Taiga Aisaka (Toradora!) Max Factory

This is Taiga Aisaka from the anime/light novels Toradora! The figure is by Max Factory. I admit it, I bought this figure before I knew anything about this character, the figure was released before the anime started airing last fall. But if you ask me this figure says almost everything you need to know about Taiga’s personality. This is one of those situations where I fall in love with a character/figure and then watch the anime to find out more about the character that has intrigued me. I’ve fallen really behind in the series but I intend on catching up all at once soon. It’s hard for me to watch 1 episode a week of something, I much prefer to wait a bit and watch a huge chunk of the series marathon style.

I couldn’t resist her grumpy face and the fact that she was holding such a cute but angry tiger! This pose is modeled after the cover of the first volume of the light novel series (pictured above). Max Factory did a superb job, as always.

Taiga is what is known as a tsundere moe type character, I usually dislike these kinds of characters but Taiga has worked her way into my heart. Why is she holding a little tiger you ask? Because she is such a grumpy and violent, but small girl, she earned herself the nick name “Palmtop Tiger”. The nickname is a bit of a play on her name since “Taiga” sounds like the English word for Tiger. She actually hates this name and is grumpy/unhappy about it, but by acting so angry about her name she just fits it even more.

It’s not just Taiga that I like, I think the protagonist Ryuji is an admirable character, I was a fan of him right from the opening scene of him scrubbing mold in the bathroom and complaining like an old housewfe about it. I also LOVE that he was born with an angry looking face but is actually one of the sweetest guys around. But back to the figure! The figure is on the small side (1/10th scale) but this is one of those situations where a smaller figure  somehow makes it better. Plus a figure that’s sitting like this can be put in front of other figures without blocking them. The base has a bit of an indententation that you can securely park her in. You can display her without the base but this is one of the few sitting down figures I actually display with the base. The white base really makes her pop on my shelves, and it’s just the right size.

There is another figure of Taiga in the same pose by Wave but there is no question in my mind that this is the better of the two figures. The other figure has a set of cat ears and tail you can put on her, but if you ask me that’s just a cheap gimmicky way of competing with Max Factory. Although I’ll let you be the judge of which is better (see Wave version below). I’ll admit the Hair on Wave’s Taiga might look better from behind (it looks more wavy) but I think Max Factory nailed the face better which is more important.