OP: “Same Blue” by Official HIGE DANdism

As with Dandadan, here’s another adaptation of a manga I’ve followed from the very first chapter. The similarities pretty much end there (though volume sales do run pretty close). Samu and I did  podcast episode on this one a while back, and as with Dandadan there was never any question Ao no Hako was going to get an anime. The manga has been a big success from the first volume (it has the added bonus of running in Weekly Shounen Jump) and that’s a guarantee of an anime if ever one existed.

That said, one of the things I quite like about Blue Box is that it doesn’t play like a WSJ romcom. Not that I don’t like a lot of WSJ series but they do tend to be pretty formulaic, especially where romcom is concerned. The tone here is quite different (maybe more Shounen Sunday) – a bit more restrained and bittersweet. Ao no Hako is a sports series too of course – one which balances the two genres about as evenly as it can be done. As a sports romance it naturally draws comparisons to Adachi Mitsuru. I can totally see it – I totally did see it, right away – but over time those prove more superficial than substantive.

Make no mistake, the strength of this series is the power couple at the heart of it. He’s Inomata Taiki (Chiba Shouya), a first-year high schooler working on making the badminton team. She’s Kano Chinatsu (Ueda Reina), a year ahead of him and the star of the basketball team. Taiki has loved her from afar ever since witnessing her powering through her tears at retiring from the middle school team by training in the gym. They have a connection – they’re the first two to arrive at that gym for self-practice every morning – but never talked much. In fact Taiki is quite certain Chinatsu has no idea what his name is.

One of the things I like about this pairing – and there are a lot – is that it’s their shared dedication and passion that initially brought them together. Taiki believes himself beneath Chinatsu’s worldview but she’s noticed him and the work he puts in. Sports fans will know the term “grinder”, and Taiki is a grinder. In badminton, and in romance. He has no shortcuts or power moves – all he can do is stick with it and work harder than anyone else. As it turns out there’s another thing linking the two (and soon very directly) – their moms were teammates on the Eimei High School (where they both now attend) basketball team. But as with Chinatsu’s awareness of him, Taiki knows nothing of that.

There are other figures introduced here. Kyou (Kobayashi Chikai) is Taiki’s best bud on the badminton team, a blunt-spoken lad. Chouno Hina (Kitou Akari) is his childhood friend. She’s a member of the rhythmic gymnastics team and enjoys taking the piss with Taiki (she’s also my biggest single problem with Blue Box, though you’ll have to listen to the spoiler section of the podcast if you want to know why). And there are others to come, too. But Chinatsu and Taiki are the reason to punch your ticket as far as I’m concerned. And a damn good one, too.

In contrast to Dandadan, Ao no Hako isn’t really a series which needs a ton of flash to work as an adaptation. Telecom Animation Film is not a top-end studio but they’re delivering just fine so far. The look of the series is extremely faithful to the manga, and director Yano Yuuichirou is extremely experienced and unlikely to make any glaring mistakes. We haven’t seen the animation tested on the sports side much – basketball less so, but badminton (if you haven’t figured it out, it’s a lot more popular in Japan than in most of the West) is a sport that can be pretty tough to animate. But the manga is a big enough seller to where the budget should be decent. Indeed, the overall look of the series is pretty, and the most lavish part is the OP by Wit.

What’s interesting to me is that the anime plays as more “Jump-y” than the manga. The Jump romcom stuff is highlighted a little more – things are a bit “broader” than in the manga. That doesn’t thrill me, but it’s not a huge deal. I don’t want to dig into specifics but it’ll be interesting to see how much of anime boost this series gets compared to stuff like Dandadan and Akanebanashi. While I do downplay the Adachi comparisons I think Ao no Hako is a series that requires a certain level of patience – the characters are kids, and they develop and change a lot but it takes time (and that’s not something the anime is likely to tweak much).

ED: “Teenage Blue” by Eve