Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kouji Miura
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
A badminton guy falls for a basketball girl. Do these sports-crossed lovers have a chance?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Getting underway earlier this year in Japan as Ao no Hako as part of a number of new Weekly Shonen Jump titles, it’s from creature Kouji Miura who has had a handful of titles over the last few years since getting formally published back in 2015. I had randomly picked the title from the Shonen Jump site as something to try out based on the artwork and the sports involved with the nineteenth chapter and almost right after I worked on that, bam, a new chapter arrived. I ended up checking this out in a sweet period where three chapters are hitting within what seems like a two-week period or so and that makes it even easier to get acquainted with the title.
With this installment, it’s heavy on the Chinatsu side of things as we see the latest game that her team is playing. They’re doing well and they do win, but it’s the kind of win that frustrates Chinatsu because she feels she can do better, be better, and support the team better. What makes it really frustrating for her, though she keeps it from her expressions, is hearing the way the upcoming opposition is talking about her when she overhears them doing their video recon review. Nagisa actually takes it pretty hard and loudly, though not to the other team, and we see how most of Chinatsu’s team feels the same way and being angry or frustrated for Chinatsu because they know how dedicated she is to this team. The whole living with a relative thing often isn’t given more than a customary nod when used, but here they talk about the impact it has since she’s left her immediate family and is in this situation solely to play for this team and school. And that has them rally to her.
For Taiki, he’s still struggling against Haryu in his matches and really wants a win against him before their games really start. To his surprise, Chinatsu and the basketball team have come back for practice after their game and that’s when he starts to hear the girls talk about Chinatsu and what happened, which gets him to eavesdrop. Which has her spying on him, which is cute, as she prods him about it just right. But it leads to a good conversation between the two because she says that it’s not true that it doesn’t get to her, but that she takes those feelings and turns it into her desire to win and win better for the team. That kind of honesty is nicely played here and makes Chinatsu an even more interesting character but also an inspiring on as it gets Taiki to channel his frustration with losing to Haryu in a good way because it’s not just about beating him, but becoming a better player for the team and school.
In Summary:
I’m quite enjoying Blue Box a lot and I’m curious to see how it’ll go. It has some more mature elements to the relationship dynamic than I expected and it’s blending it with the sports aspect really well. Taiki’s taking the back seat for this episode and even when he’s there he’s learning from Chinatsu. With her taking the lead, we get some fun action sequences at the start and showing her she and her team deal with the harder side of the game in the form of whispers, recon, and just general gossip. Miura’s artwork continues to be pretty nicely done, though I think the actual basketball side could show some improvement if we get more sequences to help get more of it out there, but overall, it’s great where it counts as everyone has an appealing design that feels “real world” and authentic, making it easy to connect with.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: September 12th, 2021
