Blue Box

Episode 6

“Wish Me Luck” opens with a scene that exemplifies how Blue Box handles its teenage melodrama better than many of its contemporaries and competitors, to the point where the term "melodrama" almost feels like an inappropriate descriptor. Last week, when Hina discovered Taiki and Chinatsu living together, we ended on an emotional cliffhanger with Hina not knowing how to process this “bombshell” of new information. Most shows would use that narrative tension to fuel at least one episode of romantic misunderstandings, if not a full-on story arc, but Hina only needs a second to gather herself before she does the thing that pretty much any reasonable person would do in her situation: She asks the two of them what is up.

It's a small but significant gesture because it is yet more reassurance that Blue Box isn't going to be content with taking the easy way out. It is obvious to anyone who has ever seen an anime before that Hina is destined to become the childhood-friend-turned-new-crush that will form the third prong of the genre's prerequisite triangle. Blue Box is playing out that storyline as naturalistically as could be expected. She gets lost in her thoughts while puzzling out just how Taiki and Chinatsu can be so bad at this whole “being the protagonists of a love story” thing; she starts to fumble her moves during critical practice sessions for her ribbon dancing competition; she finds herself shedding a slight tear or two when she reminisces on how close she has always felt to Taiki, and what those feelings might be transforming into now that she's been confronted with this new intrusion upon the status quo of their relationship. By the end of the episode, we've developed just as much of an emotional investment in Hina's feelings and point of view as we have in Taiki's.

This could end up being a double-edged sword for Blue Box. On the one hand, all of this excellent character work makes for a wonderful episode (I especially appreciated how much the animators flex their muscles with Hina's dance scenes). On the other hand, we've now gotten so much more interiority for Hina compared to the actual leading lady of this story, which is maybe the one cheap trick that Blue Box has pulled. Of course, we'll be invested in Hina's feelings for Taiki after an episode like “Wish Me Luck.” Still, I can't help but feel like this screentime comes at the expense of giving Chinatsu more to do outside of being an egregiously pretty and kind object of affection and jealousy.

To Blue Box's credit, we do finally get some time in Chinatsu's head at the very end of the episode. It's not a lot since it boils down to Chinatsu continuing to feel bad about getting in the way of the feelings that she assumes Taiki has for Hina, but it reminds us that she is aware of the precarious emotional situation she has found herself dropped into. I'm not going to go so far as to say that the fate of the show depends on its ability to balance out the characterization or anything — let's be honest, this is a gorgeous and heartwarming coming-of-age story that would need to faceplant hard to lose any faith from its audience, at this point. Nevertheless, I hope our girl Chinatsu gets her due before long.

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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.