Wow what a great show! All I can say is this is totally worth watching. Like nearly all Anime shows it is has a plot that follows your usual boy and girl should get together and everybody knows it. But they took that plot and spun it into an incredible story that will leave you laughing, confused, thinking “yea, thats something stupid I would do/did”, frustrated and sorry for various characters, screaming “why!?”, and sometimes just downright dumbfounded at what is going on.
The story follows Ryūji and Taiga, two misfits in school. Neither one has very many friends. Ryūji is seen as a scary guy do to his face; and Taiga, known as the “Palmtop Tiger”, lives up to her name as a short girl with the tenacity of a tiger. A handful of friends joins them throughout the show as they help each other find happiness, and sometimes torment each other just because they can. To say that this show includes a love triangle would not do it justice… I’m not entirely sure which geometric shape is the right one, maybe a hexagon? As I said, there are episodes that will end and just leave you thoroughly confused because you don’t have a clue as to what is going on anymore.
There is one episode which has a short questionable dream sequence that lasts about 15 seconds. Nothing is actually shown, in the dream Taiga is holding a towel or blanket or something over her body but leaving her sides exposed. Again nothing is ever actually shown. The whole team did a good job on this one of not taking the liberty to do any quick fan service even though they could easily have slipped some things in.
If you enjoy Anime that makes you laugh a lot at various antics or even downright stupidity you should enjoy this one. Clannad was a great show for telling a solid story. While Toradora! (loosely translated as Tiger Dragon!) has a pretty solid story it’s truely charming aspects come from its ability to build up a lot of tension and then suddenly let it lose with somebody doing something stupid, or just showing up at the most inopportune time. The show itself did not make much use of music inside the show, at-least nothing that leaves a memory, the opening and ending themes (there are 2 each) are pretty catchy. In addition to the episodes in the main plot, there is one OVA and 4 “shorts” that I have yet to watch, meaning I cannot attest to their cleanliness – though based on the main episodes I don’t imagine them to contain anything bad.