neko’s thinkbox

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And there I thought this road would lead to nowhere, well things are getting very interesting! I couldn’t stop laughing throughout the entire episode, too. Girls, girls…

Note to self: It’s Yuusaku, not Yuusuke. Been writing Yuusuke since ep 1, and I only noticed it now… Hahaha -_-;

Hello ^___^

Nothing better than a cute Minorin to start off this post. Without further ado, here’s your tl;dr summary! »Show me dat spoiler!«

Ryuuji and Taiga hanging out together at the restaurant Minori works in, business as usual, you might say. But this time, Minori has her day off, and there are special guests: Yuusaku, and (FINALLY!) Kawashima Ami, who models for magazine advertisements. Of course, Yuusaku already knows her, she’s his childhood friend. And of course, he introduces her to Ryuuji and Taiga.

Right off the bat, Ami makes advances to Ryuuji with smalltalk, showing off her cute airhead side, pouring sugar into his coffee and even grabbing his hand! Deeming it enough foolery, Yuusaku excuses himself to go to the toilet, and Ryuuji follows suit to get some explanations from him. And from there, they both witness Ami’s real personality: spoilt, egocentric and arrogant, a real Ojou-sama. So much for the nice hooker act earlier!

But you know it: such an extravagant personality is bound to clash horribly with Taiga’s. First, she doesn’t give a shit about Ami, but then the provocations become personal: bringing up Taiga’s short size can already be VERY dangerous, but if you’re called Kawashima Ami… the situation doesn’t escalate, it explodes with a loud SLAP!!! Good thing Yuusaku comes quickly to the rescue and takes (fake) crying Ami out of the restaurant.

The next day was so obvious, I saw it coming like a snail on Haste: a new student transfers into Ryuuji and Taiga’s class, and it is no less than Kawashima Ami. The effect on the class is immediate: WHOA, CUTE AND POPULAR! Everyone likes her right away. Well, almost everyone: Ryuuji is aghast, while Taiga is raging silently in her corner.

During a break, Ryuuji goes to the vending machine, BUT of course, Ami takes that opportunity to make up with him, apologizing for what happened the previous day with Taiga, admitting her wrongs… You know, it fits exactly her grand scheme: claiming the spot of the most popular person in the class, and influencing Ryuuji with her treacherous charisma, not only to satisfy her ego, but also to mess with Taiga.

Minori saw it, and Taiga too. During the next period, Ryuuji gets two folded notes: one from Taiga, which he crushes in his right hand, while reading Minorin’s note in his left hand. (He didn’t do it like that, but I always wanted to use that saying.) Basically, what Minori says is “DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE TAIGA FOR AMI OR YOU’LL RECEIVE DIVINE PUNISHMENT!” …you know Minori, ne. Well, Ryuuji replies: “It’s nothing like that. But what do you think of people who consider themselves spontaneous/natural?”, and Minori’s answer couldn’t be any clearer: NO.

After school, Ryuuji cleans up the mess Taiga created in her locker, so Taiga waits for him in the classroom… Well, the inevitable happens again: Ami enters the classroom, only to provoke Taiga further, and this time she drives the nail pretty deep into her heart: by saying Taiga will be all alone once she gets Ryuuji and Yuusaku to hate her, scaring Taiga is a piece of cake.

Once again, Taiga goes deremo, secludes herself in her room because she thinks Yuusaku hates her now, Ryuuji comforts her, saying that Yuusaku knows Ami’s faults, and that he isn’t that type of hateful guy anyway. Taiga, regaining her tsun powers, goes all RAGEy, but before she can start a fight with Ryuuji, Yasuko interrupts from the other side of the window, crying that they’ve run out of sauce for the Tonkatsu (pork cutlets). So Ryuuji and Taiga hit the next convenience store. Taiga browses THE magazine, comes across that ad with Ami and notices a very interesting note: Ami apparently has taken a break from modeling for school reasons.

On their way home, as she discusses it with Ryuuji, they see Ami with a huge cap and sunglasses carrying plastic bags with loads of food and what-not. Taiga grins mischievously - just what revengeful thoughts are going through her mind now? We’ll see next episode!

I think this was the episode I had been waiting for all this time. Up to now, everything seemed so… static, there was no real point in the story so far. But with the introduction of Ami, the status quo is broken: Toradora finally has a direction!

However, despite her being the catalyst of the series, I’ll say it right away: I DON’T LIKE AMI AT ALL. Arrogant ojou-sama really annoyed me all the time with her profound mischievousness, and her slutty acting really got to my nerves even before Kitamura told Ryuuji about her real personality. It was quite obvious anyway, as she immediately tried to seduce Ryuuji with her innocent whore school girl act.

Just look at her: throughout the episode, her facial expressions change constantly from charismatic to snobbish and evil, and back to normal in the blink of an eye. Is she bipolar or something? Also, her referring to herself as “Ami-chan”, who does she think she is? Heck, she’s even gotten Minori all worked up! (for slightly different reasons, though, but still…)

I am honestly glad Taiga slapped her. I had been waiting for long minutes, right hand twitching violently. Taiga almost disappointed me with her apathy, and then suddenly PITAAAAA! I came.

+10 affection points GET!

Ew, so much make-up on my hand. (It didn’t hurt, mind you.)

That stuck-up bitch deserved it. Badly. Thank you so much Taiga!

I’m also glad Yuusaku told Ryuuji everything about her though. In that scene near the vending machines, it almost seemed as if he would fall in Ami’s deceitful trap, but at one precise point (where he narrows the eyes + :V) it’s clear that he figured out her obvious scheme. It seems like he will play along as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, however I do suspect this is only a small part of the bigger picture…

Finally, just what kind of secret life does she lead? Shopping in the evening, hiding from everyone… fleeing from fame? (Perhaps Taiga is thinking of blackmailing her?) Hahaaaa… Anything to make her drop her facetious mask, please!

kuuuuukukukukuku…

I rant so much about Ami, but do you see how much she has changed the direction (and the general layout) of this anime? I’m greatly interested in what will happen next episode - Taiga seems to have figured out a plan how to screw Ami back, and another clash is inevitable, but… will it be enough to win that war?

One thing for sure is, Taiga finally gets some concurrence for Yuusaku (and perhaps even Ryuuji), and someone to blame for all her misery. Up to now, the only person she’d ever get angry at (for no reason at all) was Ryuuji, which seemed to go nowhere. Now that Ami is there, we can finally have a genuine love triangle/rectangle/polygon, and regular dogf- I mean, catfight.

Allright, time to count the main ingredients of this episode.

3. Yuusuke
Man, that guy got nerves of steel. I envy him for that - I would have FALCON PUNCHED Ami ages ago.

See that bitch? She’s stuck-up and all, but okay.

(In fact I hate her, but you know me.)

2. Minori
Missed the first spot by a hair. During PE class she already brought me to tears with that radar on her head, but that huge Minorific overreaction in class was epicly epic. The students were all “WTF??”, and the teacher didn’t even notice one thing. Hilarious!!

Minorin’s so full of surprises.

Good…?

No! Perfect, FABULOUS!

1. Ami
As much as it pains me to admit it, she is the explosive spice that was missing in Tora Dora. Guess we can be thankful for that. And I betcha she will henceforth be the scapegoat of this series’ mishaps. Brace for impact you… you BAKA ONNA!

Ah, it’s hard being a porn st- celebrity… *sigh*

Kurogane also noted in IRC that Eri Kitamura’s voicing of Ami was pretty flat, but I believe she did it intentionally to match Ami’s shallow personality. Not that I can compare it to any past performances (and honestly I don’t care either) but I found the voice pretty much fitting. If Kuro says it’s impressive work, I guess I’ll agree for once. :P

NO INKO THIS WEEK! What the hell. As if it didn’t suck enough that Hyakko was canceled this week (I assume due to maintenance in the Tokyo region, as TV Tokyo kept looping PVs, and NTV, TBS, FujiTV, and NHK all showed test screens). MEH.

Have some Yasuko instead. She was awesome in her own way, too.

Mom likes to show cleavage!

Waaah, tonkatsu OM NOM NOM

Sauce pliz!