I’m actually caught up with one of the new shows this season. Imagine my shock. [Actually, I think I'm caught up with Gundam 00, though I could be terribly wrong about that.]
As you might or might not have gathered from the image, I’m watching Toradora! I’m a little surprised at how much I’m enjoying it, in fact.
Not that it’s surprising I’d enjoy this sort of show — I read more shoujo manga than I do any other kind, actually. In fact, the tenth volume of Ouran is whimpering from across the room, begging me to finish it and not leave it half-done and abandoned on the floor, in danger of being forgotten beneath a form I really should get my students to sign (you know, just two months late).
Sorry, tangent. No, what surprises me is how many stock situations Toradora! uses and how easily I forget that’s what I’m seeing. Episode three is a great example — and not just because it’s the one I watched today.
The episode culminates with Ryuuji and Kushieda stuck in a supply room, while Taiga first delivers booze and then searches for the two of them. Upon reflection, that is, upon thinking of what I would tell you fine people about this show, I realized just how much a stock situation this is. It’s not at the school, granted, but come on. But I didn’t think about that at all as I watched.
It’s a truism that there’s nothing new to write about. That is, it’s all in the way the author (or team, whoever) executes the story. However, some things are, well, less new than others. A domestic male and a violent female paired improbably together, one or both of them misunderstood for some reason, high school, unrequited love, yes yes, we’ve seen it.
But, in some way, we haven’t. Apparently a lot of people are complaining about this show? Well, fuck those people. I guess, from what OGT has said, it’s basically because the show isn’t exactly the same as the novel it’s based on? Look, people, I’m going to tell you something important, and I want you to listen. All our lives will be better if you do. Ready? Okay.
Adaptations do not have to be exactly the same as the source material, you fucking re-re.
In fact, I say in smaller font, they can’t be. If they are they’ll be interminable. Sure, we all have our bugaboos about adaptations — some people still aren’t over how Tom Bombadil isn’t in Jackson’s movies, while I wonder why the studio even bothered licensing Starship Troopers for that movie with the famous assholes I don’t think I’ve ever seen in anything since. But guess what? I think ST is actually a pretty decent action SF flick. You, and by “you” I mean the assholes out there, and not the kind, gentle reader who is, even now, wondering why I’m using so many curse words, have to judge the adaptation as its own thing. I’d quote Derrida again, but I’ve done so much of that recently over on Super Fanicom I think the damn man might come back to life if I do it one more time. Basically, the text is a text, and not some weird Bizarro filter through which you view the original. This is important for criticism (its context over on Superfani so far), but it’s also true for adaptations. The show is just the show, that’s it. In terms of quality, it has less than nothing to do with the source material.
That was an even longer tangent, sorry about that. Okay, back to happy times.
I really like this show. Despite my jackass subject line, I don’t actually think this has overmuch to do with Shakugan no Shana. Well, the reason the deal went through to adapt it probably had a lot to do with that show, but that’s business. Sure, every time Taiga shouts “urusai” I have flashbacks, but hell, who doesn’t?
Maybe later in the season, after I’ve watched a bunch more Toradora!, I’ll finally be able to post about how I like shows like this so much, when I can’t stand most realism in other fields. I think it’s the funny, more than anything else, but I suspect there’s more to it than that.
I’ll leave you with this:
HOLY SHIT LOOK OUT! DON’T LET HER BITE YOU!
Just because I’m not a manga kinda guy, I never really got the hype about sticking true to the print from it was derived. I mean, it simply, utterly cannot be the same as it’s a completely different medium. I’m probably over-arguing the point, but, nevertheless, it still stands.
I too love Taiga’s “Urusai Urusai”, even having seen only 3-4 episodes of Shana and her triplet Urusai antics. Even Horie Yui is a treat. Seems like Kanon 2006 spoiled me with Horie-UGUUU~ while Fruits Basket just turned me completely off from her for a good time. Thankfully her appeal came back through Manabi Straight.
Nobody’s saying it has to be exactly the same. Adaptations can take liberties when neccessary.
It’s when they resort to FLANDERIZATION is when an adaptation just turns annoying, and affects it on it’s own merits, apart from comparisons to the novel. They’re turning Taiga into Louise V2 when the whole concept was that she WASN’T supposed to be like that. It’s not “creative control”, it’s “Hey, we got a lot of money off of SnS and ZnT, let’s whore out that old violent tsundere archetype again with ZnT filler rewrites and ‘Urusai!’ and ‘Baka inu!’ and her hitting Ryuuji for no reason!”. Or at least that’s what the feeling is.
The show itself is great, but if they don’t save Taiga’s character soon from the depths of mediocrity, a lot of people are going to be frustrated with her even if they don’t know the source material to compare. But I’m still hoping for the best, that this could turn out to be a well done, interesting, and funny romantic comedy that I could actually rewatch in the future.
URUSAI! XD
[...] this very feeling of exuberance–of giving everything your 110%–that contributes to the observation cuchlann made about episode 3: the show has the uncanny ability to make you forget (or, at least, [...]
People are complaining about the “butchering” of the novel, and frankly, I don’t really care. Granted that J.C.Staff turned Taiga into a violent psychopath (worse than what she was in the novel, as other ones have said), but so long as we enjoy the show, that’s all that matters. It’s good to know the stuff you’re missing out on in the original source, but that shouldn’t ruin your enjoyment of the adaptation. As you have very well said, the novel is one thing, the anime is another.
And goodness, we’re not even halfway through this series and people are already complaining this much -_-; I don’t blame them for their pessimism, but seeing them getting all pessimistic about this is just frustrating.
That’s if people to look at the source material anyway. It’s again making a comparison that does not have to be made. If she’s better in the novels, then I’ll find that out when/if I read them but that doesn’t mean that the animated Taiga isn’t as valid. And it’s a little impressive how devoted fans of Taiga specifically worry so much about that.
Pretty much.
[...] the other hand, while we, the loyal Taigaism zealots, march on with our LOVE for Taiga (pardon the random linking), he-who-shall-not-be-named continues on his crusade to spoil [...]
[...] why something doesn’t please, just as much as it helps to consider why it does. Also, given my previous comments, go ahead and discount “it wasn’t in the manga.” I don’t much care [...]
[...] my broader inclination to compare things with other things often and at length? Is it possible that those who disparage the Toradora anime for not being more like the novels (just as I feel inclined to disparage the first chapter, if not vocally or with any belief in the [...]
[...] why something doesn’t please, just as much as it helps to consider why it does. Also, given my previous comments, go ahead and discount “it wasn’t in the manga.” I don’t much care [...]