Blue Box Springs Youth Through Love And Sports

Season aired: Fall 2024

Number of episodes: 25

Watched on: Netflix

Translated by: Zensho Yamamoto

Genres: Drama, Romance, Sports

Thoughts: Blue Box is special to me in more ways than one. First, I am personally friends with the editor of the English version of the manga. Second, the manga is widely praised by the shojo community despite it being a romance manga published in Shonen Jump. Third, I interviewed two of the main cast members and the Japanese editor of the manga at Anime Expo in what was one of my favorite interviews I conducted. All this leads me to desperately hoping for the anime’s success, and I believe it was successful, if not without some flaws.

In Blue Box, Taiki Inomata is a spirited and hardworking high school badminton player who has a crush on Chinatsu, a basketball player and his senpai. Despite their frequent encounters during their respective practice sessions, Taiki never outright attempted to pursue Chinatsu romantically. However, he begins to consider his chances when Chinatsu moves in with his family as a temporary stay. Thrown into the mix is Hina, Taiki’s childhood friend and a rhythmic gymnastics prodigy, who has been openly supporting Taiki to pursue his feelings, only to develop romantic feelings of her own. With all three facing important matches in their respective sports, their competitions and relationships collide together. Their youths develop into a series of navigating passionate yet complicated feelings for each other.

This show features a classic love triangle, but I found it enjoyable because of how seriously Taiki, the boy in the middle, takes it. Unlike other love triangles where the boy dismisses one of the girl’s feelings without much consideration and the rejected girl becomes the hated antagonist, Taiki is a serious and passionate individual who is deeply considerate of other people’s emotions. The conflict in Blue Box comes off as more intentional and insightful than a simple romantic device used to cause drama, giving respect for the characters and their complicated feelings as they navigate adolescence.

My critique of the anime, however, is that the story entwines the characters’ growth and their developing feelings with their athletic pursuits, and the show never actually dedicates any time to showing a full match, despite how important they are to the characters. Both Taiki and Chinatsu get snapshots of their competitions, but Hina gets the worst treatment by not even getting to show off her rhythmic gymnastics, especially when her rising performance coincides with her growing realization that she has developed romantic feelings for Taiki. The only moment we ever see her showcase her skills was in the second cour’s ending theme song, and as beautiful as that sequence is, it would’ve been more meaningful to see it embedded in the actual story.

I suspect that the reason a full match was never shown was the level of animation it would require. Sports anime are usually considered high quality or low quality with no in between due to animating competitions or matches with such dynamic actions that require a lot of fluidity and attention to detail. Blue Box is already a beautiful anime with incredible scenic shots that take my breath away, and the animation outside the matches is good enough that I wouldn’t nitpick on the minor unanimated details. However, maintaining that same level of quality becomes challenging when characters are constantly in motion, with limbs moving purposefully and expressions changing rapidly every second.

While the animation might not have been able to support a fully animated sports match, I do want to praise the character designs. All the characters, including background ones, have unique designs. What’s most impressive is that they’re not only all easily recognizable, but all have particular charming points too, no matter the design. One of Chinatsu’s best friends has very short hair and towers above the boys, yet her strong and athletic body, gentle voice, and genuine smile still make her beautiful. Hina and Chinatsu, the two coveted girls, are also beautiful but in different ways that are never subjected to fanservice. It’s all the better because the story is told through Taiki’s eyes, making him the protagonist who sees their separate beauty for their different personalities, ambition, and grace.

The music is also especially beautiful, something that the editor cited as one of the best aspects of the show. I especially love how soft and gentle the scores are, never dramatizing the subtle feelings lying underneath the characters, but just moving enough to draw out the emotions, connecting them with the characters’ facial expressions. The anime adaptation does adapt the story to the medium, cutting lines of dialogue in favor of silent scenes where the music, the atmosphere, and the character’s moving expressions do all the talking that an otherwise still panel would require narration for.

Of the three main cast members, my favorite is Akari Kito for bringing vulnerability and sass to Hina. Her character is the gremlin, and if not careful, her voice acting can make Hina’s constant teasing more annoying than charming. Yet, Akari Kito toes that line perfectly and never crosses it through a quieter and deeper voice, a more deadpan delivery, and careful intonations. Her chemistry with Shoya Chiba, Taiki’s voice actor, is so natural that I’ve read many comments from Blue Box manga fans — who didn’t initially ship them originally — now can’t help but do so because of how well the two actors play off of each other’s dialogue to enhance their relationship. That isn’t to say that Reina Ueda, the voice behind Chinatsu, doesn’t have chemistry with Shoya Chiba — she does. Taiki and Chinatsu’s scenes are always layered with a type of peace that reminds me of ocean waves, showing how the two are not only comfortable around each other, but also quite compatible, and this is thanks to how natural the two voice actors sound when the characters talk to each other. I do, however, think it’s a testament specifically for Akari Kito’s skills to actually sway shippers from the rival once the readers hear her in the anime.

The anime has already announced the second season of Blue Box, and I’m happy to see that the story will continue. The last episode of the first season did end a little abruptly, and it left me empty, wondering if these three characters, whose lives are simultaneously simple yet complicated, will find any closure to their journey of adolescence. Now that I know their journeys will continue onscreen, I am filled with nothing but eagerness for the anime’s return.

Rating

Plot: 8 (Multiplier 3)

Characters: 8 (Multiplier 3)

Art/Animation: 7.5 (Multiplier 2)

Voice acting: 8

Soundtrack: 8

FINAL SCORE: 79