Blue Box

Episode 20

One of my favorite moments of any romance anime comes from the culture festival episode of Teasing Master Takagi-san's third season. Just like this week's Blue Box, it sees our hero and heroine playing the romantic leads of a fairy-tale play, though there is one key difference that highlights what I have been struggling with in recent episodes of Blue Box. For Nishikata and Takagi, their performance together serves as a perfect culmination of sorts to their years of flirtatious teasing and competition, because Nishikata's clumsy act of romantic heroism - he catches Takagi from falling and ends up sweeping her off her feet - is the first time that the boy has ever left Takagi well and truly speechless. Her smug grin is gone. The pretense of their teasing games is gone. For just one second, you can see how completely and utterly lovesick this girl is for this incredibly dumb boy, and you get it. The kid's got the rizz.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that Blue Box is doing something completely different compared to Takagi-san's antics. This show is supposed to be quiet, slow-paced, and introspective. I would argue that its signature storytelling trick is how well it can live in those brief and ambiguous moments that linger after a caught glance or a murmured gesture of affection. Hell, this episode right here is chock full of them, with the best probably being that quiet beat of Chinatsu simply sitting in thought after wishing Taiki luck in his sudden new role as the Prince to Hina's Snow White. Is she upset? Does she feel the stirrings of jealousy? Is Chinatsu even at the place yet where she would know how to recognize those feelings if they even are fluttering in her heart? We just can't say, yet. All we have is her contemplative silence, and then we move on.

For as good as the show is at setting such a painfully relatable mood of youthful uncertainty, I think Blue Box has finally hit the point of diminishing returns. After all of the tension and awkwardness of Taiki's fake-kiss-turned-accidental-almost-real-kiss, what does this episode show us that we didn't already know? Taiki doesn't know what to make of Hina's feelings for him…again. Hina is feeling frustrated by Taiki's inability to just see her as a romantic partner instead of a friend…again. Chinatsu is sitting there, stone-faced, and possibly beginning to recognize her own feelings for Taiki…again.

Trust me, I work with teenagers every day; I am fully aware that “neverending indecision spiked crippling lack of self-awareness” is basically the default state for anyone between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. It isn't bad storytelling, by any means, but we've been at it for over twenty weeks straight by now. Am I crazy for just wanting someone to lock these three into a giant walk-in closet and refuse to let them out until someone has confessed their feelings to and then subsequently smooched someone else? Come on, Kyo! You were basically born to do this exact job. One little game of high-stakes spin-the-bottle is all it is going to take to finally get Blue Box going on the next stage of its development.

(Also, I hate to be That Guy™, but the whole “Taiki kissed Hina” rumor is just silly. That isn't how confetti works, Blue Box. This is a small-ass theater, and the only way that any person could possibly be fooled by a single scrap of tissue paper is if they were, for some ungodly reason, watching the play six inches away from the stage with one eye closed. I get that the point is that kids will spread rumors on the tiniest provocation, but you can't just cheat the optical laws of cinematography, y'all.)

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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.