Normally, I would be sh*tting all over this day. Not This year. Why? It is Chinese New Year! And better still, it is the Year of the Taiga! (Or Tiger if you prefer.) Come celebrate the lovely Aisaka Taiga in her year.

Getting what most people think about out of the first…

On this day in Japan, it is the only girls who give choco to the guys they like. This choco is homemade for most affection. If the guy accepts the choco, he has to reciprocate a month later on White Day. (Guess which LW blogger has that date!) Choco is also given among friends, like giving to guys who you have no romantic interest in or to coworkers. I believe Hayate no Gotoku GN#7 covers the topic of the different levels of making and giving choco very well, if poignantly using Nagi, Maria, Hinagiku, and Nishizawa. (The Hinagiku and Nishizawa parts are most poignant if just barely.) Love Hina also did a good treatment of the giving and receiving portion, with Keitaro admitting that until he moved in to the house with all of the girls that he would make his own choco, getting quite skilled at it, because that would be the only choco he would ever receive on that day. Since I am not that great a chef and would want to find a way of working garlic into the choco and I don’t eat choco, I have never received one sincere piece of choco to date, not even ‘obligation choco.’ It is all good since I don’t have to find any white choco for White Day. (Guess where the name comes from!)

Now on to the main show!

The Chinese calendar is based on lunar cycles as opposed to solar cycles like the Roman, Mayan, Aztec, etc calendars. Each year has one of twelve animals and one of five elements associated with it. The animals are (in random order): Dragon, Dog, Pig/Boar, Mouse/Rat/Cat, Horse, Snake, Tiger, Monkey, Ox, Rabbit, Hen/Rooster/Cock, and Ram. The Boar is used in Japan, and Cat is used in Vietnam. The elements are: Metal, Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind. Simple math states that you will come back to your animal once every twelve years and element once every five, but you don’t reach your exact element and animal except for every sixty years. The animals are the only ones that appeared at a banquet thrown by the emperor. Their order is determined by the order in which they arrived, always with the Boar last. For people who are Furuba fans, the story of the Cat and the Mouse is a familiar one about the Mouse tricking the Cat into missing the banquet. This year’s animal and element is Metal Tiger.

To repeat, that is Metal Taiga:

Not Water Taiga:

Not Wind Taiga:

Nor Fire Taiga:

But they all are the ultra cute, Te Nori Taiga!

The lovely Aisaka Taiga is the star of Toradora! and is played by Kugimiya Rie, who is known for her tsundere characters. Taiga is one of my favorites since she is both so cute and so sweet. Everything she does is huggable from kicking jerks that are in her way to torturing Baka Chi. The fact that she comes in a nice compact size makes her that much more enjoyable. Taiga-chan is either #3 favorite anime character after Ayasaki Hayate or #2 after Ayanami Rei. While Ayanami-chan is a million times more huggable than Taiga, this is Taiga’s day today.

Gōng xǐ fā cái! If you don’t have a Taiga or an Ayanami to hold this day, you’re not the only one. Just have some extra fried rice and say ‘hopefully next year.’

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