Toradora!

To me, Cassandra Lee cemented my idea of an excellent lead anime dub actress with SAO. Yes, the anime is awful, but she PUT HER GODDANG ALL into that show, and it made me reevaluate what she is capable of!

Who was she, Kirito's sister?

Yeah, Suguha.

And Leafa. .... which means you get to hear Lee for TWICE the character moments! And offers more opportunities to hear her act!

The first time I knew of Lee was when she voiced Ritsu in K-On! and even then I thought she was the best effin actress of the show, but Ritsu is a less-developed character than Suguha and didn't have a ton of emotion shifts.

edited 9th Jul '14 6:44:27 PM by Shota

Anyways the dub is really good, like a lot better than you'd expect a Slice of Life show to have.

She'll always be Kyubey to me, which makes her friendship with Minori (voiced by Madoka's VA) pretty hilarious.

edited 9th Jul '14 6:49:08 PM by Scherzo09

... wow. Toradora's dub is GREAT??

Okay now my interest is getting bigger.

I did the same thing with Madoka and K-ON, where Cassandra Lee does Kyubey and Ritsu and Christina Vee does Homura and Mio. From mortal enemies to best friends is hilariously jarring.

Man, I'm exceptionally pleased with the latest dubs that have been put out. Problem Children also had a really good English dub and Toradora is A+ material here.

Kill La Kill, Space Dandy, Toradora, and the dub for The Devil Is A Part-Timer looks really good.... this mid-year looks like a great time for anime dubs.

Just watched the first episode of this in Japanese, and it was really good! I heard Taiga gets a lot of complaints, but I found her funny in the slightly insane kind of way. And that sink scene in her apartment was amazing. It's already apparent that both she and Ryuji have all sorts of family problems going on in the background.

Yeah, she is certainly a piece of work. Though I found Ryuji's OCD with cleaning everything to be the funniest character trait. Funniest moment on its own has to be Taiga punching him out for running into her.

Why? Why must you bring back the feels, man?

Ryuji is the only person in an anime who was actually happy about getting the crap punched out of him by a person half his size. I like how she's so short he doesn't even realize what he ran into in the hallway.

I wonder how tall she's supposed to be anyway.

I'd guess five foot ought, four foot eleven. Japanese aren't exactly tall to begin with.

Awesome, I got five inches on her.

Four foot nine, so says the Toradora wiki.

Wow, that's impressively tiny for a high school girl. No wonder Taiga's so crazy, people would lose her in a crowd if she wasn't.

So I decided to give this a try. I'm at the "Kitamura-dyes-his-hair" arc.

I honestly wasn't expecting much going in, and the series certainly doesn't spare us some clichés (oh, the Christmas Cake teacher, what would a romcom be without her…), but the character dynamics are quite remarkably handled overall, and even characters that should be annoying end up surprisingly endearing. The whole cast just grows on you. Also, the generally good comedic timing doesn't hurt.

While the Ryuuji-Minorin ship seems too superficial to actually come to fruition − I mean, I can picture them as good friends but not as a couple − Taiga's love for Kitamura seems more genuine that I initially expected.

After episode 15 I can only assume that Kitamura was in love with the SCP (there were some obvious hints of that before) and she bluntly told him that he should just give up before he even confessed. Or something. Anyway, I'm off to binging the rest!

You guessed correctly. At least the Taiga-Kitamura-SCP relationship climaxes in an awesome fashion.

You guys keep saying SCP and I keep reading SCP Foundation.

I will say, I enjoyed this show, but the payoff is... I'll say I'm conflicted on it. I do know I went back and attempted to watch it a second time, and I couldn't stand Taiga at all despite liking her the first time.

Episode 19… Yikes. I can't help but think Kushieda was a bit cruel here. She could have at least let Ryuuji say what he had to, even though it's pretty clear that his feelings have shifted towards Taiga by now. Actually, it seems to be a recurring pattern in this series. Either people don't answer to confessions or they reject the other before they even have the time to confess.

Nevertheless, episode 16 was pretty awesome. I didn't expect to see an actual fight scene in this of all things. And it look pretty sleek too. What I don't get is… why didn't Kanou just, you know, leave her phone number or mail address to Kitamura?

Taiga is pretty much like Aria. She can be a nice and likeable character at times, and completely insufferable at others (though Aria is probably worse). I think Taiga gets better with time though.

Aaaand done! (OVAs apart).

Hmmmm… I'm a bit mixed on this ending? But mostly positive I think. Taiga's decision to postpone the marriage plans and go back to her family was probably the best for everyone in the end. Ryuuji said some pretty horrible things to Yasuko though. But I'm glad her character got some closure too. Even Inko-chan got some!

All in all, this series is a textbook example of how execution can make or break a show. The premise and the various developments were predictable all the way through and people in this have a thing for running away and chasing people apparently, but the characters reactions and behaviors were always well-justified (if a tad over-the-top in Minori's case) and the relationships always felt natural, both in their loving and conflictual moments. I'm not sure I like how the characters always force their friends to say what they don't want to, but if it moves the story forward I can give it a pass.

Also, now I ship Minori and Ami, fight me. Minori did wonder if she might be into girls at one point, so hey.