‘Blue Box’ X Betterment

In the season 2 premiere of Netflix’s Blue Box, one of the senior boys’ basketball players asks our protagonist Taiki, “do you really have time for a relationship right now?” In the context of the show, this is a question with purely malicious intent. This teenage boy is one of Chinatsu’s many suitors, and he is willing to destroy Taiki’s confidence and sense of self through any means necessary. Taiki knows this. Taiki is more than aware of this. And Taiki still takes a second to seriously ponder the question. Does he really have time for a relationship right now?

Blue Box is a sports romance shonen where underclassmen badminton player Taiki develops a crush on his school’s star girls’ basketball player, Chinatsu. At the beginning of the series, Taiki has never actually talked to Chinatsu; however, they are both vaguely aware of each other’s existence because they both make it a point to go to the gym before school even begins to practice their respective sports. And then, of course, shenanigans happen such that Chinatsu moves in with Taiki’s family, but we’re gonna put that aside to keep focus on the central facet of Blue Box, and also arguably sports manga/anime generally: human connection as a means of betterment. The number one motivating force of Taiki’s crush on Chinatsu stems from Chinatsu’s dedication to her sport. Which is exceedingly funny because Chinatsu also has some sort of feelings for Taiki inspired by *his* stal…