Kara Dennison
November 22, 2023 
It’s official: Blue Box is getting an anime! Kouji Miura’s sports manga is a big hit in Shonen Jump, so it’s kind of a no-brainer that it’s getting animated. But what makes it special? We’ve been catching up to the Sunday mainstay, and we’re here to tell you it’s absolutely worth your time.
Even if you’re not big into sports manga or anime, give this sweet series a bit of your time! Here’s why:
Yes, there’s sports, but…
Blue Box spends a whole lot of time on high school sports: three of them, to be exact! We hear from badminton, basketball, and rhythmic gymnastics clubs over the course of this series. While there will occasionally be focus on one club over another, more often than not this aspect is more about the overall high school sports experience.
We zoom in on Christmas Even training, shared morning warm-ups in the gym (more on that later), and inter-team field trips. So even if you don’t know anything about the sports in play, you won’t lose out on the story. Besides… all these teen athletes have one thing in common.
… it’s mainly about drive and inspiration.
Every good sports manga has a goal, and Blue Box is no exception. For our hero Taiki and heroine Chinatsu, it’s their respective national competitions. Chinatsu, Taiki’s crush, is a year older than him. So if they want to represent their school together, they only have a few chances to do so.
Fortunately, the two can motivate each other regularly—because as the manga opens, they end up living together! The pair’s moms are old friends, so Chinatsu is living with Taiki’s family to focus on school and sports when her parents move. This makes Taiki’s feelings even more confused, but it also allows them to be mutually motivational toward their goals. And it feeds into the centerpiece of the series.
There’s lots of love geometry.
Blue Box does an amazing job of balancing its sports action with its relationship drama. As Taiki works up the courage to confess to Chinatsu, his old friend Hina catches feelings, too. Chinatsu seems focused on basketball, but plenty of guys are focused on her. And as our core duo contend with their feelings for each other, we also see the cast at large examine what separates “love” from “attraction.”
It’s a surprisingly mature take on relationships, in between everyone’s fear of admitting how they feel. And while not every story has a happy ending, it’s refreshing to see people coming to terms with their unreciprocated (or reciprocated) feelings in a good way. Watching this play out in the anime is going to be amazing.
