Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, our weekly check in on Viz’s various Shonen Jump series. Viz has recently changed their release format, but our format will mostly remain the same. We will still review the newest chapters of one title a week, now with even more options at our disposal. The big change for our readers is that, even without a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read these most recent chapters for free at Viz.com or using their app.
This week, Brian checks in with “Blue Box.” If you have thoughts on this or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
Blue Box Chapter 3
Written and Illustrated by Kouji Miura
Translated by Christine Dashiell
Lettered by Mark McCurry
Reviewed by Brian Salvatore
“Blue Box” is ostensibly a sports manga, but the respective sports – badminton and basketball – are really just set dressing for what is a story about awkward teenagers put in an awkward situation. The situation is straight out of teen fantasy stories of all stripes: somehow, my crush is living with my family! The trope is over done at this point, but where “Blue Box” succeeds is that, while it is a central piece of the story, it doesn’t fall into the normal pitfalls of these types of stories. There are some close, awkward moments between Chinatsu and Taiki, but they don’t fall into the ‘OH MY GOD MY CRUSH IN A BATH TOWEL’ type moments that usually populate stories like this.
Chapter 3 is built around Taiki trying to keep the fact that Chinatsu is living with him a secret, for fear of what rumors will spread if people find out. This seems like typical high school thinking, where anything outside of the most normal, ordinary lives are feared. Taiki is presented as both an insensitive fool and also an understandable teenage boy. He is looking out for Chinatsu and also himself, but doesn’t discuss this with her, and so he hurts her feelings by ignoring her.
The whole scenario is illustrated in a way that allows the humor of the situation – as seen in the image above – to play out, while still showing the pain behind Chinatsu’s eyes and the absolute horror and shame behind Taiki’s. These characters aren’t broad stereotypes, and Kouji Miura’s art allows them to, like real teenagers, jump between emotions at rocket speed. There are also some tender moments between the two new friends, which seem pretty subdued for these types of stories. That’s to say that, while Taiki is a horny teenage boy, he’s allowed to be other things, too. His dedication to badminton, which he’s sort of using as a way to work through his sexual tensions, seems genuine despite the Chinatsu situation.
This chapter also introduces the prospect of a love triangle, with Hina being introduced as a potential rival for Taiki’s affections, though that is more on her side (and suspected by Chinatsu) than it is from Taiki himself. This does sort of feel like a situation where, perhaps, he will try to ‘forget’ his feelings for Chinatsu by focusing on Hina, but that, too, is a bit played out.
Where this manga will fail or succeed is in how Miura continues to thread the needle between stereotypical teenage tropes and real human emotion. The scene that ends this chapter feels pretty real and understated, and was one of the best sequences of the series thus far. If the work can continue in that vein, this will be a very successful and subtle story. If it veers too far in the other direction, it will fail to stand out among the crowd of Shonen Jump stories.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – A strong installment in the “Blue Box” story, but one that highlights the potential pitfalls for the manga.
