The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Blue Box

What's It About? 

Taiki Inomata is on the boys' badminton team at sports powerhouse Eimei Junior and Senior High. He's in love with basketball player Chinatsu Kano, the older girl he trains alongside every morning in the gym. One Spring day, their relationship takes a sharp turn.

Blue Box has story and art by Kōji Miura, with English translation by Christine Dashiell and lettering by Mark McMurray, and Viz will release its first volume both digitally and physically on November 1.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I think the best way to describe Blue Box is “a gentle romance.” It hits many of the familiar story beats of a high school-set romance manga, from the sports angle to the fact that the protagonist suddenly finds himself living with his crush, but it handles them quietly and calmly, and most of Taiki's angst is kept firmly internal. He works things out solely on the badminton court, and if his two best friends know that he's got a serious crush on Chinatsu, a girl a year older than him who plays on the basketball team, most of their ribbing is on the understated side. It feels like they're both really rooting for him, because they know that despite his daydreams, he's not really confident in himself, at least not when it comes to securing Chinatsu's affections.

He probably can be, though, because by the end of the volume their crushes are looking pretty darn mutual. That we so rarely get inside Chinatsu's head, though, is one of the appealing things about this volume, because it allows us to see that Taiki's basically just a good person trying his best not to make things weird, even if his teenage boy social skills aren't necessarily making that easy on him. Seen through his eyes, Chinatsu's the cool older girl who is largely unphased by anything, and if we can make the guess that he's really making that up about her, it's a good statement of how much he views her as the unattainable Other, no matter how desperately he wants to get closer to her. That she's still not completely inscrutable keeps the story nicely human, because none of this is easy for her, either – the poor kid decided to stay back in Japan while her family moved overseas for work and has suddenly found herself living with her mother's old teammate (Taiki's mom), and that has to have shaken her up a bit too – it's just that Taiki can't see it.

There's also a nice blend of romance plot and sports plot here, and if both are somewhat generic, well, they're enjoyably so. The art is at its best when Taiki's playing badminton, but body language and facial expressions are pretty well done all around, and the layouts are exceptionally easy to read. This hits a nice balance between two genres and manages to avoid a lot of obnoxious romance pitfalls, so if you're in the mood for something that's just nice, this is a good fit.

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Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

I was ready for Blue Box to be a sports story, but to my surprise it's more of a high-school romance. It's interesting that Taiki and Chinatsu play different sports, but it lends a creative angle to their dynamic: they both admire each other's general ability and dedication. Right off the bat, the story suffers from mostly keeping Chinatsu a cypher: we know how Taiki feels about her, for sure, but there's almost nothing from Chinatsu's side. With everything being mostly from Taiki's perspective, it basically leaves her as more of an object than a character. Does Chinatsu like Taiki? Are they friends? Or is she just being nice? For all the talk that Chinatsu is a superlative basketball player, we don't even get to see that much from her. To be fair, we don't see much of Taiki's badminton playing either, but we can still see enough to get the impression that he's improving.

The art is clean and functional, succeeding at bringing the dynamism of the sports matches to life. The domestic scenes with Chinatsu and Taiki living at home together are appropriately cozy, but we almost don't get enough of them: so much of these stories take place at the school gymnasium.

This is a fine start to a romance, and it's definitely an enjoyable read, but Blue Box is a bit unbalanced. Worth a look, but don't go out of your way for it.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

There aren't many manga that combine the momentum of a sports series with the low-key tension that you would find in a more typical slice-of-life romance, but Blue Box manages to ride that line pretty effectively for its first volume. Focusing on a young boy who yearns to get closer to his upperclassmen, what follows is a story of pride, determination and misunderstandings. There are far from novel story elements, but there is an earnestness to Blue Box that makes these elements feel less gimmicky than I thought they would. Kind of like how the emotions are portrayed in the series, the story wears its heart on its sleeve, and it's commendable that I find myself more enamored about how everybody really feels rather than frustrated about the story taking its time getting from point A to point B. The artwork is generally simple, but it can be surprisingly detailed for establishing action shots, and the sports-centric sections, as sparse as they are, are conveyed with the necessary depth and speed. There are some leaps of logic that are clearly there for the sake of setup, even if they could've argualy been avoided. But despite one or two rough edges, this is an effectively smooth ride that's very easy to pick up and finish with a smile.