Re-watching とらドラ! (ToraDora!)

I first saw とらドラ! (ToraDora!)  in TV5. Unfortunately, they didn't finish the series so I went about youtube to search for the remaining episodes. v(^__^) It is my favorite slice of life anime. I am currently watching it for the third time. v(^__^)

Plot Summary: Despite Ryuuji Takasu's gentle personality, his eyes make him look like an intimidating delinquent. Class rearrangements on his second high school year put him together with his best friend, Yuusaku Kitamura, and his hidden crush, Minori Kushieda. Along with these two comes Kushieda's best friend, Taiga Aisaka. Her delicate appearance contrasts with her brutal personality. Secretly in love with Kitamura, Taiga agrees to help Ryuuji with his love interest as long as he helps her get closer to hers.

The title とらドラ! (ToraDora!) comes from the names of the protagonists. Taiga sounds like tiger in English, and とら (tora) is Japanese for tiger. Ryuuji, on the otherhand, means son of dragon in Japanese, and ドラゴン (doragon) is a transcription of the word dragon in Japanese.

Their friendship started when Taiga Aisaka accidentally slipped her love letter for Yuusaku Kitamura into Takasu Ryuuji's backpack. She went panicky about the mistake and intended to hide her embarrasment by dying. However, she doesn't want to die so she sneaks into Takasu's house to either kill him or erase his memories (by hitting his head with a wooden katana sword). Eventually, they agreed to help each other win the hearts of their object of affections - Yuusaku Kitamura for Taiga and Minori Kushieda for Takasu. 

Taiga lives alone in an ultra luxurious condo unit beside Takasu's humble abode. Her parents are divorced and she can't stand to live with either of her parents. Takasu lives with her mother who goes to work every night as a waitress, or something similar to that. As such, Takasu learned to be very self-sufficient. He knows how to do all the housework. With this set-up, Takasu became somewhat Taiga's guardian and caretaker. She even dubbed Takasu as her dog.

What I liked in this anime is how frustrating it is before they realized that who they truly care for is each other. Taiga seems to just always order Takasu around for all the things that she wanted done - cook her food, wash the laundry, take pictures of Kitamura, clean the spills in her locker, sew her ripped up school uniform, etc. But she did her best in a swimming contest (she doesn't know how to swim) so that Ryuuji doesn't have to go with Ami Kawashima during the summer holiday. 

During the contest, an accident happened that caused Takasu to almost drown. This angered Taiga even more because while everyone is busy with their contest, no one noticed what happened to Takasu. She shouts...

During their cultural festival, her father once again broke his promise that he'd come to watch Taiga perform in their class play and in Ms. Ouhashi High contest. Takasu is partly guilty about this because he was being too pushy with Taiga giving his father another chance despite Minori's warnings. So Takasu also did his best to make Taiga feel that she's not alone. After Taiga won in Ms. Ouhashi contest, Minori and Takasu participated in the race which would allow the winning guy (yes, it was supposedly just for the guys but Minori participated for Taiga's sake) to crown Taiga and dance with her.

In the end, Minori and Takasu won despite being literally trampled by the other guys during the race.

Other themes in the anime that I like are:
1. Showing who you really are and having real friends who'd accept you the way you are.
2. Staying optimistic even though you're scared.
3. Some people appear to be close to each other yet are really far apart - just like when you look at the stars.
4. Thinking that you understand a person's thoughts and feelings just because he or she confides in you often.
5. The extremes that you go into to make a person happy.
6. A family doesn't always consist of a father, mother and their children.
7. Letting go for the sake of someone else's happiness. Because you cannot always get what you wanted - someone else may need that person/thing more than you do.


Etc., etc. :))


Maybe after finishing the series a third time, I'd watch again for the fourth time.. and the fifth.. and the sixth...