Blue Box Episode 2

This week we got another very cute and wholesome episode! It was good to see a bit more of Kyou and Hina this week! Right now Kyou is the only one who knows that Chinatsu is living with Taki’s family, mainly because he is Taki’s most trusted confidant who isn’t about to ensue gossips. Hina on the other-hand, is someone Taki doesn’t trust to keep the matter to herself and was really working hard to make sure she doesn’t catch them red-handed, especially since she now will be appearing in his neighbourhood more to visit a chiropractor. It’s only a matter of time though before she does, and I’m pretty sure she has enough tact not to go around gossiping about it.

But man, I love Hina! The way she stirs up good-intent chaos is really cute when she excited about stuff, especially in the love department. The way she just smoothly stepped in as a wing-woman to nonchalantly fetch information on whether Chinatsu has a crush or boyfriend at the moment was quite impressive. Though it was really funny how she freaked out for a moment that she messed up when Chinatsu said she wasn’t interested in a relationship at the moment. (Fortunately for Hina, Taki already suspected as much, so it didn’t gut him too badly.)

Kyou is so down to earth, I really enjoy his character so far of just getting straight to the point with Taki as a means to averse prolonging misunderstandings. As he said, Taki should’ve communicated to Chinatsu that it’d be better to keep her living at his place at the moment a secret. Funny enough, while Chinatsu did pick up on Taki’s urgency to pretend they are strangers to each other, she thought it was for a completely different reason. Chinatsu had thought Taki had acted like that because he liked Hina, and he didn’t want “the girl he liked” to know the two of them were now living together. In all fairness, if that had been the case, then Chinatsu certainly would’ve gotten bonus points for being quick on the up-take and being very considerate about it.

Thankfully they were able to resolved that misunderstanding and get on the same page. The purpose of keeping their living arrangements under wraps is a reasonable one: To prevent gossip being spread among their peers that would distract them from their training.

Speaking of training, we really saw the resolve from both Taki and Hina today. Taki’s determined to make it to Nationals not only because he wants to, but also because he wants to be able to measure up to Chinatsu to some degree. But he has a long and difficult road ahead, especially since he’s not even a first year in high-school yet. I feel they did a good job of really putting it in perspective of just how difficult the process it is, especially for someone who isn’t a prodigy player. First you need qualify in the starting lineup. Then qualify into the top 16 in the regional preliminaries, followed by the top two prefectural qualifiers to have a chance at Nationals. And not only that, but for better or for worse, he’ll have to defeat someone from his own lineup: Haryu, the second year who placed third in the previous prefectural qualifiers. But things look do seem to be looking up, as a teacher had pointed out to Taki that the coach had nothing but praises for him, and sees him as a potential player for the upcoming nationals preliminaries team That said, I am a bit nervous for him, especially if he’s told that only to fall short of everyone’s expectations, including his own.

Hina’s on the other hand, she’s considered a genius as it is, but like Chinatsu, she puts a whole lot of efforts in her training and her entire life routine revolves around making sure she’s in the tip-top condition to perform at her best. Would she like to eat taiyaki? Absolutely, but there’s too much sugar in it, and she needs to be mindful of her daily calorie intake and weight, because if she doesn’t, it can even result leading to an injury or slump. That’s that’s serious commitment, I gotta hand it to athletes for sticking to their disciplined diet!

With everyone so focused on their bigger goals, naturally love and relationships isn’t really something that’s on everyone’s minds. Taki’s probably the only one who really is getting caught up with his feelings going into overload, but also in part of it partially contributing to his drive to make it onto the starting line-up. For Chinatsu, (to nobody’s surprise), love isn’t on her agenda, so naturally she has no interest in getting a boyfriend at the moment. Her whole life right now revolves around basketball. But that may potentially change as she forms a very wholesome friendship with Taki. It was so sweet of her to give one of the matching good luck bracelets she had made for herself.

As for Hina, we know she’s very focused on her goal, so like Chinatsu, love doesn’t contribute to her drive, but we’ll have to wait and see how much of a crush actually takes up her mind, if she has one at all.  At the moment, it seems to be leaning towards the idea she may actually have a crush on Taki, but may not have necessarily realized it herself. Too early to say, it’s only episode 2.

And finally last point: Taki literally has no reason to freak out about seeing Haryu and Chinatsu hanging out together. He literally heard it from Chinatsu herself that she isn’t interested in having a boyfriend at the moment. So Don’t freak out Taki! If anything, Haryu and Chinatsu may in fact be classmates and are friends!!!!!