Saito in a silly genre.
Yeah I guess it is preference. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the tsundere that much. I think Louise does it better than Taiga purely because one is a fantasy comedy romance while the other is a slice of life comedy romance. I still think it sucks overall. Just that ZnT has a PLOT. You know, something to LOOK FORWARD TO. Tora Dora is like, OKAY…FANTASTIC….WHAT ABOUT PENI-err wait I mean…
UxU is the greatest slice of life. Mx0 was the greatest fantasy school life crap. That’s my scale.
^Wait I totally made myself look like an idiot. I take that back. Here let’s use an easier argument. ZnT had better opening music. Yeah. That’s the reason.
lol, oh the drama in this blog.
Hm, well, I liked it, but that’s just me. I like a LOT of things. I like a lot of shoujo too, so it’s to be expected. When I’m bored, read dramatic slice of life romance manga. So this is my cup of tea.
But I gotta admit, Kitamura is …odd….(I can’t quite understand him or Minorin. =/)I didn’t like his arc as much, but seeing how it affected the rest of the characters, I got into it. If Ami, Taiga, or Ryuuji are pulled in in anyway (which they will be, Ryuuji and Taiga are the main characters and Ami’s always there, knowing what’s happening), I pretty much get into it. Besides, I always have that ‘protective mode’ thing on. A character gets hurt by love, ‘protect mode’. Then I get all sympathetic.
Spaceballs was first movie I saw in movie theater
@ D=
better OP? nah… then again I’ve only watched the 1st season so I can’t really say.
Best slice: honey and clover
Best Fantasy school: have to agree with you on that
and ZnT’s Plot? Too idealistic in my opinion. Not to mention the first season was so anti-climatic at the end I broke down laughing (exaggerated but true)
Stereotypical manliness FTL, I don’t see anyone bashing Taiga for her unfeminine antics.
So have you guys dropped Toradora? Just wondering. I need someone to work out what the fuck is up with Minorin already.
You’re certainly entitled to your own opinion (this is your blog, after all) and I do agree that all the angst and melodrama got tiring, especially after finding the ultimate cause.
However:
“Sometimes it’s really obvious that a woman wrote the source material.”
I don’t know if you realize how sexist and offensive that comment was.
“Sometimes it’s really obvious that a woman wrote the source material.”
I don’t know if you realize how sexist and offensive that comment was.
Oh get over yourself. If I was commenting on Negima and said “With all of those huge boobs on middle schoolers flying around, it’s really obvious that a man wrote this,” you wouldn’t bat an eye. I’m big on equality here, but don’t bring me double standards.
I’m sick and tired of everyone comparing Taiga to Louise. The only thing they have in common is they’re voiced by the same person. Taiga is nowhere near as violent. Taiga is a sweet kind girl who was mistreated as a kid and developed a tough exterior. She’s insecure deep down. From the beginning it seems that her only friend was Minori. She was abandoned as a child. She doesn’t know how to act with people. She barely can read or understand her OWN emotions. When she acts there are hundreds of thoughts going through her mind. I despise how people just write her off as “just another tsundere” when she’s so much more than that.
Aside from that, I liked episode 16. It showed how much Taiga really cares about the friends she’s made. How she would do anything for them. The stupid idea that “men can’t cry” is just a social norm. It’s like telling a woman she’s meant to stay in the damn kitchen. If a guy feels the need to cry he should just cry, not try to act gar.
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