Blue Box

Episode 8

Going into “Score!”, I didn't expect Taiki to make it to nationals. It would have felt too easy, narratively, for one; the show hasn't set up any rivals for the character to take on, nor has it let any time focusing on his skills as an athlete overshadow the more interpersonal aspects of his story. Besides, for all of Taiki and Chinatsu's passion for their sports, this isn't a “sports anime” story. It's much more a love story about growing up which just so happens to star two characters who like to play badminton and basketball.

Taiki's loss is the only outcome that makes sense. As he and the audience are so forcefully reminded when Taiki unceremoniously loses both of his qualifying rounds, it doesn't matter how hard you work or how much time you spend training. Sometimes — hell, most of the time — people will be better than you. Faster. Stronger. More naturally gifted. After all, there can only be one champion. At the end of the season, everyone else is left standing in the shadow of the winner on the podium. Taiki is a first-year high school student, and he shouldn't be surprised that he still has a long way to go before he can fight his way closer to the top of the ranks. Still, it will hurt when your first-ever shot at a championship competition goes by in a flash.

As always, Blue Box excels in putting us inside Taiki's head during both the highs and lows of this disappointing first season. The initial game against Hyodo and Shuji is decent. The show ups the intensity of the sports action just enough for us to be lulled into thinking that Taiki and Haryu genuinely have a shot. That makes it such a gut punch for Taiki's second match to be such a washout that we don't even see it play out. We're just left like Taiki, standing somewhat dumbfounded in the aftermath of the loss, having to accept that all of those championship dreams will remain nothing more than flights of fancy for at least another year. The episode punctuates the melancholy conclusion with Hina arriving only a little behind schedule, shocked to realize that she missed Taiki's last shot to play.

Again, I can't help but wish we got more Chinatsu in this episode, especially because what we see of her is so darned cute. The bit at the beginning where she stops Taiki's heart with her calisthenics routine is borderline illegal levels of adorable, and y'all fellas out there better know to appreciate a girl who will leave you encouraging notes in your journal when you fall asleep at your desk from exhaustion. I speak from personal experience, here.

At least Chinatsu's absence in this episode makes more sense thematically than her lack of presence has done in the past. The whole point of this episode is that Taiki is being reminded of how far out of his league Chinatsu is, specifically in the athletic sense. It leads to that perfect and heartbreaking final sequence, where Taiki is overcome by his embarrassment and frustration, even as he is genuinely happy for Chinatsu qualifying for her next round of playoffs with seeming ease. Watching him run off into the sunset because he can't even bear to confront her or his mother may be Blue Box at its most melodramatic, but you know what? Taiki has earned himself a big, dramatic cry out in the painterly splendor of the setting sun. The kid's just learned a shitty life lesson. A necessary one, no doubt, but that doesn't make it suck any less.

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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.