A Toradorable Bento

This was my face when Toradora BD came out.

After a long wait, I finally got my hands on my Toradora BD set.  It was worth every minute and every cent.  I could rant all day about seeing my favorite romance anime in delicious high definition.  But the OVA is what I’m writing this post for, and a Toradorable OVA it is.

A bento fit for a king 

Let me tell you, Kitamura’s grandmother can cook up a storm.  The above bento is just an example.  And Ryuuji gets super jealous since her bento’s outclass his by miles.  He secretly makes it his mission to one-up her, but he’s defeated at every turn.  However, it finally dawns on him what he can do to make a heartfelt bento, something Mio has had years of experience doing.  So, he practices a lot to make the perfect bento for Taiga.  It is truly a Toradorable scene.  I was melting.

I love Taiga.  She’s so cute.  Even when she’s mad.  Here, she’s just heartstoppingly cute… 

It was also nice to see the characters again in a new episode.  I loved how the show carried itself, as well as how it ended.  I would have liked to see an epilogue of sorts, but a sidestory was fine too.  Taiga was a lot more dere in this OVA, as I had become accustomed to Rie’s more tsun-tsun roles.  Maybe she’s saving it for the ZnT final season.  Ryuuji also is still good for facial reations with his yakuza-like face.  Kitamura and Minorin are still, well their usual airheaded selves.  It took me back to the original airdate, three years ago, reminding me of how I waited religiously for subs, and how I waited patiently, awaiting this new episode.   Nostalgia is a powerful thing indeed.

Toradorable 

I almost died from HNNNGGing to death in the opening scene where Taiga is cooking,  while sporting a ponytail.    The ending scene made me DAAAWW from the sheer force of Toradorableness.  Seeing Ryuuji finally realize what making a bento for someone else is always about is something not many other shows have shown, or even touched upon.  Sure, we’ve all seen scene where X person cooks for Y love interest, and the lesson is always the “most important ingrediant is love”.  The scene in Toradora was different.  Ryuuji actually takes Taiga’s personality and living situation into account when he makes her bento when he realizes what it means to make food for somebody else.  That is what made this OVA Toradorable.

Kimchi says: Okay,  so sure this was a really silly OVA (even for Ryuuji that was a bit ridiculous but still in character), but it did have a good moral that came across fairly easy; that is that you don’t do things just to try and be better than someone else or to one-up someone.  If you do something it should be with someone else in mind.  Now if that someone is yourself that’s fine, but it seemed to be making the point of doing something for others to make them happy, not just yourself, which is something Ryuuji seems to lose sight of for most of the OVA.  All-in-all, I really found this OVA to be overwhelmingly cute and funny.  Perhaps one could even say Toradorable?