As the story begins, Ryūji Takasu narrates about something in the world that nobody has seen yet while he tries to stylish his hair with fluffy bangs to capture women's heart, according to a magazine. But he sighs and carelessly throws the magazine into the trash can, which topples over and reveals hidden mold; as he cleans the mold, he continues to narrate that the something is sweet and gentle, and it would be something you yearn for if you had your eyes on it. The scene transitions to Taiga Aisaka, who just woke up, she continues that the world has hidden that something so not anyone can get it, and sneezes at the end. The scene jumps back to Ryūji who is still cleaning the mold; he exclaims that someday someone will find it; then Taiga finishes that someone who is supposed to find it will find it. Thus their day began.

As Ryūji tidies the house, his mother, Yasuko Takasu, tries to trap his foot, but he easily escapes from it. His mother remarks on how cold Ryūji is, but Ryūji exclaims he already told her last night that he got school today; his mother complains about the dark room and tells Ryūji to open the curtains. Ryūji replies that they are already open and his mother looks out to the window, noticing the tall apartment building outside of their house. Because the apartment building blocks the sunlight, Ryūji complains, with a grinning face that his mother notice is similar to Ryūji's father, about undried laundary and mold everyday. But when being compared to his dad, Ryūji states that he doesn't want to be compared to such person. Eventually, Ryūji gives up the argument and leaves for school.

On his way to school, Ryūji explains that he doesn't wish to be like his father because the look in his eyes. Suddenly, a student bumps into Ryūji and when they saw the look in his eyes, the got scared and ran away after apologizing and leaving Ryūji with their wallets. Ryūji ends up returning the wallets to the lost and find; the clerk there comments that Ryūji manages to collect a lot of wallets everyday. Ryūji proceeds to check for his class, but his grin causes everyone around him to scatter, leaving an open circle. As he sighs, his friend, Yūsaku Kitamura, pats him on the back and tells Ryūji that they are in the same class, 2-C, again.

When walking to class, Ryūji sighs that starting a new class would mean he has to clear up misunderstandings with everyone again, but Kitamura exclaims that he knows and it won't be necessary for everyone. Thus Ryūji thanks his friend and glad that someone understand him. Before Ryūji could finish talking about his class, Minori Kushieda surprises Minori Kushieda and exclaims that she is in the same class with the two. Minori asks Minori Kushieda if he remembers her and he replies, looking away embarrassed, "Minori Kushieda, right?" She was glad he remembers and bids them goodbye. After his friend left, Ryūji doesn't pay attention walking and bumps into Taiga; everyone whispers about how the school's two most dangerous people have entered a decisive battle. But Ryūji sees Taiga like a doll since she is small, but he feels that he got a hateful feeling from her. Some girl in the back refers Ryūji and Taiga as the delinquient and Palmtop Tiger, respectively. Then Ryūji comes into realization that the name, Palmtop Tiger, fits her nicely, but he gets punched in return.

In class, the teacher announces to the class about anyone who didn't turn in the questionaire should come to faculty office especially Ryūji. Taiga sneezes and Minori worries if she is alright since she was late today. Taiga replies that she went to a doctor who told her that her sneezing is caused by house dust. On the other hand, Ryūji ponders on the fact that Minori and Taiga are friends and concludes the problem is with himself. Then Kitamura pats Ryūji on the back and tells him that it will be easier to clear up misunderstanding after watching a group talk about Ryūji and Taiga. Taiga, who was distracted looking at Kitamura, suddenly looks away and says its nothing when Minori asked her what's wrong.

After Ryūji goes to the office about his not turned in questionaire, he goes back to class and once he opens the classroom, he is surprised to see chairs and table flying in the air. Then when everything calmed down, a metal locker fell and opened; Taiga, curled together, rolled out. Ryūji pretended to ignore her and went to grab her bag. When Ryūji picked up his bag, Taiga asked, stuttering a bit, what he is doing, but soon she realizes she mistook Ryūji's bag for someone else's; thus she jump at him and held on to the Ryūji's bag tightly. They pulled on the bag for a while before she sneezed and released her hold. Before Ryūji could be angry with her, she walked out of the room and called him stupid before slamming the door. Ryūji ends up concluding she is a mess and the room is a mess, too.

At home, Ryūji is doing homework and when he opened his desk drawer, he saw a picture of his mother and his late father and had a flashback of his mother talking about his father. He exclaims that if it was not for the look, he wouldn't be in a mountain of trouble. Then he remembers the questionaire and searches through his bag, but finds a love letter from Taiga to his friend, Kitamaru. He waves the letter in air while acting out how he would tell Taiga about the letter, but suddenly, the letter seal came apart and Ryūji quicky resealed the letter and pretended he didn't open it. But he noticed something about the letter and held it under the light, there was nothing in the letter. He calls her a klutz again.

During the night, Ryūji wakes up to sounds in the house. He wonders who it is and it couldn't be his mother because she is at work. He walks out of his room and sees the window open; then in the refelection, he saw someone approaching and barely manages to block the person's wooden sword. As Ryūji gets a closer look at the person, he recognizes he knows someone that small; the person suddenly lose her balance and Ryūji trips past and switches the light on. He was surprised it was Taiga. After a moment of pause, Taiga continues her wood sword barrage on Ryūji and tells him to forget about the letter or else she would kill him while managing to make a hole in the wall. Ryūji saved himself by telling Taiga that the letter was actually empty. Before she collapsed due to hunger, she was shocked that the letter was empty as Ryūji exclaimed how lucky she is.

Ryūji cooks her some fried rice and noticing how fast she eats, he asks her how hungry she is. She replies that she got tired of the convenice store. He got curious about why her family doesn't feed her, but he paused and thought that every families has their own issues. Then he offered her a tissue to clean her face; she suddenly blushed and quickly took the tissue. Taiga remarks that nothing would've happened if he had quietly handed over the bag. But he ignored her and told her that there is still some rice left on her face; thus she blushes again and wipes her face clean. After a moment, Ryūji exclaims that love letter isn't even embarrassing and he brings out a box full of stuff, which Taiga questions about. Ryūji explains those are all his attempts for a girl whom he likes. After flipping through some stuff, Taiga discovers that Ryūji likes Minori. Thus they argue again, but is interrupted by Ryūji's family pet parrot, Inko-chan. Taiga calls it disgusting, but Ryūji eagerly expects it to greet guests by saying its own name; Inko-chan only managed to say Inpo, which made Taiga punched Ryūji again and Ryūji says that Inko-chan isn't feeling well today. Noticing the late hour, Ryūji tries to persuade Taiga to forget about him liking Minori and tells her to go home, but she says no and doesn't trust him. She continues to ask about love letters, but Ryūji ignores her questions and tells her that he will help her with any romantic questions tomorrow. She asks if he will really help her; He hurriedly agrees. Eventually, he ends up agreeing to helping her with anything and obey her like a dog. Afterwards, before leaving, she tells him that he can patch the hole in the wall with the letter and then she turns down his offer to walk her home because she can protect herself with the wooden sword.

Next morning, as Ryūji is preparing breakfast, he gets a call from Taiga who shouts into the phone, telling him to come over. He hangs up quickly, but Taiga calls him again and he picks it up again. Then she told him to look outside on the balcony and he was surprised that they were right across each other. She simply states that he agreed that he will do anything. But when he tries to explain about last night, she threatens him with her fist. Thus he changed his mind and told her that the seasoned rice would be done in ten minutes; when hearing her stomach grumble, he concludes that she wants some, too.

He walks to the apartment building and compliments how nice it looks inside. After no one answered the door, he realized the door was unlocked and when he opened it, he suddenly smelled something horrible. He finds that the sink reeks of filth, which made him shout Taiga's name and wanting to clean her sink. When he found her, she was asleep again. He compares Taiga to a handcrafted doll again and the house to someone's doll house, but it was too large to be someone's doll house. He checks his cell and says it will only take fifteen minutes to clean. When Taiga woke up, she was surprised her house is all clean. Ryūji started to explain how horrid it was before, but Taiga threw her pillow at him and called him a mongrel for trespassing. He got angry at her, but when he saw her sit down before the table with prepared food, he forgot his anger and remarked that she forgot her table prayers. She impatiently says them. He also comments that her nose stopped dripping. She quietly muttered that it is because the room is all clean. He doesn't hear her, but she tells him to shut up instead of repeating what she said. The last scene is the flower-petal like patch of that hole in the wall.

Preview






First impression

Episode one followed the first chapter of the manga. Sometimes when I hear Taiga's voice, I get reminded of Louise and Saito as Ryūji. One is dog and one is master. But the voice actors are different though. Although Taiga's voice is deeper in tone, very suitable for Taiga and her personality, sometimes it still reminds me of other characters Rie Kugimiya has voiced for. For example, when Taiga is shouting shut up to Ryūji, it reminded me of Shana from Shakugan no Shana. Well, from the looks of the preview and first episode, I have big expectations for this anime and it will definitely be blogged.