I’ve made no false claims to be a neutral on Hina. You may disagree with my take on her (it ain’t positive) but I’ve never been anything less that totally honest about it. I find her in a word, annoying. In many more words irritating, selfish, and cliched. Unfortunately all of the aspects of Blue Box which don’t work are centered around her. And just as unfortunately she’s a major player, especially around this point in the story. As a result this passage of the series is pretty much a slog for me.
That leaves me on the horns of a dilemma about how to cover these arcs. My instinct tells me that when we get an episode like this, which is pretty much all Hina all the time, the best course is to largely skim it. When I say she’s at the heart of the series’ missteps I mainly mean she indulges Miura Kouji’s obvious love of romcom tropes. Let’s crank up the triangle and the long-suffering osananajimi routine, and without a trace of irony. Love triangles can be very effective when all three corners are winning characters. And then we have Ao no Hako.
What especially annoys me about Hina, apart from that she’s a walking cliche, is that she’s ridiculously self-absorbed. Which, to Miura’s credit, he has Taiki point out (albeit in a non-pejorative way) this week. Her deal is basically that she wants to treat Taiki like a pet dog she’s mildly fond of. And have him be standing by and ready if she decides he’s worth something more. And she’s all weepy when she realizes he’s not just waiting around to see whether she decides to do more than mock him and occasionally pat his head. I don’t feel sorry for Hina she wallows in self-pity about how unfair Chinatsu is as an opponent because Chinatsu actually treats people decently and doesn’t spend all her time worrying about herself. Have an issue with that? Be a better person.
But that is what it is. Characters like Hina are staples of shounen romcom and almost universally loved by fans for it. Most of the time it matters naught for me because I don’t follow those series but this one is better in so many ways, and I do follow it. So slog it is, get through these sorts of episodes and know there’s brighter days ahead. When we like a series sometimes we just have to accept it warts and all, and there’s no amount of Compound W that will exempt Ao no Hako from that.
EthelTheFrog
November 3, 2024 at 1:12 amI don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I once had a friendship with a girl back in high school that looked almost identical to Taiki and Hina’s, but quite a bit of her rings true for me even through all the tropes.
I think your “pet dog” comment misses the mark a bit. In that 12-15 age range, it’s common (at least in my experience) for a boy and a girl to have the kind of friendship we see here. It’s teasing, lively, and dynamic in a way same-sex friendships aren’t, but neither person has matured enough to really see the girl as a woman/guy as a man (which is typically a death knell for the friendship, at least in that incarnation). Chinatsu has basically already moved quite a bit of the way from girl-hood to woman-hood despite her lack of romantic experience, Hina is only just realizing that the status quo isn’t going to hold, and Taiki is somewhere between them: trying to hold onto the friendship with Hina but taking inexorable steps toward manhood with Chinatsu as motivation. We see Hina genuinely only now discovering that she has feelings for Taiki, that she’s effectively already lost the match (being behind Taiki metaphorically, with Chinatsu in front), and that she has no good way of dealing with any of that. When she panics, it’s way easier to just fall back on the “oh, we’re just friends; just like old times” routine, but I suspect that doing so is going to tear her up inside until she ends up venting her feelings onto Taiki in an ungraceful manner.
I’m not arguing that this is the most profound relationship ever depicted, and I wonder if the author was even trying to make this a believable triangle. Forgetting the rather silly “badminton/gymnastics fanboy” dualism thing, it’s obvious from the outside that Taiki and Chinatsu are a better pair (although Chinatsu being pessimistic there at the end is totally believable). Maybe it’s more like a “let’s see how this relatively immature overachieving girl deals with being in over her head and failing at something in which she’s inexperienced” kind of a thing.
ruicarlov
November 4, 2024 at 9:06 amI second the above opinion. At least so far, I’ve found Hina to be an interesting and compelling character. She genuinely wanted to push Taiki and Chinatsu together because she wasn’t aware of her own budding feelings, even though an “outsider looking in” probably could the route it could take. She never put Taiki on hold, she just had that kind of teasing friendship with him. Make no mistake, I do love the chemistry between the leads, but I haven’t found Hina’s presence annoying at all.
Bob
November 5, 2024 at 1:56 amWhat a bafflingly negative take on Hina that’s completely unsupported by the source.
Nadavu
November 10, 2024 at 6:48 amThe comments are rebelling 😀
I don’t love Hina, but I don’t find her so bad, and as a character I find her more interesting than Chinatsu who I feel is quite blend.
Joe G
November 12, 2024 at 3:57 amI highly disagree with this review. I love Hina and her character has a lot more depth and interesting layer than a lot of other “loosing heroine” in the love triangle. I feel a lot more sympathetic towards her than other childhood friend and her internal conflict feels more real than tropey. So yeah, bad take all around on a well-liked character.
ahnold11
December 6, 2024 at 2:42 pmI get the Hina digs, she does seem to fit that archetype, if not broadly. We all have our pet peeves and sensitivities about different character types. I was more annoyed less at the character, and more at the obvious intention towards a triangle. And especially in a show like this, where the leads don’t spend a lot of time actually sharing their thoughts with each other, adding in an additional love interest just increases the moaning.
But after this episode, I think this show is “clicking” for me. There are a LOT of internal monologues. These characters don’t actually spend that much time talking out loud, and certainly not their most interesting or honest thoughts. That’s usually enough to put me off. But after this episode I think I’ve finally come around.
The core of the show now seems to be character growth, development and self realization. I thought it’d be more their competitive sports enabling them to bridge relationships, but it seems to be more than that. Yes there is the romance, but self discovery seems to be the primary focus (at least so far). Hina is a good example. The show suggests her as the best friend archetype, waiting to “interfere” with the MC potential romance. But they seem to do an honest job portraying her as actually rooting for her friend. Which was confusing to me at first, until I realized that she herself doesn’t know what she wants, or rather who she is. It seems like she was on a journey of discovering her own feelings, and not simply “do I *like* this person”, but more, how am I feeling, why am I feeling, what does it say about me and who I want to be. Honestly I got more from it than I was expecting.
Competing themselves, seeing how others do it different, and how they react to it (eg. become inspired themselves) seems to be the journey these characters are on. And I think I can be onboard with that. All of them so far seem to be able to break out of the cliche mode and be thoughtful and introspective in satisfying ways. We’ve seen several instances of personal growth which honestly is refreshing/inspiring.
So for me the romance is taking a back seat, and I’m curious to see how these young adolescents evolve, and how their competitive sports plays into that journey. Next stop should then be China Sempai, I’ll be curious to see what sort of character development and growth she has, as so far we’ve had way less of her inner monologue, at least when it’s not about potential relationship interactions.
I’m curious to see where this goes (I won’t spoil myself and look up the manga, yet..)