“Chinatsu Senpai”
Creative Staff:
Story: Kouji Miura
Translation: Christine Dashiell
Lettering: Mark McMurray
What They Say:
Taiki Inomata is on the boys’ badminton team at sports powerhouse Eimei Junior and Senior High. He’s in love with basketball player Chinatsu Kano, the older girl he trains alongside every morning in the gym. One Spring day, their relationship takes a sharp turn … And thus begins this brand-new series of love, sports and youth!
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Coming off a one-shot last year, Blue Box makes its serialized debut in Weekly Shonen Jump. As of late, there always has to be at least one romance title in Weekly Shonen Jump. Kouji Miura is the perfect person for the job with their prior experience writing romance in a high school in multiple manga. It’s their first rodeo with Weekly Shonen Jump so it’s going to be intriguing to see how they fare in this magazine.
Taiki Inomata is your typical teenager who wants to impress his crush, Chinatsu. All of his friends think that he is out of his league and stands no chance with Chinatsu. Chinatsu is one of the star athletes at their school and is adores by all while Taiki only plays badminton. But both of them are dedicated to their respective sports and spent most of their time honing their skills. He had dreams that one day he would wake up and Chinatsu would be the first person that he sees.
Taiki makes short progress in getting to know Chinatsu. Things are looking up for him as he begins to bond with Chinatsu. Their love for sports makes it easier for them to talk about daily life. Tears over past events become a source of strength for these two youth. These two resolve some past trauma and take tremendous steps forward. Just as life seems to be headed for clear waters, a wrench is thrown into their plans.
The plot twist at the end where Chinatsu ends up moving to live at Taiki’s house was an exceptional moment. There was subtle foreshadowing that this could have happened but it came out of the left field. Just when these two were getting to know each other, they were thrust into perilous lands. It’s intriguing how will Taiki navigate the muddy waters that is his home as Chinatsu makes it her home as well. His dream comes true in the most unusual situation. Any possible future romance is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The door is open to all sorts of widely crazy adventures.
In Summary:
Blue Box hooks you right in with the lovable pair of Taiki and Chinatsu. These characters fit in well with the victory, friendship, effort themes of Weekly Shonen Jump and have that added bonus of being in a potential romance. It seems unavoidable for a Shonen Jump romance title, but I hope that the harem aspect is kept to a limit with this series. These characters come off right off the bat seemingly as a perfect pair. It has a wonderful start but it’s going to need more hooks in the future to keep readers entertained.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: April 11, 2021