Toradora! – 12

「大橋高校文化祭 (中編)」 (Oohashi Koukou Bunkasai (Chuuhen))
“Ohashi High School Culture Festival (Middle Chapter)”

Episode at a Glance:
With preparations for the culture festival well underway, Taiga gives Ami a box of Macarons as a sign of good faith so that she’ll let her play the lead part in their pro wrestling show when her father comes by to watch. Minori on the other hand isn’t fond of Taiga getting back on good terms with her father, and gets into an argument about it with Ryuuji. After getting comforted unexpectedly by Ami, Ryuuji goes home and finds out that Taiga’s moving in with her father. On the day of the festival, things go surprisingly well for the pro wrestling show aside from a brief interruption from Koigakuba-sensei and Taiga fumbling one of her lines. Afterwards, Ryuuji is wondering when Taiga’s father’s going to come by and watch one of their shows where Taiga takes the lead role. However, Taiga tells him to be more concerned about his situation with Minori, suggesting that he hurry up and apologize to her. By the end of the day though, Taiga’s father never comes by and she never gets a chance to take the lead role in their show.

 

Next Episode:
「大橋高校文化祭 (後編)」 (Oohashi Koukou Bunkasai (Kouhen))
“Ohashi High School Culture Festival (End Chapter)”

Impressions:
Fairly straightforward episode this week, but it did reveal that things might not be so great between Taiga and her father after all. Since Minori’s so adamant against the two of them getting along again, there’s evidently a side to their history that neither Ryuuji nor us (as the viewers) are aware of yet. The preview seems to indicate that Ryuuji’s starting to learn about Minori’s take on Taiga’s situation, but I get the feeling things won’t be resolved completely yet since Taiga’s father doesn’t seem to make an appearance. The next episode will be the last chapter of this three-part mini arc involving the culture festival though, so perhaps Ryuuji and Minori will see eye-to-eye again at least. As things stand now, his chances with Minori are only getting slimmer and slimmer while he focuses on helping Taiga so much. From the onset in the series, it was kind of expected things would go this way, but it looks like we’re finally getting to some problems that aren’t caused by Ami for a change. As for their class’ pro wrestling show itself, it was as random as you’d probably expect but I did find their rehearsal for it (bibibi… bibibi) quite silly, and even more so in the actual show. Also, I don’t think I’ve heard Tanaka Rie (Koigakuba Yuri sensei) scream this hysterically in a show before.

While I’m filling in for Omni this week, I plan to keep my summaries quite brief and just focus on the gist of each episode, as seen above. Time-wise, this is all I can afford to write up, but I hope some people will appreciate the conciseness of it. In my opinion, it makes for a nice and quick read until you get to watch the episode yourself.

-divine
…feels weird getting back into the blogging swing of things all of a sudden.

Show 55 Comments

55 Comments

  1. Artanis

    primero

    quiero verlo quiero verlo

    el capitulo claro

  2. MaimeDaifuku

    Woot! Thanks Divine!

  3. Espada

    hahaha this is exciting. subs make it fast

  4. Wcastro

    charlieeeeeeeee mire lo que escribo jajajaja (no tengo nada que hacer jajaja)

  5. Megas

    Ugh…I was looking forward to see how they would portray Ruuji for this arc & it waas just as expected. I hope Ruuji doesn’t beat his own ass as much as he did in the manga when he finds out what really happened between Taiga & her pop.

    I still go by my previous ruling of death for the bastard. I can’t help but hate sick guys like that…& they just had to go the route of making him seem like a nice guy. (to Taiga’s father: PLEASE DIE) I’ve heard of fathers not understanding their daughters (or uber young wives), but that’s pure overkill. I know I’m completely biased when it comes to that sort of stuff but I have my own personal reasons for that 😉

  6. robak

    nice to see you again divine

  7. divine

    MaimeDaifuku:
    You’re welcome.

    robak:
    Thanks!

  8. Glad to see you back again though divine, even if it’s only for a little while :p

    This series just keeps getting better and better. Already I’m anxious for the next episode and I haven’t even seen this one (subbed) yet.

  9. Demoestenes

    Excellent episode!Toradora is perfect!

  10. Xavier

    uu luce interesante, ojala salga pronto con subs !!

  11. Hister

    Menester es obtener pronto dicho episodio, se ve fenomenal.

  12. asd

    zidane headbutt?

  13. Lelouch V Brit

    Buen Episodio, Creo Que Son 24 Episodios En Total. Tenemos Para Un Buen Rato Mas.

  14. the_big_rooster

    can any1 let me know where i can find the manga for toradora looks totally interesting. just hoping that divine completes the 3 part arc if there is any.

  15. buh

    Thanks divine for filling in. Missed your great write-ups.

  16. xie

    Divine admit it: you missed us as well.

  17. Mabo

    Nice to see you again, Divine 😀

    It seems to be a Toradora!’s nice episode again ^.^
    How many episodes will be aired? 2×13(12?); 1X25 or 1×13?
    I’ve read lots of rumors about it, so i’m a little bit lost at this point :/

    (sorry for my bad english)

  18. koolkatnumber5

    Hooray! Divine is back (if only for a wee little bit)! I’m glad…I like your style. Thanks for the summary.

  19. estefania!

    ya vi el cap…esta muy weno pero aun no se is la serie va tener 25 caps o menos…please somebody tell me??
    otra cosa no ver ningun avance entre ryuji y taiga cada vez dudo mas en que ellos vayan a quedarse juntos al final…aunke guardo la esperanza!
    ^^

    (sorry for my bad english and my bad spanish)

  20. LQY

    Tanaka Rie Rules!

    However, I do not think you would have any chance to marry…

  21. Amethyst

    Its looks hilarious, looking forward on watching this.

  22. TSFMIP

    Oh my gos, I miss ROger (omni) so much.

    Divine, you suck!

  23. Hud

    Holy, I was so busy reading the summary I didn’t notice it was Divine that’s writing it until I read his impression. (Impersonates deadpan tone of Agent Smith in Matrix: Revolutions) Welcome back, Mr Divine! We… missed you.

    This show continues to deliver so far, for non-novel readers, the bust-up between Ryuji and Minori must have been a shocker. I was stunned when I read that part as well.

    And one cannot argue that Taiga is just too adorable in a ponytail. It’s probably as good as official: Ponytails trail only behind overknee socks in moe-killing power. That was why Kyonko was so damn popular.

  24. Kinny Riddle

    I’m assuming this Hud above is the “other” Hud and not the trolling Hud. I don’t know who you really are, but you probably used your “wrong” username. If you know what I meant. 😉

    Anyway, gotta agree with this Hud that Taiga is absolutely moe in a ponytail.

    Oh and welcome back, Divine. It’s been a while, isn’t it?

  25. chaosdemon06

    Though I dont read the manga I can guess what Toradora’s father did to her, I kinda got that from the way she reacted to him. So there going to go back into that after 12 and 13?

  26. Eld

    thank you divine my good sir!
    this will certainly clear things up as i watch the Chinese subbed version.

  27. Megas

    They seem to be going by the novel but they’re definitely retooling it a bit. There was the episode about Taiga’s photo antics which made me wonder just how sickening they was going to make her character. Then there’s this mess between Ruuji & Minori, not to mention Taiga’s father being shown to be a good guy at first.

    I guess they had to spice things up for the anime cause the novel certainly got repetitive at times. But it still hasn’t got to the point where we don’t know what will happen next. Can we all get together & kill Taiga’s father, please…just this once 😀

  28. Sammy

    Thanks Divine, any blogging is better than no blogging. Minori & Ryuuji fighting? Whoa.

  29. Jezreel

    divine gracias por bloggear siempre la serie, tienes mi gran admiracion y ya llevo viendo la página desde mas de 3 años.
    saludos desde Mexico

  30. Hudson

    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I’m so glad this shitty show ends next week.

  31. pimpolla

    artanis, eres el primero que veo q habla español por aqui! q bn

  32. jajaja

    Megas: what did taiga’s father do?

  33. Eld

    @Hudson

    Fuk you :)!

  34. Hudson

    Once again, I apologize for talking incoherently as I jack off at Taiga in her absolutely gorgeous ponytail.

    I’m so sad I won’t be able to jack off further when this great show ends next week.

  35. Megas

    @jajaja: click if you dare…

    Taiga’s father is full of shit. He actually tried that same crap before (promising to divorce & start a new life). He never kept any of his promises to her. Also, Taiga’s mother isn’t dead, she just got tired of the MFer. The bum is only going to send Ryuuji an e-mail asking him to take care of Taiga. I wouldn’t take too much into the arguement he & Minori had. She knows that Ryuuji didn’t understand the full situation.

  36. Kabayongtao

    @Hudson

    You said earlier that you were glad, now your sad. Crazy guy

  37. Nalface

    In the coming episode:


    Taiga’s dad is gonna ditch Taiga again, because he’s made up with his wife. He’s going to be SMS’ing Ryuji to ask him to tell her of it, which kinda sucks because she was actually hoping for him to come, and was actually on stage waiting for him while Ami was calling out to the crowd for her father to stand up for a “father-daughter reunion”. This ended up with Taiga being completely humiliated, and Minori could only hold back her rage while watch silently from the side of the stage.

    Later that day, Ryuji and Minori ended up in a school-exclusive-festival-only marathon, where the winner gets a huge prize (which they wanted to give to Taiga to cheer her up). But Minori was less than forgiving, and taking advantage of the “no-rules” loophole to kick dirt into Ryuji’s eyes when she took off. Ryuji, not wanting to be defeated continues running. There’s some verbal abuse thrown around, and Minori unloads a bunch of steam before finally decided to forgive Ryuji, but not without a huge tackle (as part of her usual goofy antics).

    When the cloud of dust settles, Minori quietly tells Ryuji about what she knew about Taiga’s dad, etc. That how she was envious of how much Taiga had confided in him. But when Ryuji did not reply, she found out that when Ryuji fell, another runner had accidentally tripped on his butt, and when trying to regain his balance, ended up tripping on his right elbow (turning it at a “weird angle”) and kicking the back of Ryuji’s head, knocking him out cold.

    Scene ends with Taiga looking horrified.

    Seeing how the story doesn’t quite end straight away, I don’t think they’ll be able to fit everything into next week’s episode. They might probably end up changing parts of the scene, in order to wrap things up (which I hope they won’t).

    (^3^)v

  38. draksig

    ANN says Toradora is to be 25 episodes long, they even give the name of episode 14 as “The Palm-Top Tiger of Happiness”.

  39. Megas

    It looks like episode 14 will be the spin-off – no stress, no tension. Pure boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl like boy, XOXO, the end. Its a perfect comedy relief to this crazy arc.

    Anyway Ryuuji is a super masochist. What kind of deranged fool would even stand up to that kind of abuse & still like the beast of a woman that did it. But consider what Ryuuji is, I think he got off pretty darn light. I can’t begin to understand masochists for the life of me but to each his/her own. I’m starting to love how this show is turning serious matters into comedic situation w/o them going into riot-mode.

    Too bad I can’t laugh at that stupid stuff. I could never laugh at any kind of pointless violence – whether it be male-male, male-female, female-male, female-female, person-thing, or what-have-you. I know I’m weird like that but its just preference or the lack of it.

  40. blah

    If you think about it guys,

    When was the last time Taiga had been violent to Ryuuji?

  41. Irie

    Welcome back Devine! Show’s building some depth but I still get chills every time Taiga smacks Ryuuji. I can’t see anyone taking that abuse without a single complaint. Minori seemed a bit over the top but Ryuugi seems equally blind. I’m a bit surprised we didn’t get some closure with MinorixRyuuji.

    Ami was the winner this week. At least she shows some honest feelings while everyone else seems to be in denial.

  42. outcast

    i like reading yours and omni’s impression on the show. ty

  43. draksig

    I would agree, Ami came off better than the others this episode. She actually acted like a decent human being. That could mean that her major involvment is over or she has turned a new leaf and may actualy give Taiga a run for her money over Ryuuji (which I doubt).

    Spoilers, give me more spoilers. I guess I could go and read the translated novels….

  44. Sammy

    draksig, I posted spoilers in the episode 10 thread.

    Everyone came off better in this episode, not just Ami. Taiga is calmed down, Minori is becoming more serious, and Ami is as friendly as ever. Actually, Ryuuji is coming off as harsh for a change.

  45. lyn

    Como q vamos a tener que hacer una seccion para Spanish no?

    However, this “conflict” between Taiga and Ryuuji, i think it starts a new level in their reatioship.

  46. Eri

    DIVIIIIINE!

    Thanks for the summary!

    ~ Eri ~

  47. jin

    Great episode. This series is getting better and better. This show kinda sucked until recently. Thanks for the summary Divine.

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