The club was Toradora 01-02 yesterday, a rewatch for me (Toradora narrowly edged out Maria+Holic in runoff poll). And, I made a discovery.

It's not unusual for me to be very wrong about something I see in anime. This time, I thought that the leads in Toradora are thrown together by the pact, then gradually find a way to each other through mutual support, and finally recognize their bond. But surprisingly, I saw in rewatch that it's not what happened... The pair is heavily asymmetric! Taiga was head over heels for Ryuji in ep.2, and Kitamura recognized it (although it probably wasn't the main reason why he rejected her, because, as we discover later, he already had his sights set elsewhere by that time).

People who complained that events of the finale were sudden missed the 20+ episodes of build-up. But I cannot look down at them too much. I wasn't that blind, but still did not pay enough attention.

There's a silver lining though... Since I obviously missed half of the show, the rewatch is rewarding. I may even get the DVDs.

BTW, I haven't rewatched ef systematically, only bits and pieces. Ditto Manabi. Ironic.

UPDATE: David Mankins e-mails:

You say the pair was asymmetric, but you can tell that Ryuji is in love with Taiga, too. You can tell from the way he reacts to news that Taiga is going to confess, and how he relaxes when he eavesdrops on Kitamura rejecting her.

I observed it too, but it looks more open to interpretation in Ryuji's case. The excitement of eavesdropping played a part, for one thing.

UPDATE 4/1: Now that I've seen the obvious, it's greatly amusing how Josh writes: "Taiga and Ryuji’s transformations from liking Kitamura and Minori to liking each other is sudden and largely without any obvious foretelling", and "I didn’t see anything to suggest that Taiga and Ryuji actually had romantic feelings for each other". LOL, srsly.