とらドラ！Episode 16
Toradora! 16

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Taiga is making her threats of what she’ll do if she’s elected president of the student council when Yuusaku arrives. Other of their classmates play-act on how bad life will be under Taiga rule when Yuri-sensei arrives. Privately, Taiga and Ryuuji explain to her that this is part of their plan to convince Yuusaku to go ahead and run for student council president. She agrees to their plan and even offers to assist by showing them how to use the printer to make the fliers and posters for Taiga’s campaign. However, no matter what they do, Yuusaku shows no interest in running for president and time is running out.

One evening, Ryuuji gets a phone call from one of the student council members which causes Ryuuji to leave Taiga at his apartment. He finds a bruised Yuusaku by the river, sitting on the steps. Yuusaku explains that he’s in love with the president of the student council (Sumire) and he was going to confess to her after he was elected president. However, because she’s going to America in a few days to transfer, that plan won’t happen. Further, Yuusaku’s father got fed up with Yuusaku over his attitude of late, which accounts for the bruising. Their conversation is interrupted when they hear Taiga calling for Ryuuji at which point they go home.

The following day at school, Taiga’s doing her normal thing but Yuusaku comes up, his hair redyed black, and indicates he will run against Taiga which pleases the students. However late that afternoon, Ryuuji learns that Yuusaku hasn’t submitted the paperwork yet to run for president, so Ryuuji confronts Yuusaku. Yuusaku isn’t interested in running, so Ryuuji agrees to walk home with Yuusaku as Yuusaku tells of how he joined the student council following Taiga’s rejection at the request of Sumire. They are met in the stairs by Sumire, who challenges Yuusaku to take a step forward by becoming president. Upon hearing her challenge, Yuusaku goes to get the paperwork submitted before the deadline.

On Saturday, Taiga drops out of the race as Yuusaku is now running. At the school assembly, Yuusaku is introduced to make his speech for the elections, but chooses the opportunity to confess his love for Sumire. Sumire does not answer the confession but instead tells the student body that Yuusaku is an interesting guy. Therefor, someone so interesting is sure to make the school more interesting. After the assembly, Ryuuji chases down Sumire to demand why she didn’t answer Yuusaku properly. She responds that she told Yuusaku to run for office not confess and after some other words, tells Ryuuji to remain good friends with Yuusaku before walking away.

Ryuuji is going to go after her again when he is stopped by Taiga. She wants Ryuuji to go to Yuusaku since there’s nothing she can do for him. She assures Ryuuji she’s OK, so he does what she says. Taiga has come to understand that Yuusaku doesn’t love her, but she’s going to punish Sumire for what she’s done to Yuusaku. Taiga produces her wooden sword and challenges Sumire who accepts. Sumire borrows a bamboo sword and they fight with those until Taiga is disarmed. Taiga attacks again and disarms Sumire where they exchange blows. Taiga gets Sumire pinned but is pulled off by Ryuuji, who’s been apprised of the fight. Two others grab Sumire to prevent more blows from being exchanged. Taiga screams at Sumire for hurting Yuusaku. Sumire screams back, saying that she couldn’t acknowledge Yuusaku’s feelings because then Yuusaku would do something dumb like try to follow her to America. So even though she wanted to say something, she couldn’t. This is heard by Yuusaku who’s in the classroom at this time, who then thanks Sumire and bows.

After the classrooms are cleaned up, some of Taiga’s classmates find her student ID holder wherein is a picture of Taiga and Yuusaku. Ami takes it and says she’ll give it to Ryuuji. As they walk past Minori, Ami quietly asks if her feelings of guilt are gone. Sumire went to America, Yuusaku became president, and Taiga was suspended for two weeks from school, tasked with writing an apology letter to Sumire. Despite not wanting to do so, Taiga writes her letter on the provided postcard and mails it. In America, Sumire gets the card and reads it. It contains one word — “baka” (idiot). Sumire has a heart-felt laugh at this.

Thoughts/Review:

I’m not really a fan of these cliched moments such as Sumire coming in at the last moment and convincing Yuusaku to go ahead and run for student council president. For me, it would have been much more interesting for Yuusaku to have gone a different path and to have Taiga win the election by default. Being thrown into such an unexpected situation would have been something I would have enjoyed seeing Taiga do (with Ryuuji by her side of course).

That said, I will concede that the confession of Yuusaku to Sumire in his speech was not what I expected and as such, made his winning the election OK. While Taiga has always been the violent sort, when she pulled out the sword, I knew it wasn’t for comedy effect as it had been when she attacked Ryuuji with it. She planned to beat Sumire with it. Even when Taiga was bested with the sword, I loved how she still pressed the attack and won the fight (Sumire getting the last hit in with a shoe toss doesn’t count). In the end, Sumire and Taiga respected each other for what they’d done. I loved the “BAKA” post card apology Taiga sent Sumire in America.

I do have a question though — I didn’t understand Ami’s statement to Minori over Minori’s guilt. Was that because Minori wasn’t there for either Yuusaku or Taiga? I didn’t get that and feel that something is missing. I will say that I did like that Ami put an end to the girls looking at Taiga’s ID holder with its picture of Taiga and Yuusaku at the dance. I guess that’s another one of those little markers that indicates how much Ami respects Taiga and is a friend of hers, even if they bicker.

So, what does this mean for Taiga? I don’t see a way for her to continue to try to win Yuusaku’s heart. I certainly don’t see Yuusaku going for Taiga as a rebound nor as anything other than a friend. If Taiga did continue to try, it would seem to make her weaker in my eyes, especially after having understood the situation so well in this episode. Maybe she’ll look more to Ryuuji, but I don’t know. They have had nice moments together and likely will have more in the future. However, until Ryuuji is shut off completely from Minori (meaning he understands he won’t get anywhere with her), then I can’t see Ryuuji looking too closely at Taiga in that way.

Should be interesting to see where things go from here.