hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

1. 

   Author
   December 22nd, 2009 - 12:04

   It was obvious that Rie Kugimiya was talented back when she voiced Futaba in Shingu. I do not think she lost any of it.

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     Zyl
     December 22nd, 2009 - 14:17

     I did not doubt KugiRie’s talent at any time but I had the misfortune to encounter a whole string of characters, voiced by her, that I disliked intensely though some of the time, I managed to enjoy the series *despite* rather than *because* of those charas.

     The side effect was that I associated her voice acting in tsundere mode with that kind of character. Taiga was deceptively similar at first but then developed differently enough to finally disperse the roiling cloud of hatred.

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2. 

   Stripey
   December 22nd, 2009 - 12:41

   Great to learn that bro. Taiga’s a great character who grew so tremendously to earn her spot beside Ryuuji.

   As I mentioned before, I suspect you probably caught ZnT S1 at a bad time. Beneath it all, Taiga and Louise are very similar *dodges ZnT haters shurikens* Both are fiercely loyal and essentially kind and ultimately even self-sacrificing. You just have to peel the tsun tsun layer away (which are very well-justified for both). As for the violence, it’s more for comic effect which I think you take too seriously.

   Anyhow, one more step towards unifying Hontounia under the loli-banner!!

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     Zyl
     December 22nd, 2009 - 14:12

     DEATH TO LOUISE. Or at least the anime version. Kobayashi Jin Problem.

     As for the violence, it’s precisely because it’s played for "comic effect" that I hated it so much. Bad memories of Ranma and RL.

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3. 

   Topspin
   December 22nd, 2009 - 13:55

   Taiga also saved Rie for me. I knew she other good roles before Shana, but Taiga was the perfect role for her tsundere pigeonholing. ToraDora had good voice acting all around, since they managed to get past the stereotypical aspects of the characters and “grow” them.

   @Stripey; don’t worry, some of us read the light novels of ZnT and didn’t find it nearly as bad as it could have been (awful anime adaptation aside). But Louise was excessively difficult to care about compared to Taiga, in no small part because she never felt remorse or even received proper retribution. It’s no fun when the main female protagonist feels like the main antagonist. I think if ZnT didn’t dip into the harem/polygon nonsense then it could have avoided it’s problems (I feel the same way about Shana). The moe craze strikes again!

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     Zyl
     December 22nd, 2009 - 14:19

     Your first para pretty much summed up my experience with Taiga. Thanks.

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     Aorii
     December 22nd, 2009 - 21:41

     Sometimes I wonder if Toradora could have been better without that stereotypical tsundere aspect of Taiga in the first place, cause when things really went full swing that part of her more or less vanished into the background. But nevertheless, yes Taiga really helped to draw some much needed sympathy to the whole violent tsundere archetype that Rie is overly known for.

     ZnT as a light novel is still pretty crappy. Plot/setting-wise it’s better than the anime since there’s actually a central theme tying stuff up, but character-wise I fail to see how it redeems itself. But yeah if ZnT avoided the harem it could have avoided a lot of annoyances people have with it. (I have no clue why I even read that lightnov series…)

     I found the love triangle in Shana to work fine though. Mediocre, but didn’t take any points off.

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       Topspin
       December 22nd, 2009 - 22:28

       I think you’re right all around. ToraDora could easily have been better if the characters were less stereotypical, but at least their stereotypical nature was put to decent use (to quickly establish the characters and let us see them grow).

       ZnT didn’t really redeem itself, I just didn’t think that much of it to begin with. Ditto for Shana, although without the extranneous highschool junk (and love triangle) it might have been able to tell a better story instead of half the series feeling like filler to me where the whole plot was put on hiatus while we watch Shana grumble about Yuji and eat melonpan (it was cute the first time but wow).
     • 

       Zyl
       December 22nd, 2009 - 22:44

       I watched Shana mainly for two things: to be able to get the Shana-tan parody and Wilhelmina.
4. 

   Mentar
   December 22nd, 2009 - 21:03

   Sorry. To be honest, Taiga is by far the most unlikable character of the KugiRie lot, if you ask for my opinion. Yes, as Louise, she’s a trace more violent and jealous, but as omniscient viewer, we always know for sure how much she really cares for Saito. Therefore, I never had that much of a problem with her.

   Taiga has a nasty character. Particularly at the beginning, she wasn’t merely unpleasant and unfair towards Yuuji, she was vicious. The uncaring way she treated him like a dog indeed lost her tons of brownie points with me. Her arrogant scorn was tangible and real. Yes, she changed a bit in the end, but the same happened to Louise and co in their respective ending arcs (before the need for an open ending forced a reset to normal).

   I was flabbergasted how she could make it so far in Saimoe and the likes. I wouldn’t want to touch people exhibiting her earlier behavior with a 10-foot pole.

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     Topspin
     December 22nd, 2009 - 22:39

     The earlier episodes are by far the weakest aspect of ToraDora, but Taiga wasn’t nearly as violent as Louise. I only remember her being violent towards Ryuuji in the first two episodes, and then she was just cold and rude until halfway through the series. By then she had grown enough that I could see that she really did care about the people around her. And by then you felt like her and Ryuuji were mutually trusting friends, and that she was pushing him away to Minori, and not just kicking him savagely in the nuts for little or no reason and doubting every little thing he did because of her inferiority complex. Not the best character ever, but certainly not in the same league as Louise.

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     Zyl
     December 22nd, 2009 - 22:46

     See? Shizuku isn’t the first time we’ve had a major disagreement over a chara, Mentar.

     I was going to argue back but then I realized that I would have just switched ‘Taiga’ for ‘Louise’ and vice versa wrt all the points that you raised. -_-;;

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     Kabitzin
     December 23rd, 2009 - 14:21

     Personally, I don’t like either of them that much, but at least there was character development with Taiga. I don’t really blame KugiRie completely for the annoyingness of the character, although her voice doesn’t necessarily help matters.

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5. 

   anonymous_object
   December 23rd, 2009 - 02:45

   Ugh, recalling ZnT makes me shudder. What a terrible show… I can’t believe I watched the entire first season. I don’t think it’s worthy of being compared to Toradora! =P I also think Taiga is Kujimiya Rie’s best role, though I do like her as Nagi from Hayate as well (though not for the same reasons) ^^;

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6. 

   Vexx
   December 25th, 2009 - 04:20

   You have to blame the writers rather than the actress…. ZnT’s source was actually somewhat layered in texture. The anime writers stripped all that away for a single “joke” premise that was tiresome way back in Love Hina much less a decade later.

   So Taiga is the first ‘loli-tsundere’ (and her friends) who were actually given some complexity and texture in their anime adaptation. May we see more of that, eh anime writers? Stop grinding the source material down to nothing.

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     Zyl
     December 25th, 2009 - 09:59

     It’s like Kabitzin said, I don’t blame KugiRie herself but her voice didn’t help; it also didn’t help, as Topspin pointed out, that she got pigeonholed into this type of role for quite a while – she was so good at voicing such terrible charas that I ended up associating her voice in that mode with that kind of chara.

     re: anime writers. I completely second your parallel with Love Hina (though the manga was much worse which is why it didn’t make my Bottom Five Anime list). But sometimes they are just giving what the paying Japanese customer (which is their core market afterall) wants I suppose.

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