Blue Box

Episode 24

You have to feel bad for Hina. She was doomed from the start. The minute she openly acknowledged being Taiki's friend during the period of his childhood (which includes right now, technically), the girl was straight-up cooked in this contest of love. Not for lack of trying, either. As Hina herself is well-aware of, she has approached this uphill battle with a smile on her face and a song in her heart (a song which, canonically, is sung by a chorus of tiny Chibi-Hinas). She has been open about her feelings, she has been more than fair with Taiki and his indecisiveness, and she has even gone out of her way to treat her rival Chinatsu with respect and kindness. In a lot of ways, Hina has proven herself to be the most mature, reasonable, and adult person in this cast when it comes to reckoning with matters of the heart. Unfortunately for Hina, though, she is also still a child, which is why she keeps putting herself in this hopeless position of heartbreak, which comes to its sad but completely predictable conclusion in this second-to-last episode of Blue Box's inaugural season.

I have to give the show kudos for doing such a damned fine job of walking us through Hina's slow-motion car-crash journey towards being rejected by the boy of her dreams. You absolutely understand why she is being so tenacious and strong-willed about this, even though we all know exactly how it's going to end. After all, this is exactly the kind of take-charge attitude you need to be successful in a solo sport like gymnastics. When you see the prize you're aiming for, you stop at nothing until you get it, especially when that prize is the sweet-but-naive goofball with a nice body and an even nicer smile who also makes you smile and feel like your best self every day. Would it be great if the guy would at least take Hina out on a date to see how things go, instead of being so obtuse and hesitant? Of course. Still, in Hina's mind, Chinatsu is like any other competitor on the field, which is to say that she is an opponent to be respected but eventually beaten. With Chinatsu barely even able to articulate that she might even like Taiki, Hina knows that it is only a matter of time before her love wins out.

The bad news for Hina is that the human heart is not so navigable a playing field as a high-school gym, and no amount of perfect bonfire scenery or heartfelt love confessing is going to give her the competitive edge she needs to win Taiki's heart. That game was already won and recorded a long time ago, and poor Hina probably shouldn't have even allowed herself to register. At least, that is how I imagine her must be feeling when Taiki finally, at long freaking last, tells her that he is choosing to pursue Chinatsu over even casually dating Hina.

To be fair to Taiki, this is the most mature and emotionally responsible choice he's made in regards to his relationship with Hina so far. Like he says, their current dynamic is simply not sustainable. It isn't fair to Hina for Taiki to keep spending time with her when she's operating under the false hope of someday becoming his girlfriend, and it isn't fair to Taiki to pursue Chinatsu with Hina constantly popping up to remind him of how easily he could break her heart. So, as much as it sucks to see Hina crumple up in tears and flee from the big dummy that she couldn't help but fall for, this is the best outcome for everyone involved. If only Taiki had figured feelings out sooner; he could have spared Hina and himself both a lot of sadness and regret.

That said, if I had one gripe to issue at this episode, it would have to be that, for all of Taiki's wishy-washiness, I don't think the show ever did a good-enough job of presenting Hina as a genuinely viable romantic option. Oh, sure, we got all of the usual rom-com tropes - the discovered secrets, the accidental almost-kisses, the tearful confession - but when Taiki talks about being “drawn” to Hina, I just don't buy it. The dude is so completely and utterly consumed by his adoration of Chinatsu that Hina only ever came across as a function of the plot, and a conflict for Taiki to overcome on his way to growing up enough to be the partner Chinatsu needs. That isn't enough to ruin the impact of this episode, completely, but it does draw attention to Blue Box's limitations as a story. For as wonderfully drawn and emotionally intelligent as it can be, it is still a rigidly formulaic young-adult romance at its core. That's why I could never really buy into Hina as anything other than “The Childhood Friend Who Gets Rejected by The Protagonist,” even during the portions of the show where I liked her a lot more than Chinatsu. It might have made for a more interesting story, for Taiki to pick Hina after all, but that kind of twist never would have sounded right in the story summary on the back of the DVD box.

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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 BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.