Does the Toradora OVA fit canonically in the main storyline?


I only know about the anime, so I'm basing this question on that. Toradora's
anime aired in 2009. In 2011, a side story OVA was released with the Bluray
collection of the series, titled "The True Meaning of Bento" ( _Bento no
Gokui_ ).

This side story has little to do with the main plot, so in principle it can
probably go in a lot of places in the story. However, I'm wondering if there's
a canonical answer for when these events occured (or if they are intended to
be canon at all). I don't know if anything similar happens in the light novels
or if there has been official commentary on where it falls (preliminary
searches all didn't turn anything up), but either of those would be sufficient
for this question.

**Is this OVA canon, and if so, when in the story does it occur?**

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r7r1hm.jpg)




Based off my observations of the Anime i believe that the OVA is set between
the end of the Culture Festival as Taiga is acting normal around Kitamura
which only occurs after the culture festival, and before the student council
election as not only is Minori not awkward around Ryuji or spacing out because
of what Ami said to her after Taiga and Sumire's fought one another but also
the end of the anime series occurs around winter and right after the elections
is Christmas which in Japan is in winter.

> Also it's evident it's still winter when Ryuji and Taiga elope and Taiga
> moves schools after that

This is also strengthened by the fact that the first OP was used and after the
elections is when the second OP started to be used

Given that I would say the OVA occurs between the end of Episode 13 and the
start of Episode 15 (as am accounting the possibility that the OVA is an event
that occurred between Episode 14 and 15).

My assumtion is almost spot-on as in art book which came with the limited
edition of the series from NISA there is a point at the bottom of page 5
talking about the OVA

> this is the first episode done for "Toradora!" in over 3 years, **and the
> story takes place between episodes 13 and 14 of the TV Series**. this
> episode has a comical bento battle and a heartfelt development, striking a
> delicious balance between the laughter and drama that "Toradora!" Is best
> known for.

Bellow is a photo i took of the relevant section, up the top slightly cut off
is the same image as what is posted in the question

![Artbook Page 5 Point](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XTnbG.png)

