First Impressions / Toradora!

Summary:

Although she catches Ami with Ryuuji at his apartment, Taiga tells Minori that no one is there. Ami suggests that Taiga doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that a woman other than herself came into Ryuuji’s apartment, and though Taiga is pissed off, she just leaves. Later that night, Ryuuji tries to explain to Taiga that Ami was just teasing, and he apologizes, but she pretends not to care and questions why he’s apologizing. The next morning, Ryuuji wakes up late and has to rush to school with Taiga. When the two finally get there, they run into Ami, and Taiga almost gets into an argument with her, but it’s broken up after Minori steps in. During class, their homeroom teacher informs them that they’ll be having a pool day tomorrow, and this causes Taiga to panic. Ryuuji and Minori have to drag her to go swimsuit shopping, and it doesn’t help that Ami goes to the same store as well. Ami first teases Taiga with a little girl’s swimsuit and then tries play up her own beauty in a swimsuit in front of Ryuuji, but he gets pulled into a changing room by Taiga. She refuses to wear something children-sized, and though she found an extra small swimsuit, she’s reluctant to go with it. Ryuuji convinces her to buy it, and he learns later that night that Taiga doesn’t know how to swim. She’s bothered by something else though, and Ryuuji figures out what it is after Taiga becomes fascinated by his mother’s large breasts and the soy milk she drinks.

The source of Taiga’s worries is the fact that she has tiny breasts, and even the extra small swimsuit she bought is loose in the chest area. Seeing how depressed Taiga is about this, Ryuuji decides to help and stays up all night sewing her some special pads. Taiga stays up with him and even apologizes to him, and she loves the pads when they’re finally finished. When it’s finally time for the session at the pool, Taiga is very happy with how good the pads make her look, and Minori is the only one who figures out the truth. Kitamura meanwhile is without his glasses, so he can only see Taiga’s general figure and compliments her on her mouse look. As Taiga is enjoying this compliment however, Ami comes over and throws her into the water. When Taiga starts flailing around in the water, Ryuuji remembers how she had told him that she can’t swim, but when he goes to save her, he realizes that the actual problem is that one of her pads fell out. With no other choice, he pulls her underwater so that no one can see them and then stuffs the pad back. In the aftermath, Ami tries to apologize, but it develops into an argument with Taiga again after Ami attempts to get Ryuuji and Kitamura to come to her villa by the beach for summer vacation. Taiga counters by threatening Ami with the monomane video, and it’s once again Minori who stops the two from fighting. Instead, Minori suggests that the two girls have a sports competition.

Preview

This was another fun episode with a lot of laughs. Taiga had some great facial expressions (that plus her hairstyle reminds me more and more of Minami-ke), Minori was her usual awesome and hilarious self, and the rivalry/hatred between Taiga and Ami heated up quite nicely. My main question was that, if Ryuuji could sew Taiga a pad, then couldn’t he have sewn something of such monumental importance into the actual swimsuit? I’m surprised Taiga didn’t kill him for this. Also, the animation quality this week seemed a bit off in the beginning, but got better towards the end. It might be more accurate though to say that there was just a lot of fluctuation. In any case, it sounds like the visit to Ami’s villa could be the story of some later episode, but for the time being, the two girls will be competing athletically.

60 Comments

  2. So far im liking this series A lot, mostly beacuse of Taiga (i think she’s cute in her own aggressive way) and Minori (That way of walking!!) lol. Ryuuji is the one who gets all my pity, the man is always between Taiga and this case Ami.

    lyn
    Reply

  14. hmm… y’know… I find myself rooting for the RyuujiXAmi couple o_o… dunno why… it’s just i can’t seem to sympathize with taiga anymore :/… anyone else thinkin the same way

    Putang
    Reply

  19. That’s one fit Minorin there hefting little Taiga up.

    Looks to be hilarious. With this dysfunctional gang of characters, they’re all due for various embarrassments and crushing defeats. I know this gets a bit serious in the source material later — but right now its an entertaining flawed-human comedy.

    Vexx
    Reply

  24. Taiga’s moeness went off the charts for this episode, I was amazed ;D

    Also, all three girls swimsuits looked great, but Taiga’s loli one with added padding took the cake for me.

    Excellent, fun episode.

    Quen
    Reply

  29. Hilarious episode. They did a great job on what could’ve been just another generic fanservice episode in less capable hands (wait, this is JC Staff we’re talking about, right?). Taiga’s cries of embarassment and FACES were just too much, it was great. As was Ami going crazy over herself in the mirror. I also found the house scenes to be handled pretty well, it reminded me of the first episode.

    And surprisingly, first subs are already out.

    RogerOskaner
    Reply

  30. Hands down the best episode I’ve seen in any series this season!!! How can this episode get any better. Damn, Taiga is flatter than a pancake. I just couldn’t help but to laugh like crazy throughout most of this one. I don’t care what happens in this series anymore, it has already won favorite in my book.

    Megas
    Reply

  32. “-If Ryuuji could sew Taiga a pad, then couldn’t he have sewn something of such monumental important into the actual swimsuit?”

    I doubt Ryuuji would have thought that far in advance. Besides, maybe he expected the pads to be used with other clothing too (like that bra Taiga bought last episode).

    cbhl
    Reply

  38. Hudson…this show kicks ass. We don’t all like Bleach and Naruto. D:

    On another note, I also find myself rooting for RuujixAmi. xD Minorin is by far the coolest character out of all of them. I think, she would probably be fun to have as a girlfriend, but Ruuji is mellow and pretty zen. Taiga, seems to be more of a sister then anything else. Ami has an interesting personality and I she seems to be the most complex character out of the bunch. She also seems to be able to take care of her self. I would say she’s the most balanced out of the three girls. So in conclusion, AmixRuuji, at this point, is logically the best in terms of compatibility at this point. Well, this is just my opinion. O:

    Daiske
    Reply

  40. i really love this show… so i’m happy that Omni blog this
    as Daiske said.. not everyone of us love naruto or bleach… so be fair ok
    my fav still TaigaRyuuji~ i really hope that they end up together *hearts*
    they can’t stop amuse me!! i also love Minorin soo much
    she really is one great comic relief *Minorin yeahhh*

    River
    Reply

  46. I’m all for Taiga. I hate the tsun-tsun/tsundere personality with a passion. I don’t feel nothing for minorin’s strong but ‘goofy as hell’ personality & Ami’s personality makes me want to throw up. So out of the 3, I clearly would want the one that I hate rather than the ones that makes me go ‘meh’ & ‘geh’. So Taiga wins. I’ll probably fight with her more than anything but who cares. Fighting is fun to & it usually leads to doing it any way 🙂

    Megas
    Reply

  47. @ Megas

    Sorry but I’m a bit confused. You are all for Taiga but hate tsun-tsun/tsundere with a passion. Taiga seems a bit like that don’t you think? Anyway, for me it’s probably more like:

    Minori > Ami > Taiga

    Personally I just am not a fan of violence. You could all say that she is not that violent but she still somewhat is violent to me. I am interested in how Sumire is though but right now we just don’t know enough about her yet.

    Silver
    Reply

  52. @ Silver

    I know where you’re coming from. Many idiots in the anime field seems to think that female -> male violence is funny, especially when it involves the main characters…I’ve never once found any of that BS funny in the least bit. However many male leads are given that masochist spirit as a normality as a function to attract a wider base audience. I can deal with that garbage to a certain degree. Personaly, I would put a tsundere in her place in 5 seconds or less.

    But Ami is a different story. She after Ruuji because of several different things. She obiviously likes him but Taiga’s attachment to him is driving it more than anything else. I can’t stand that kind of junk. However, because of that Ruuji could easy have Ami if he wanted her…but we know that’s not going to happen. Minori is that ‘impossible to reach’ character: the complete opposite of Ami. Taiga is somewhere in the middle of all of that. This episode already showed some light on the situation when Taiga was being a bit spiteful or even jealous when Ami was coming on to Ruuji which led to him trying to explain it away in the typical ‘dope’ fashion.

    The only problem between Ruuji X Taiga is that fake attraction they show for the others best friend, which is easily defeated once the shit starts to hit the fan. OK, I need to stop the rant…

    Megas
    Reply

  53. Ryuuji sewing the breastpads was accompanied with the sound generated by Taiga playing the game, the scene seemed totally wrong in all aspects, yet very comical.

    @outcast: Ryuuji is probably more comfortable with being with the person he admires than Taiga, Taiga becomes absolutely shy when near Kitamura but Ryuuji’s reactions to such situations are less extreme but similar, for example mild blushes and stammers.

    Ayu
    Reply

  55. It’s doubtful that Ami is actually interested in Ryuuji, she’s just trying to use him to get at Tiaga, pretty much everyone can see how close Tiaga and Ryuuji are except for themselves. Ami is attempting the classic ploy of stealing a boyfriend just to hurt a rival. I’m glad to see that Ryuuji so far isn’t falling for it. This was a very fun episode, I’m looking forward to more.

    Max_Otaku
    Reply

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