とらドラ！Episode 10
Toradora! Episode 10

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Having spent the night awake due to the unexplained hair and wet clothing on their beds, Ryuuji and Taiga wearily wonder what today’s plan of action is to scare Minori and hook her up with Ryuuji. Yuusaku comes up on them and wants to get involved in this scheme once he’s told Minori actually enjoys horror stuff. Yuusaku enlists the help of Ami. Meanwhile, Ryuuji makes breakfast and Minori helps. Both are very good at food preparation and both help make the lunches while talking. All of this is quietly observed by Ami.

After breakfast, the group sans Ami are ready for the beach. Minori races ahead and Ryuuji goes back into the house to find out what the holdup is with Ami. He finds her admiring her figure in the mirror, having on a new bikini with a removable bow which shows off more of her cleavage. Ami wants to know why it is that Ryuuji wants to make Minori happy. He won’t say. So, she tells him that if he doesn’t tell her, she won’t help. Even after counting down from five, Ryuuji still won’t say. Ami can’t believe it and tells Ryuuji she won’t help. She then proceeds outside to tell Yuusaku the same thing.

Yuusaku goes to a nearby cave and sets some scare traps without Ami before returning to find everyone eating lunch. Ami decides to help a little but telling Minori of a cave she’s fond of, so it is decided to go exploring after lunch. They enter the cave and start exploring with Minori talking of being scared and staying close to Yuusaku. They get to Yuusaku’s first trap, but it misses Minori and hits Taiga instead. The next trap isn’t any more impressive but then Ryuuji finds the same seaweed and hair that was on his bed the night before. Now, Taiga and Ryuuji are somewhat afraid of what might be here.

Ami decides she’s had enough and goes down a side-passage to return back home. Taiga, Yuusaku, and Minori have gone on down the main passage, so after a moment’s hesitation, Ryuuji follows Ami. She wonders if Ryuuji would have been lonely without her since he followed her. She pretends to be lost which doesn’t set well with him before admitting it is a joke. She admits to liking the scared, helpless side of Ryuuji and tells him that he really isn’t suited for Minori. That’s because Minori is the sun and Ryuuji is the moon, thus if they were to get together, Ryuuji would be burned up by the sun.

Minori’s scream brings Ryuuji and Ami running back to the main passage where Yuusaku says that she just disappeared, leaving only a sandel behind. With the flashlights going out, Yuusaku says he’ll go ahead and does so before making loud noises as well. Despite being afraid, Taiga races down the dark passage for Yuusaku, only to slip and fall. Ami and Ryuuji come up, where they learn that this was all a prank set up by Minori with help from Yuusaku. That night, Minori explains that she knew Ryuuji and Taiga were trying to scare her the day before, so she thought she’d show them how to do it right.

That night, it is time for fireworks and as the others play, Ryuuji talks with Ami, saying that he would have been lonely had Ami left him in the cave. That said, he wonders about her own sense of loneliness, which is something she’s never considered. After she walks away, Minori comes up to Ryuuji and they talk and do fireworks. He thanks her for the fun of the day and says that being with her is fun. She says that’s her line, thanks him for listening to her weird story the night before, and then wonders why he was so keen on scaring her the day before. Ryuuji says that it is because of what Taiga said and his own desire for her to meet a ghost. She accepts this and says that next they should try to see a UFO as the big fireworks display goes off.

Thoughts/Review:

I knew it. Minori is not nearly as airheaded as she’s made out to be. I had a hunch that she knew that Ryuuji and Taiga were behind trying to scare her and she paid them back in full. *lol* While Ryuuji didn’t act like a stumbling fool, I was hoping that he’d at least try to confess to Minori when they were alone and talking again. In some ways, I think Minori wanted him to do that as well. Would Minori and Ryuuji be a good couple together or would it be as Ami stated — sun and moon? They are good at some of the same things (cooking and cleaning) and the romantic in me wants to think that they’d be a good couple together. However, Minori and Yuusaku would be a good couple too.

Unfortunately, I really can’t see Yuusaku and Taiga as a couple, at least not now. With Taiga freezing up like she does everytime Yuusaku gets around her, it is impossible to see them as a couple. Of course, Ryuuji and Taiga would do alright together. They do bicker but they do genuinely like each other and accept the faults in one another. I suppose if one can do that, then there is the making of a really good couple in the works because one is laying he groundwork of a friendship as a base for being a romantic couple.

Ami and Ryuuji’s conversation on being lonely was rather interesting. Despite being rich and well liked, Ami very likely is somewhat lonely. As such, her being part of the group with Yuusaku, Minori, Ryuuji, and Taiga is not whom one would expect to see a model hanging out with, yet they are the ones spending time with her, not for personal gain but just because. So in many ways, I think that Ami subconsciously enjoys spending time with this group even if she doesn’t outright express it. In that way, maybe some part of her really does think that Ryuuji is a potential boyfriend.

While I’m thinking of it, I was pleasantly surprised that Ryuuji didn’t take the opportunity of telling Ami why he wanted to make Minori happy, even though it meant losing her help.

So, a rather poignant and fun episode which wraps up the summer vacation.