Toradora! Part 2 – Hanabee Edition Review

Not expecting to see any of the anime publishers in Australia pick up the license for Toradora!, I went ahead and reviewed the North American release of the series in August last year. However this all changed when Eric Cherry, former CEO of Siren Visual founded a brand new anime company ‘Hanabee Entertainment‘ and after several clues announced that the first title their company would be releasing to market was Toradora! I decided to skip reviewing the first volume as my former review (SEE HERE) more or less held accurate to their release and came out with a very strong A- score.

However with the second volume a few things changed. With the addition of the recently released OVA episode and a few other goodies which set it apart from NIS America’s standard edition release… the earlier review wasn’t as accurate if you were in the market for Hanabee’s offering. Therefore, this review is a special “Hanabee Edition” one, which has been slightly rewritten to highlight the goodies you can acquire from this edition. Do note that most of the rewriting will come for additions to / omissions from the Hanabee release and will not greatly deviate from the content of the original review (Which also means there are some differences in my current review layout).

For my readers in North America who want a review targeted to your region read HERE. Otherwise without further ado, let’s dive into my review of Toradora! Part 2… the Hanabee Edition.

Storyline

The high school festival has ended and the odds for both Ryuji and Taiga to get their crushes to notice them seems to have diminished. Their last attempts will come at the Christmas Eve party but neither of their hearts seem to be in it anymore. The party comes and goes with the truth finally coming to light through the most unlikely means. Taiga and Ryuji’s friends, who have been beside their side this whole time, will make the greatest sacrifice of all to grant their wishes. Join Ryuji and Taiga, the dragon and the tiger, as they learn what love, family and friendship truly mean.

Welcome to the second volume of Toradora! So far in this series we have had the obligatory pool and beach episodes along with a rather different Culture Festival episode. With all that out of the way it is now time to get to business with the overall storyline, which while remaining comedic has also been more dramatic than you might have been expecting going into the show. The characters question their current state of living, who they are really in love with and what they will sacrifice for friendship, love or family. None of these aspects are all too unique to anime series, but very few have reached the level that Toradora has.

I believe they blatantly made it clear from perhaps episode eight what the overall conclusion to the series will be, however you will most probably never guess the trials that these five friends would have to go through to find their supposed happiness. First of all however, I did at times question if this really was a romantic comedy as whilst there were comedic moments, the drama was most probably a more prominent aspect then that of a normal romance series. That being said what comedy they put it was actually very enjoyable and complemented the characters and the setting they were in well.

Unlike other series where comedy has been placed randomly for laughs, in Toradora it felt more natural considering the naivety and stubbornness of Taiga and forward personality of Ryuji lead to misunderstandings and conflicts that wouldn’t have come across as funny with any other character pair. The other characters do put across their own unique personalities to the mix as well – perhaps not to the extent that Taiga and Ryuji do, as they do not remain the sole romantic interest of their best friends…. friend but also add to the comedy with their own unique quirks.

As I have stated before, easily the most appealing aspect of this series is the romance element to it – and as someone who doesnt watch the genre usually…. this is a very good thing. The three aspects of this storyline are ‘Family’, ‘Friends’ and ‘Love’ and each of these elements are all present in the storyline equally and by the end of the show are for the most part concluded well. Taking a break from the usual romance/Taiga storyline, they first focus upon Kitamura who upon struggling with the stress (of love) suddenly snaps and becomes an uncharacteristic student council president, which shows a sense of realism and deviation – as generally “student council presidents” are the intellectual type who are very controlled and not one to usually snap (or when they do snap, usually involves punching the male protagonist). Instead, it shows of what happens if due to stress, someone does start to shun his responsibilities, bleach his hair and the like.

The following episodes through to the conclusion are more focused on the relationship between Taiga and Ryuji and show some very clever writing to make it a very interesting and unique watching experience. We all knew that there was going to be some feelings between the two main characters, however there were other elements added such their friends responsibilities in helping them get together to ensure that they remain happy together that changed it from a generic romance story to a memorable one. This does cause some emotional conflicts between the characters but also showed an accurate portrayal of what some friends would do to ensure the happiness of others – even if they disagree with what they are doing.

Moving on, even more then the romance side of the story was the family togetherness aspect which really was the winning element but also perhaps the saddest one. In volume one, we saw the strained relationship between Taiga and her father and essentially saw Taiga becoming a part of Ryuji’s family – and was considered one by his mother. This time Taiga’s mother appears and also seems to be not so understanding of her, and wants her to reside with her from now on instead of being by herself. This storyline actually doesn’t resolve itself and is left open during a time gap almost at the end of the series. What is more interesting and rewarding is seeing the relationship between Ryuji and Yasuko – who each more or less want to support the other which puts a serious strain on their relationship. This storyline was very well concluded thankfully, as it was a rather tragic in the final few episodes.

Overall, there is a stronger degree of character development in this story – especially between Ryuji, Taiga and Minori – whilst Kitamura and Ami don’t seem to have as prominent roles as they did before (However still remain present in the storyline). The storyline is split up into essentially (Student Council –> Christmas –> Ski Trip –> Conclusion) arcs similar to what occured in the first volume which whilst taking away some of the casual ‘School life’ elements of the storyline, make for structured (Non-episodic) storytelling, and the conclusion to the series was rewarding.

Design/Music

For the most part, I feel that the design and music quality in the series were as good as the previous volume, however there are two points I would like to make about this volumes design quality that…. may have slightly reduced my opinion of it.

1. There is a specific fighting scene in Episode 16 “One Step Forward” where Taiga and Sumire have a physical brawl in the classroom. Whilst I do like how the series attempts to change the design style infrequently for effect – this particular scene as pictured above was less then pleasing to see. Considering that this series came from the same Animation Studio that produced Shakugan no Shana, I felt a bit disappointed to see the quality degrade to this extent.

2. It might have just been me, but in the final few episodes I did feel that the design quality did dip down slightly, with not as many pretty environment designs and the character designs were perhaps a little less refined then previously.

However, the design quality presented was overall presented strongly, and will definitely satisfy most viewers. DVD video quality of Hanabee’s release is good and featured no noticeable issues or quality dips.

Opening Sequence #2
silky heart by Yui Horie

That is right, there are also new opening and ending sequences for this volume. This time the song is performed by Yui Horie exclusively, and as I mentioned in my previous review, I have always been a fan of her work. This song is no exception however I wouldn’t say it is as enjoyable as the first one. That being said, the animation was enjoyable and went along with the tune of the song.

Ending Sequence #2
Orange by Rie Kugimiya, Eri Kitamura and Yui Horie

There are something along the lines of three or four different ending sequences, but for the sake of this review I will only be reviewing the primary one. I mentioned in the previous review that I enjoyed the ending sequence which is seemingly an infrequent occurrence for me…. but this time I felt rather neutral towards both the song and the animation. They wernt bad by any means, but both more felt downgraded from the previous one….. and there was no cute Taiga Tiger…..

Extra Content / Packaging (Hanabee Edition)

While NIS America originally released Toradora! over two Premium Editions, their standard editions were nothing more than your standard DVD cases, with a small episode guide insert in each. While it might have seemed like Hanabee were going to follow the same pattern with their releases without the episode guide, all (at least current) releases of Part 2 come with a solidly built artbox with enough room for three DVD cases featuring all five main characters on the front (See cover at top of review). Part 2 comes with two DVD cases within the artbox – the first with the entire second half of Toradora! split over 2 DVD’s and no extras.

Unique to Hanabee’s release is a third DVD case with a single DVD held inside it. This disc includes all four Toradora! SOS – Gourmands episodes which feature chibified versions of the series characters and are overall an enjoyable watch as well as trailers for current and upcoming Hanabee releases – Dream Eater Merry (REVIEW), Arakawa Under the Bridge (REVIEW), Bodacious Space Pirates and ef ~ a tale of memories. Reviews for the other titles can be read on The Otaku’s Study in the new year. On the other hand this release did not feature clean sequences for silky heart, Orange or any of the other ending sequences included in the second half.

The most notable addition to this disc is the bonus OVA episode “The True Meaning of Bento” which was released in Japan last year and picked up as a little Hanabee exclusive episode (Fully English translated). While I will leave it for you to check out the bonus episode, I will say that while it doesn’t contribute much to the overall Toradora! storyline it was an enjoyable episode and one I am really glad to see the company pick up.

Overall, after watching both volumes, I felt that this volume had a lot more in it to enjoy, as it managed to take a normal genre that has been done several times and instead of using fanservice, Girl Punches Guy or harem style plot twists, it delivered a series that used realistic possibilities to present a unique watching experience. This is one of the series I would have perhaps liked another 12 episodes or something to get the full story, but I was overall very pleased with Toradora!.

Final Score
Storyline/Character Development: A+ (Locked in from Previous Review)
Design: B+ (Locked in from Previous Review)
OP/ED Sequences: B+ (Locked in from Previous Review)
Music/Voice Acting: B (Locked in from Previous Review)
Packaging/Extras: A-
Personal Opinion: A+ (Locked in from Previous Review)
Overall Score: A