As I’ve noted, Blue Box has an almost mythical ability with annoying characters. They pop up like poisonous mushrooms and you can’t avoid them even if you want to – they’re too integrated with the plot. Some are worse than others but the two currently engaged in befouling the narrative are among the more pervasive. That I manage to maintain my interest and affection for the series (and did pretty much all the way to the end) is testament to how good the rest of it can be, even if somewhat inconsistently.

Let’s be clear, Yumeka hauling off and hitting Taiki is pretty much nutjob behavior. Supremely entitled at the very least. Was he crossing a line with his pointed criticism of her? Probably – but when you skip straight to battery you pretty much kill any argument for empathy. As if Yumeka isn’t being even more presumptuous about Chi than Taiki is with her – “she can’t have a social life” my ass. Yumeka revealing that she was so abusive at Shibuya Sky because she was angry about Chinatsu being with a guy (she was too, mind you) makes me dislike her more, not less.

Then we have Matsuoka, who’s just as big a waste of oxygen as you could want. A total plot device to be sure, but an annoying as hell one to boot. When the basketball coach comes offering a ticket for the girls’ first tournament game, Taiki immediately stakes a vociferous claim. “Not for me, but for a friend” he says – you can draw your own conclusions about what that means. Naturally Matsuoka feels it’s his duty to piss in the bath water, declaring that he should have the ticket himself as Taiki will be practicing anyway.

I wholeheartedly approve of Taiki not even giving lip service to the whole “sempai respect” thing and fully standing up to this douchebag at every turn. Taiki’s a much better man than Matsuoka and there’s absolutely no reason he should ever defer to him, in anything. When Matsuoka proposes a contest obviously biased in favor of him – a shuttle run – Taiki refuses to back down. Even setting aside the advantage being a hooper gives him, a third-year challenging a first-year in a contest like this inherently unfair anyway. Taiki would be smarter to refuse I suppose, but he’s doing very well for himself here.

Which one is the child here – the guy who suggests raising the stakes and making the run a bet for “rights” to Natsu, or the one who abjectly refuses to consider it? As this contest is playing out, coincidence is reigning supreme again and Chi is about to run into Yumeka outside the dental clinic. I mean, it’s not like Yumeka is seeking out these chance meetings but she certainly makes an ass of herself at every one of them. The first thing Chinatsu notices is that Yumeka’s last name is different – her parents got divorced, she tells her. Another detail that makes zero different in how Yumeka’s aberrant behavior should be viewed.

For someone who quit on the sport – whatever the reasons – to lash out at Chi because she dares to think about things besides basketball is incredibly hypocritical. Yumeka talked herself into hating Chinatsu for being a version of herself that never actually existed, and now she has to face the fact that there was always more to Chi (like talent) than just hard work. That makes Yumeka feel even worse about herself, and that in turn makes her even angrier. A lesser person than Chinatsu would surely write this relationship off, but she is who she is. Admirable in its way, but we as reader-viewers are the ones who have to suffer the consequences.