You Don't Know What You Want: The Beauty of Toradora

When asked what the best romance anime are, most people would point to the simple, yet touching stories from Key. Stories like Clannad and Canon get the most attention due to being done by Kyoto Animation, one of biggest animation studios. While these series do handle some aspects of romance well, the best show with romance as its main focus would have to be Toradora.

Toradora is about two high school kids (surprising!) called Ryuuji and Taiga. Both of them want to get together with the other's best friend: Ryuuji wants to be with Minori, and Taiga wants to be with Kitamura. Taiga is mostly hostile to Ryuuji at first, but they soon find out that working together would be the best way to hook up their friends. An important part of the setup is that neither Taiga nor Ryuuji know how to act on their feelings. The reason the two met in the first place is that Taiga misplaced a letter she planned to give to Kitamura. Not knowing how to react to her secret getting out, she attacks Ryuuji who has to defend himself by telling her the letter wasn't even in the envelope.

Ryuuji then tries consoling her by showing off his box of pathetic gifts he means to give to Minori. Both the love letter and Ryuuji's gifts fit better with a generic interpretation of how romance is supposed to work than with actual people, creating the foundation for the story: These two have no clue what they're doing (not to say I have any better ideas). They don't realize that romance is built on personal connection and knowing you partner well, but instead treat it like a ritual with certain steps that must be followed in order. Ryuuji doesn't have any Idea of how to start, and he complements Taiga on taking action on her feelings, but it doesn't matter because a letter would have just been ignored by someone who never spent any time with Taiga before. In the next few episodes, Ryuuji and Taiga try helping each other: Taiga by getting Minori to tag along with Ryuuji, and Ryuuji by giving Taiga the confidence she needs to ask out Kitamura.

The interesting dillema is that Ryuuji likes Minori because she always has a positive and energetic attitude. Through the course of the story, Minori is shown to be mostly putting on a front to keep from being overwhelmed by her immense responsibilities. When Ryuuji realizes this, he loses the main reason he wanted to date her, leaving him with no clue of what to do next. Kitamura's arc goes the opposite direction because Taiga looks up to him as a respectable classmate, but she is eventually rejected before it is revealed that Kitamura is much more reckless and unreliable than he lets on. Both Taiga and Ryuuji fall for the trap of what they think they want, with their ideas being shaped by their initial impressions of what their crushes are like.

Ooh! An anime character changing their hair color!

As these realizations gradually dawn on our two protagonists, they slowly grow fonder of each other. They constantly hang around with each other, share experiences, and give advice. Eventually, they start treating each other as family and generally relying on them as moral support. For at least a little while, they go on not realizing the connection they share, continuing the charade of match makers, while unknowingly becoming couple. That is until they realize what they actually want from their relationship along: each other's company. Taiga is out in the street yelling Ryuuji's name before she realizes it.

Just to add some frosting to the cake, the show has two great openings and endings. Taiga is voiced by the queen of tsundere herself, Rie Kugimiya (who also voiced Hoopa in the Pokemon movie). If you want to see more in-depth analysis of Toradora, I'll point you to Riyogaa who is much better with words than I: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21Pex_ijDsRA1aD2a7X8bQ