(Average+) Toradora!

NOTE: I watched this series in English.

Series in one sentence:
A boy plans to marry the girl who physically and verbally abuses him.

Series in more sentences:
A polite, misunderstood boy and the embodiment of every "tsundere" in existence are in love with each other's best friend and end up occasionally assisting each other in order to get what they want. But as they're both haunted by personal uncertainty and their partnership gets misconstrued by other students, they're not getting far.
 

I originally gave this series a "good", but it didn't feel right the moment I typed out the word.

Toradora is interesting enough that you'll want to keep on watching, but it suffers from overdramatic writing and characters that don't want to explain their shitty behaviour to the audience, and prefer being emotional and vague over issues that a starving child in Africa would roll its eyes over. Even after their behaviour is sort of explained, it never adds up. Especially the photo model and the pink-haired girl suffer from this. I mean, shit, I thought the main character was being sexually abused by her father or something, the amount of drama they created around his presence was tremendous. But it was nothing like that. It was just a "working dad" cliché.

My decision to watch this was again inspired by a Facebook trailer that passed me by. I really need to stop listening to Facebook, I rarely like the animes advertised there; Wolf Children and Ebichu were anger-inducing. Anyway, this particular video was a short list of 7 romantic animes you should watch, but after watching this series, I can't say it belongs on such a list. Inu X Boku SS wasn't even mentioned, damnit.
In Toradora, the romances were boring and non-existent. There was nobody to root for in this entire series, how do you manage to do that? And then we have the leading characters and their story, which is supposed to be the main focus of the series, yet they were graced with a rushed last-minute romance and a lame ending to add to the insult.

The relationship the two main characters shared was an abusive "friendship", far from charming, and I felt quite bad for the boy, Ryūji. The story argued that the leading lady, Taiga, doesn't understand how to handle her own feelings, making her quite an emotional mess, but when you only have 25 episodes to work with, you need to create a better flow in order for the events to make sense. It never felt to me that these two had any chemistry, but when you approach episode 23/24, they just suddenly decide they're in love and want to elope. I understand why Taiga would like Ryūji, he's a good kid, but she herself is a tremendous bitch who's never given him anything in return for his kindness. Why is he in love with her? Especially after the pink-haired girl he likes sloppily confessed to him, why would he still run after the tremendous bitch?
Granted, the pink-haired girl also seems terrible to be around with, but at least Ryūji was consistent by being in love with her in every episode. Only after he discovers Taiga likes him, that's when he starts to consider her as well.
So, was he just really flattered by that?

Taiga is one of those anime psychopaths who thinks it's normal to dub someone her slave and of course gets away with physically abusing people. She's a proud freeloader and shows no gratitude for the care and love she receives from a total stranger and his mother. She thinks it's justified to complain about having to spend her days alone and never being able to experience normal love, despite having a supposedly best friend, the most hospitable neighbour in existence, and given many opportunities for the latter.
The scene where she ran after Ryūji and then had a lonesome crying fit was so well done, it was wasted on this anime and on a character like her.

The creators definitely know how to create heartfelt scenes. The one where the love interest of Taiga's love interest (confusing enough for you?) does her speech was also very emotional, but in my opinion they don't know how to write a decent story around these scenes.

Most characters in this series are either vile or just uninteresting. Or a mixture of both. The two love interests fall under these categories, which gives us little reason to want the main characters to succeed with them. The boy with the glasses Taiga is in love with has a bland appearance and bland personality; he'd be a background character in any other anime, and the pink-haired girl had a decent start, but is also surprisingly boring for such a bouncy character. And later she becomes mentally insane for no reason. So does the kid with the glasses, but it was a less harmful form of insanity in my opinion.
How anyone can fall in love with these people, I don't understand. Maybe that's why the main characters chose for each other in the end, as they are definitely the most exciting people in the cast.

After the mediocre romances, we're then rewarded with the problem I discussed earlier; that horrifyingly shit ending. I'll spoil it for you, as it truly doesn't matter:

So, Ryūji decides out of nowhere he's in love with his abuser -I think because he just feels sorry for her- and he runs after her. Not long afterwards, both their mothers show up and are basically angry at them over nothing. Then Ryūji insults his goodhearted mother and he sprints off with Taiga. They immediately decide they should run away and get married the very second he turns 18. They also drag their friends into their mess, are offered their assistance, it's all one big dramatic scene, but then a few minutes later they decide not to run and everything is just swell again. Even Taiga's mother doesn't care about taking her away anymore. Ryūji invites Taiga over for dinner at his place, like always, hurray, the end. Except, no. Out of nowhere, Taiga realizes her life is shit and leaves to improve her relationship with her family.. I think.. the episodes I watched had none of the Japanese text on screen translated. But she just fucks off without giving a proper goodbye to the man she wanted so badly and a whole year later, Ryūji finds her hiding in a classroom locker and she fucking headbutts him in the fucking face. Quirky?

A few Youtube commenters said it best: "I pulled an all-nighter for this?!"

I think I just really liked Ryūji and he was the sole reason I watched this anime. It's not like he's super funny or anything, but he's the most likeable person in the show, I enjoyed seeing him on screen.
But if you desire to see romance, this is not the right pick for you, despite what the internet says.