Ever wondered why Anime's name is Toradora? Why is Ryuuji compared to a Dragon and Taiga to a Tigress? Is she really called a pocket tiger? In this article, we will see some curiosities of the anime and with the names of the characters in Japanese.
If you don't know the anime Toradora, it's a great romantic comedy based on a Light Novel. If you haven't watched it yet, don't worry, this article contains no spoilers.
Synopsis: The story of Toradora! begins with the male protagonist Ryūji Takasu, who feels frustrated trying to show his best when he enters his second year of high school. Despite his gentle personality, his eyes make him look like an intimidating delinquent. This makes Ryūji not hopeful of getting a girlfriend anytime soon. After receiving greetings from his mother in the morning, the boy goes to school and is happy to find that he will be in the same class as his best friend Yūsaku Kitamura and Minori Kushieda, with whom he is in love. However, that same day, they accidentally bump into the famous “pocket tiger”—Taiga Aisaka—who is also in her class and is a friend of Minori.
Table of Content
the name Toradora
First, let's talk about the name of the anime とらドラ! (Toradora). The syllables tora literally mean tiger (虎) in the original Japanese language. The syllables ドラ (dora), which are written in katakana, is the abbreviation of the word Dragon in English, which in Japanese is ドラゴン (doragon).
Japanese has the original way of saying a word, and sometimes it has an imported version from another language, just as we sometimes say Download instead of transfer. Notice that the name of the anime uses one animal in Japanese and another imported from English? The same thing happens with the names of the two main characters.
Mini Tigress - Pocket Tigress
The name of the main character is 逢坂大河 (Aisaka Taiga) which is written with the following ideograms:
- 逢 - meet, encounter;
- 坂 - slope, hill;
- 大 - big;
- 河 - rio;
So, why is Taiga's nickname Tigresa? Since her name doesn't contain any kanji for Tiger? As I said, there is a word derived from English written in katakana that means tiger, which is precisely Taiga / タイガー.
The expression tigresa de bolso that we find in the caption of the anime toradora is used when saying the word 手乗りタイガー (tenori taiga), however the original word 手乗り has nothing to do with a pocket, the ideograms that form this expression mean "hand" and "to place", in other words, tenori literally means to place in the hand. For this reason, several scenes show a tigresa in the middle of someone’s palm.
Why is Ryuuji considered a Dragon?
The main character's name is 高須竜児 (Takasu Ryuuji) which is written with the following characters:
- 高 - high, quantity;
- 須 - necessarily, obligatory;
- 竜 - Dragon, imperial;
- 児 - newborn, child, cub;
So basically Ryuuji's name has the Dragon Ideogram (Ryu) in the original Japanese language.
Other curiosities with the names of Toradora
The name of the character Kushieda Minori is written 櫛枝 実乃梨 which means:
- 櫛 - comb;
- 枝 - branch;
- 実 - reality, truth;
- 乃 - Possession particle の;
- 梨 - pereira (planta), pera;
The name of the character Ami Kawashima is written 川嶋 亜美 which means:
- 川 - rio;
- 嶋 - island;
- 亜 - Asia, Classification;
- 美 - beautiful, beautiful;
The name of the character Kitamura Yuusaku is written 北村 祐作 which means:
- 北 - North
- 村 - village, town;
- 祐 - ajuda
- 作 - build, make, prepare
What did you think? Do these characters also have a relationship with the names?