neko's thinkbox

Wishful thinking…

These last two episodes gave so much food for thought, they almost managed to wreak havoc in my mind. So many questions, and so many possible answers, but… who knows?

Rest assured, I tried to restrain my tl;dr urges this time. May look superficial though. Haven’t gotten this conciseness thing down yet.

Where most series would just present the love triangle/polygon as people who would just keep avoiding each other’s feelings and protract the status quo until the end, Tora Dora has a certain something I have been wishing for a long time: a catalyst. A catalyst named Ami Kawashima, that finally ignited the explosive mix of unique personalities in this series.

It’s true, at first I did not like her bottomless arrogance and straightforwardness, and I still don’t like her per se. But in Episode 21, it was exactly that which finally ignited the explosion. It almost hurt to see how Taiga and Minori were relapsing in their hypocritical state of denial. I always kept wondering how long they would last, but it’s now getting to the last straw.

Taiga. It seemed as though she finally awakened to her true feelings after her spectacular emo scene in episode 19, but once again, she kept repressing them and maintained her role of matchmaker between Minori and Ryuuji. She probably wanted to get this over with quickly before she changed her mind so she went as far as to talk to Yuusaku about her trouble, and warn Ami about this. Fake sincerity? Altruistic hypocrisy? In any case, bloody idiot.

Minori. The more we know about her, the less we’re able to understand her. She too returned to denying what happened between Ryuuji and her and once again acted as if nothing happened. And every time she is reminded of it, she becomes flustered, but still avoiding. Eventually, she just picks up her dropped mask of facetiousness and puts it back on, the distracting Joker. This is slowly getting very symptomatic for her, and I wish she’d stop doing that. Because it’s hurting everyone.

Ignorance is bliss… but is it really?

As I said, I’m now quite grateful that Ami is there. Actually, I think she is the person who is most loyal to her own feelings. Remember in episode 5 (?), when she said she would stop her acting? Well all this time (or at least most of it), she did not break that promise. Sure, she hid a lot of details from many people because she didn’t want to interfere all too much, but she rarely lied to them; actually, whenever she said the truth, people often did not take her very seriously, wary of her usual sly behavior. Like in episode 21, when she asks Kitamura if he’s so stupidly dense, or just faking it. Or in the end of the ep, when she told Ryuuji about what happened in the room.

“This tomfoolery must stop”, she must’ve thought. Not because she wanted to disturb everyone and snatch Ryuuji in the confusion, but because Minorin is so stupid not to take Ryuuji. Minorin knows he likes her, and yet she refuses him – “how many girls would have liked to be in your position, you stupid girl!” is probably what must have been going around in Ami’s head all this time.

I was quite impressed how she recklessly let it all out in front of Minori and the other girls in the room, as if she had foreseen that Ryuuji and company would hide into the girl’s room to witness this heated discussion; as if she had planned all of this! On the one hand she was the only person Minori would not try to deceive with her distracting tactics, despite the two other gullible females; on the other hand, the truckload of revelations she dumped onto all the people present in the room was so shockingly accurate, I was quite surprised nobody in the locker burst out in stupor or something. (Though, Taiga knew most of the details, Ryuuji kept everything for himself, and Yuusaku is the densest person I’ve encountered yet. Or he’s still thinking of Sumire. He must be faking it. Like Minori, heh.)

Hypocrisy vs. Honesty, who will win…

In any case, she really managed to provoke Minori in her state of denial so much that both of them eventually clashed. As I said, Minori’s denial hurts everyone. Why can’t she just be honest about it… (Also, she mentioned Taiga’s father again in episode 20. I really start wondering if that is the reason of her self-destructive behavior…)

And as a result of all that, Ryuuji starts worrying about Taiga BECAUSE she worries so much about him. Great, Taiga is changing her mind once again. More like, she cannot uphold her acting anymore, and it really had to come to the indirect confession we saw at the end. I guess there will be no more Angel Taiga quality matchmaking from now on.

But even if things are looking grim… ganbatte Minorin! I’ll always support you! D:

It’s just as this says…

You can’t get everything you want in your life.

Am I the only one who likes that crazy teacher? That’s exactly the message of dis animu yo! (And also of my blog. I most likely would have tried to elaborate on so many points, but in the end nobody would read a 2000 word essay per episode either. Can’t have it all eh. (Who reads your blog anyway, retard. Talk less, post moar. -natsuneko))

Oh btw, sorry for the long delay, I started picking up my old hobbies with my gaming clan .#mtf and didn’t really find an opportunity to watch anime. Heh, I even started playing TF2, TMNF and L4D now…