I’ll keep the summary nice and brief: Tiger lost the battle between her and Ami. Takasu nearly drowns and a crying Tiger saves him. Regardless, Takasu has to go to Ami’s villa. WITH the others (Minori, Kitamaru, and Tiger).

A detailed explanation of the happenings can be found here: http://blog.ilif.in/2008/11/26/toradora-episode-8-translation-notes/

02:34 This whole part here is getting one note since I can’t be arsed to note all the times down. What Ryuuji receives is a letter that gets sent around in class where the various students write out their names for which of the two girls they will bet on for winning the competition. Nobody’s betting on Taiga (who’s on the right side of the list), and Ami’s getting all the votes. They’re betting in Tirols - Tirol chocolates. These cost 10 yen each, so each bet is… 5000 yen. In the novels, the bets are 500 yen each, and not in Tirols.

They don’t want this to be passed around in class to the ones involved since it’s supposed to be secret, which is why it says this and all the comments fly by and the girls get “Oh shi-” when they notice it flies to the wrong person.

The parts with Haruta failing and so forth is the class emulating bulletin boards such a 2chan by writing out comments that refer to previous ones and the likes with the “>” marker. In this case, they’re replying many times to Haruta with “>Haruta” - who is failing.

04:59 Ryuuji’s stacking Taiga up on soya-tastic foods. First of them is peas bound in eggs, a popular little dish filled with carrots, peas, eggs, leeks, and various fish things. Is he helping her by making her eat food that is said to boost your estrogen levels (and thus possibly increasing bust size) - or is he helping himself since he prefers packed girls?

06:44 I thought Minorin was the referencebot in this show, Kitamura? I have translated this line along the lines of someone showing true strength in moments of desperation. What really is being said is “kajiba no kusojikara” (火事場のクソ力) - an ability that was introduced in the absurd manga and anime Kinnikuman. It literally means “insane power from a scene of fire”, commonly translated to “Burning Inner Strength” - and is only “activated” when the heroes of the show are about to get beaten. Seen this pattern in shounen shows before…?

07:01 The random girls talking about Sudoba. This is japanese people shortening down words, names, phrases, whatever to three syllables. Sudoh-bucks = Sudoba.

07:29 Ryuuji making a weird sound and sitting down. “Dokoisho” is a bit weird like this - you either use it to emphasize making and effort, or to emphasize completely not making an effort - i.e. sitting down and trying to relax yourself.

08:59 Akechi-kun is a character from the manga series “Visual Tantei Akechi-kun”. Think of it as Sherlock Holmes thing.

09:45 Ryuuji’s putting up a Teru teru bozu, small guardians for your window to protect your from the rain. Superstition, or dedication to Taiga?

11:23 This is a bit hard to spot - but the tea can here says “To aru ocha” - “A certain tea”. It’s even using the same font as the To Aru Majutsu no Index manga. Nice, J.C.Staff.

18:16 Hisamitsu’s commentating here is a reference to the Musashi novels, particularly the battle between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirou at Ganryuujima. In this battle, Musashi purposely comes in over three hours late, earning the psychological superiority right away.

19:36 This scene is rather similar to a Seto no Hanayome scene… as you might discover.

Next Episode:

Well, lelangir blogged about episode 9 so I’ll quickly try and fill in the space of episode 8 (Though, if you want to blog your own episode 8 of Toradora that’s OK as well).

It’s interesting to see Tiger flustering and fidgeting whenever she’s around Kitamaru but totally calm and serious with Takasu. Plus, Takasu always tries to find ways to be with Tiger and please her. Maybe he has a lolita complex, I don’t know. All I do know is that he doesn’t really focus too much on Ami or Minori :( Plus, Tiger crying over a drowning Takasu wasn’t anything I would have ever expected from her. It just -kind of- shows how much she cares and loves him regardless of how much she calls him a useless dog.