Toradora! First impression

Toradora! is turning out to be a delightful little gem that I can only hope to shine even brighter. Read more after the jump.

Knowing almost virtually nothing about this anime (other than knowing this is based off a light novel), I dived right into the first episode. It immediately caught my eye. There was just something about it right from the very beginning. The good visuals, a nostalgic acoustic piece, along with the narrative, all came together for a very strong beginning. I find a correlation with good anime that forgoes the opening for the first episode, much like Aria does. Instead of doing a review proper, I’ll just post a bunch of screen shots.

Very strong beginning

Ah such is life in the city.

Ah such is life in anime

This guy is already epic.

She's really short. Very. Short.

Run away now.

Baka

Practicing to be a future wife beater.

Uh.

Uhh.

What was she doing in there anyway…

Uhhh.

...

Urusai! Urusai! Urusai! Banzai!!!

Behold. My pron collection.

This bird is family? I'm sorry. My condolences.

This bird is going to annoy me to no end. For some reason, the thing reminds me of a friend of a friend’s dog. Which was microwaved. Mean little popeyed bugger deserved to die. Anywho, back to the anime.

Owned.

Why is it moving? Why?

The ending definitely has a fun and upbeat closing song. Reminds me of the opening for Kimikiss for some reason. Maybe it’s the beat.

This is definitely a series that will be easy and fun to blog. This goes on my list of anime to blog. The first episode was much better than I expected. In terms of visuals, the animation is very smooth and the transitions are done well. Everything is fluid. As for the characters, a lovable cast with top notch VA’s is full of win. Inevitably, I can already see people comparing the characters to Shakugan no Shana and Zero no Tsukaima. Although similiar, the easily empathetic characters and the lack of excessive fanservice sets them apart. I can only hope that J.C. Staff can keep up the quality to the end.