Full-fledged current preliminaries

Key Takeaways

• Chinatsu shows his competitive side when he hears Kagohara High School talking bad about him.
• Taiki's badminton skills have improved and he is now more comfortable around Chinatsu.
• Hina makes playful moves toward Taiki, creating romantic tension between the three.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Blue Box, Episode 7, “Can I Have One?”, now streaming on Netflix.

blue box Episode 7, “Can I have one?” Aimei High School's various sports teams are shown preparing for and participating in their respective preliminaries. Some of the action scenes look different than usual, probably because parts of Episode 7 were outsourced to Studio Massket. Some high-speed moving scenes made some characters, especially Chinatsu, look like different people. It's a bit different from Telecom Animation Film's usual work, but it's not terrible in and of itself, and it doesn't detract from the episode as a whole.

Taiki now feels more casual when talking to Chinatsu and no longer acts shy or anxious around her. When he spots Chinatsu on his way home, he pretends not to know where she lives and engages in playful role play by helping her carry one of her bags home. There's a noticeable difference in how the two interact now compared to the beginning of the series, so it's nice to see the progress between them.

Chinatsu's development

The Aymei High School girls basketball team won its preliminary game.

blue boxIn episode 6, 'Good Luck', Hina passed the rhythmic gymnastics prefectural preliminaries, and now it's Chinatsu's turn to advance to the basketball prefectural preliminaries. They only showed a few seconds of the current preliminaries, with Chinachu's team winning, but the real drama came after the match. Chinatsu and one of her teammates overheard Kagohara High, their rival from last year, discussing Eimei High's performance in the preliminaries. They specifically mentioned Chinatsu, saying her performance wasn't much better than last year and they wouldn't have a problem keeping her.

Later, Taiki found out about the discussion and told Chinatsu not to bother, but she disagreed. Chinatsu basically said after winning the match that he would take the criticism and shove it in his face. This is my first time blue box It really showed Chinatsu's aggressive side, which is nice because unlike Hina, she can sometimes come across as a flat character since we haven't gotten a full episode from her perspective yet. Hopefully, blue box Expanding further on Chinatsu's hot and crazy side.

“No, I won’t worry about it! If I care, I will win. If I do well in the Kagohara match and win… I will never say that again.” -Chinatsu's reaction to Taiki telling him not to pay attention to what others say.

Tyche forward

In badminton? confident. Are you in love? Uh… a little bit

Although the badminton preliminaries have not yet been played, Taiki is showing remarkable improvement in his badminton skills. For the first time, Taiki actually beat Haryu in a single set. Of course, we were practicing and the coach advised us not to get tired before the preliminaries, so the match itself was stopped, but it's still good progress. Now viewers will have to wait for the next episode to see if the improvements are enough to get past the preliminaries.

As for his progress with Chinatsu, as mentioned above, he has become more comfortable around her since the aquarium date in episode 5. He also took Chinatsu on a quick trip to a shrine he frequented to pray for the upcoming match. , a quiet moment for them.

But not everything has progressed. Because at the end of the episode, Taiki talks to Kyo about his plans with Chinatsu about being able to participate in the Inter-High competition. He explained that even if he could get into Inter High, he doesn't feel like he has the confidence to officially ask Chinatsu out on a date, and that it would be awkward for the two of them to continue living in the same house if he got dumped. This revelation is a bit confusing and feels like a step backwards considering that being on Chinatsu's level and asking her out was one of Taiki's main motivations for making it to nationals.

Hina Jeonjin

For fried chicken and love

As mentioned earlier, Hina has already won the prefectural preliminaries. blue boxBecause it is a previous episode of , she does not appear much in episode 7. She actually appears at the end as part of a group of girls who discover Taiki and his group hanging out in front of a convenience store.

The episode title comes from how Hina nudges Taiki to grab a piece of karaage and munch on it right in front of Chinatsu. If you think about it, in the last episode this Hina was lost and depressed, and now she is very close to Taiki. Now her friendly teasing contains a hint of jealousy-inducing temptation.

After Hina leaves, Chinatsu approaches Taiki and asks, “Can I have one?”, and even tells him that Hina made him jealous. Perhaps she would say she was just joking. But some jokes are half-intentioned. This scene may be the first sign that a basketball fan girl likes a badminton fanboy.

Blue Box is now available to stream on Netflix. The release date for Blue Box Episode 8 is set for November 21, 2024 at 8:30 AM PT.