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.