Blue Box

Episode 19

Ah, the cultural festival. Blue Box has made no secret in the past of its desire to earnestly engage with just about every coming-of-age romance trope in the book; we've got the young kid whose crush happens to come to live with him, the childhood friend who is fiercely fighting for our protagonist's attention, and even the “Oh no, a random turn of the weather means that the main guy and girl have to spend the night together all alone!” adventure. This week's episode of Blue Box is no different, as we are dealing with the time-honored tradition of the “Guy gets put in a flagrantly romantic situation with a girl because of convenient cultural festival shenanigans!” story. I'm not complaining, though, since Blue Box has consistently done a good job of playing out those tropes with style and tenderness.

If I had to complain about anything, it's that, nineteen episodes in, I'm starting to feel the effects of this show's…let's call it “measured” pace. I know that I've talked about being impressed by how much relative progress we've made in recent episodes so far as developing Taiki, Chinatsu, and Hina's respective journeys on this long and winding path towards true (probably?) love. That said, I'm not as young as I was when I could lose myself in two dozen episodes of kids ineffectually pining and wrestling with generally mild and easily resolved personal conflicts. Heck, being a high school teacher puts me at a relative disadvantage because I have to watch a lot of this non-drama unfold from the sidelines, like, every day of my life. Blue Box at least has the benefit of being gorgeously animated and populated with a cast of the most polite young lovebirds that ever did walk the face of this Earth, but the point stands: I'm going to need these dorks to start making out soon. We could at least get a committed holding of hands, right? That can't be too much to ask, can it?

In Blue Box's case, it very well might be. I suppose I'll have to settle for another week of furtive glances, half-heard whispers, apprehensive pauses, and all of the other signposts of awkward teenage romance that is only just starting to simmer. To be clear, it's nice, awkward teenage romance. I like seeing the kids scramble to get their festival activities; Chinatsu makes for a cute maid; I was waiting for the show to stick Taiki on-stage as the substitute prince, too, and the episode didn't disappoint me (though we'll have to wait another week to see it all go down). My favorite vignette has to be Chinatsu and Taiki's trip to the band performance. Its atmosphere is pretty much immaculate. The kids are both trying (and failing) to figure out how they're supposed to treat each other. The music is just good enough to make the whole scene come together while sounding appropriately amateurish for a local band that probably performs most of its music out of a storage unit or a spare bedroom.

This is a solid episode of Blue Box, even if it is starting to show some of the wear-and-tear of a traditional romance story that is only nineteen weeks into a story that has a long way left to go. Soon, you might hear me worrying about how much longer this anime will be able to hold my interest without someone making a goddamned move. For now, though, I'm content to enjoy the comfy vibes.

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.