October has started warm and full of animes. And the truth is that series are released for all tastes, but if romantic animes are our thing, the one that already promised a lot from its first previews is ‘Blue Box’ (‘Ao no Hako’), which is already a hit in Shonen Jump magazine and now makes the leap to an animated series.
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Dreams, romance, and a lot of effort
‘Blue Box‘ adapts the manga Kouji Miurawhich already has 17 published volumes and has just premiered in Netflix its anime adaptation by TMS Entertainment. Every Thursday a new episode will be released on the platform, and we can expect that this first season will have a total of 25 chapters. But let’s get down to business!
Here we meet with Taiki Inomataa high school student who He plays on his high school’s men’s badminton team.. Every morning he goes to train very early, because it is the only time of the day when he meets the girl he is in love with: Chinatsu Kano, who plays on the women’s basketball team. And then, their personal situations get a little complicated.
The beginning of ‘Blue Box‘has left us with a very tender chapter, in which we see the tension between the two protagonists and we get to know them little by little. Especially their dreams and how hard they are trying to succeed in their respective sports. Especially Chinatsu, who is already a star in the making and one of the reasons why Taiki is crazy is because of how much and how hard he trains.
‘Blue Box‘ plays scary with romantic anime tropesalthough there are also some very refreshing twists, such as the fact that we are constantly living the perspective of the male protagonist… and Taiki is a hopeless romantic and a little cheesy, which adds a lot of spice to the matter.
This, unfortunately, also means that for now we don’t know much about Chinatsu beyond how he idealizes her, but surely (we hope) they are small details that will be resolved in the coming episodes.
Visually speaking, ‘Blue Box’ is also an absolute beauty. With hyperrealistic backgrounds reminiscent of the finishes of ‘Your Name’ and the films of Makoto Shinkaiand that also scares the tone of the story. Because at times It almost seems like we’ve slipped right into one of the director’s films.between the visual finishes and a beautiful and subtle animation that also gives a lot of detail to the expressiveness of the characters.
We have to see How does ‘Blue Box’ perform when it fully embraces its sportier side?because in addition to the romantic aspect ‘Blue Box’ is still a sports anime in which Taiki and Chinatsu give their all. We can hope that later it will focus on the badminton and basketballand we will have to see how this translates to the series… But for now, it has started wonderfully.
If we want a sports anime that is a little different, or just a series with a lot of feeling and one of those that They will leave you with a warm heart‘Blue Box’ is a perfect bet to follow every week this fall.
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