Blue Box

Episode 17

Everyone, I must confess: I went into writing this review fully locked and loaded with the dumbest jokes you can imagine. In fairness, this episode is called “Of Course I Want to See It.” I can only resist the urge of my inner twelve-year-old for so long when such a perfect opportunity presents itself! Then, of course, the episode had to go and be ridiculously cute and well-directed, which made it seem like my incredibly clever jokes about all of the things the gals and guys in this show want to see would be in poor taste. Someday, though. Someday.

In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for yet another episode of Blue Box that expertly depicts the simmering emotions frothing just beneath the surface of every one of its characters with lovely animation, perfect pacing, and sharp writing. Oh, boo. What will a poor critic like me do?

In all seriousness, though, “Of Course I Want to See It” continues Blue Box's burning hot winning streak with another grade-A chapter of Taiki, Chinatsu, and Hina's love triangle. If I had anything to complain about, I guess it might be that I was expecting maybe a little more direct drama to result from Hina's blunt confession to Chinatsu at the end of the last episode. Then again, such straightforward development has never been this show's style, and we at least get another one of the show's signature moments of quietly powerful introspection when Chinatsu can only lean against that copying machine and stare in silence as she considers what future she might possibly have with our sweet idiot of a protagonist.

Like, yes, I know, Taiki's a naive kid and all, we've gone over that before. Still, I have to ask just what the heck he was thinking would happen when he offered to help Hina rehearse her lines for the upcoming play. You know, the romantic fairytale in which Hina plays Cinderella, who must be awoken by the kiss of her faithful prince? You can't even accuse Taiki of still being too oblivious of Hina's feelings to think she might get a little hot and bothered at the prospect of such intimate alone-time, because she was literally just reminding Taiki of her explicitly romantic feelings for him out loud, with her words, six inches from his face, minutes earlier.

I'm not complaining about this ridiculous juvenile drama, mind you. This is exactly the kind of incredibly-low-but-also-life-threatening-except-actually-still-pretty-low-stakes conflict that I live for when it's done well, and there isn't an anime around right now that does it better than Blue Box. We also got lots of interactions with Haryu and the other side characters, too, which is a helpful reminder that this is, in fact, kind of a sports anime, sometimes. The animation for Taiki's practice is especially fluid and crisp in these scenes, which pulls off the neat double trick of demonstrating his growth as an athlete while also illustrating how much his growth is directly correlative with how down bad he is at any given moment. Basically, this episode has everything you could look for in a Blue Box story, and I can only hope that it continues to deliver next time.

Rating:

Blue Box is currently streaming on Netflix.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.