Funny thing I was talking about Romance anime with Alice and Poppy yesterday; I like Romance anime that's fairly heartfelt with a realistic component and some grittiness. For this reason I dislike harems and the like, and I generally want the Romance to be plot-driven as opposed to being driven to please the audience with the most amount of fanservice and the like. Strong romance anime are hard to come by and I feel the my favorite "romance" aren't really romance anime at all, but are part of another genre, but are driven by the plot (one comes to mind is TTGL and Kara No Kyoukai, both of which you would not label Romance at all, yet their relationships seem much more genuine than many others).

Also cheap parlour tricks like the ones used in Clannad are a non-starter.

Also reviewing for school is lulzy. Spam more anime.

Also need review on Tamers. gogogo

haha, I thought it was obvious from the start (the title for one?) that it was about the relationship between ryuji and taiga - you mean anyone actually thought it was anything else? <_<

i do think that it got kind of confusing at times how much the show vacillated between being realistic and being a comedic exaggeration, fwiw though I thought Minori's actions were -- like most of her whimsical crazy cloudcuckoolander-ness and Taiga's violence and Yasuko's childishness etc -- just caricatures of their characters so idrk

any romance animes you like, then, lol, or is it just generally not your thing

one more week to spam as much anime as i possibly can!! I MEAN REVISE. FOR SCHOOL. D:

Also rofl once you start you can't stop

I meant ryuji yeah.

Also tamers is great I told you

i gotta go sleep myself soon too (what's up irl? :< also whatever happened to not watching any anime during the term, lmao) and ill respond to your toradora thoughts later (also i think you mean takasu/ ryuji not kitamura?) but i just finished digimon and um im sorry but WHAT GENIUS decided that was a good anime to show to KIDS

so much of the juri stuff literally gave me such shivers oh my god

In the end, I feel Toradora was one of those anime that catered too much to their fans and staked their success on it (which obviously succeeded). Strong characters, good writing with the element of subtlety didn't work in this anime; rather, it was more the writers trying to show in a grand "HERE ARE CHANGES IN THIS ANIME" plot and then finally throwing together the final couple which was so goddamn obvious from the beginning (if anyone actually thought Kitamura was going to go with Minori they must be mentally retarded I am not sure) it pretty much ruined it and turned into "when are Kitamura and Taiga going to get together" which I'm sure the writers played with the fans about.

(although telling them to elope and them watching the marriage fail and then swooping in could be a valid strategy I'm not sure). The memory of Minori is fairly fuzzy in my mind but I feel also than other than until the whole confrontation with Taiga, she stays fairly stagnant and acts as "the love interest" throughout the entire story (except maybe at the festival thing... I can't exactly remember what happened except Ami guilting her which was fairly weird). Minori was just one of those really forgettable characters and one that I can't really sympathize with.

Also I hate these character limits UGH.

Kitamura is a stereotypical guy in a stereotypical romantic anime who does everything nice for the people he loves. There's really nothing to write home about him. Cliche'd and average is all he is.

The part that frustrated me the most about Minnori was the really cliche'd "Oh my god I worked so hard for this money to study in America, now that you're eloping HERE'S ALL MY MONEY YOU NEED TO PAY ME BACK BUT I AM STILL SCREWING MYSELF OVER NONETHELESS AMERICA IS FAIRLY EXPENSIVE FOR SOFTBALL. Again, just a huge hyperbole trying to show "the goodness of her heart after her best friend got the guy she wanted" but for fuck's sake, maybe I'm just being cynical but this is just unrealistic and IRRESPONSIBLE in more ways than one. Romance isn't supposed to be realistic I suppose but this just REALLY irked me

I wouldn't say that Kitamura and Ami don't get along; I feel that Kitamura is one of those guys who looks out for everyone (just an overall good cliche'd good guy) and Ami is just portrayed as a huge snob because of her background (I feel like she could have been more effectively portrayed as a hyperbole but I dunno that's just me. The whole going from "snobby and unwilling to let people know" to "being accepting of others" was slowly done over the course of the anime, but it wasn't done in a very good way in my opinion. I feel the stalker incident was used to "dramatically show change" when really it was her interactions with friends (and mostly Taiga as majority of them show) was what really changed her. The stalker part felt like a huge cop-out and I would have enjoyed a more subtle but meaningful way of change). I guess I wasn't quite right to call Ami flat, since she does have a 3D element to her but the way the show portrays it I guess is poor.

Okay it is 6:56am and I am on Smogon talking to you about anime when life isn't going going the direction you want it...

ANYWAYS the reason why I feel that Toradora was a fairly overhyped and terrible anime is that it had the groundwork and foundation to be a fairly strong anime, except the writers decided to go with several overused motifs and tropes and didn't develop nearly any of the plot points as much as they should have (which I said in my last past).