Curiosities about the Japanese anime Toradora

Have you ever wondered why the name of the Anime is Toradora? Why is Ryuuji compared to a Dragon and Taiga to a Tigress? Is she really called a pocket tigress? In this article, we will see some curiosities about the anime and 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 lose hope 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 out that he will be in the same class as his best friend Yūsaku Kitamura and Minori Kushieda, whom he is in love with. However, on that same day, they accidentally bump into the famous “pocket tigress”—Taiga Aisaka—who is also in his class and is a friend of Minori.

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) written in katakana is the abbreviation of the word Dragon in English, which in Japanese is ドラゴン (doragon).

The Japanese language has the original way of saying a word and sometimes 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 2 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 – to meet, to encounter;
• 坂 – slope, hill;
• 大 – big;
• 河 – river;

So, why is Taiga’s nickname Tigress? Since her name does not contain any ideogram 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 pocket tigress that we find in the subtitle 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 pocket, the ideograms that form this expression mean “hand” and “to place”, that is, tenori literally means to place in the hand. For this reason, several scenes show a tigress in the palm of someone’s hand.

Why is Ryuuji considered a Dragon?

The name of the main character is 高須竜児 (Takasu Ryuuji) which is written with the following ideograms:

• 高 – high, quantity;
• 須 – necessarily, obligatory;
• 竜 – Dragon, imperial;
• 児 – newborn, child, cub;

So basically Ryuuji’s name contains the ideogram for Dragon (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, twig;
• 実 – reality, truth;
• 乃 – possessive particle の;
• 梨 – pear tree (plant), pear;

The name of the character Ami Kawashima is written 川嶋 亜美 which means:

• 川 – river;
• 嶋 – island;
• 亜 – Asia, classification;
• 美 – beautiful, pretty;

The name of the character Kitamura Yuusaku is written 北村 祐作 which means:

• 北 – north;
• 村 – village, town;
• 祐 – help;
• 作 – to build, to make, to prepare;

What do you think? Do these characters also have a relation with their names?