Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” starts off the second cours of the anime with some action. Sports action, to be precise. All starring neither Taiki nor Chinatsu for once, but Haryu instead. And with both Taiki and a certain Great Romantic Sage Karen cheering him on to boot.

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally”: Details

Blue Box cours 2 JP key art
Alas, no English version of this key art for now.

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” is the first episode of the second cours of this romantic comedy and sports anime, and is the 13th episode overall. You can read my reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, Ep. 7, Ep. 8, Ep. 9, Ep. 10, Ep. 11, and Ep. 12 of the first cours here.

Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Kouji Miura (I Love You, My Teacher). Telecom Animation Film (Tower of God, Shenmue: The Animation, Astro Note) and TMS Entertainment (Detective Conan, Lupin the Third, Anpanman) are both responsible for the anime, with them doing the animation, and production and planning, respectively. Netflix is the company licensing this anime for its global release.

Production Cast

Ryōsuke Azuma is the director behind Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally”, with Masayoshi Nishida as the storyboarder. As for Blue Box as a whole: Yūichirō Yano is the director behind the anime. Yūko Kakihara is the writer, Miho Tanino as the character designer, and with Takashi Ohmama responsible for composing the music.

Speaking of music: the opening theme song for Blue Box is “Same Blue” by Official Hige Dandism. Meanwhile, “Teenage Blue” (ティーンエイジブルー) by Eve is the ending theme song for the same.

Voice Cast

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” features the voices of Shōya Chiba (Zach Aguilar in English dub) as Taiki Inomata, Reina Ueda (Xanthe Huynh in English dub) as Chinatsu Kano, Chiaki Kobayashi (Caden Shaffer in English dub) as Kyo Kasahara, and Akari Kitō (Kayli Mills in English dub) as Hina Chōno. The other notable voice roles in this episode are Yuma Uchida (Daman Mills in English dub) as Kengo Haryū, Haruka Shiraishi (Cristina Vee in English dub) as Karen Moriya, and Yūki Ono (Christian La Monte in English dub) as Shōta Hyōdō.

When and Where to Watch

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” made its airing and streaming debut (aka. simulcast) on January 3, 2025. You can watch this episode of the anime only on Netflix. In fact, you can only watch this entire anime on Netflix due to it being an exclusive there.

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally”: Synopsis

You can still tell though that Hina is going to be the focus of this cours.

Alas, Blue Box’s second cours only recently began its run. In fact, Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” only made its debut 11 days ago as of this writing. Thus, I will present to you Netflix’s official synopsis for this cours finale episode instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that synopsis below:

Taiki worries about a potential misunderstanding after Chinatsu departs. At the badminton nationals, he learns more about Karen and Haryu’s relationship.

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally”: The Good

Blue Box Ep. 13 "I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally" screenshot 1
At least we have some exploration of the side cast’s romances.

For me, it’s still the story of Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” that is what sells me on this anime. Mostly because of the cute romantic comedy by Kouji Miura going on as Taiki tries to navigate his own feelings about Chinatsu in this episode. With the help of a helpfully nosy Karen, of course. No details, but she’s definitely rooting for Taiki and Chinatsu in this episode. A shipper on deck, you might say.

However, this episode doesn’t just have romcom in it. It also features a very heavy dose of sports action. All in the form of some very intense badminton between Kengo Haryū and Shōta Hyōdō. The whole match features some very fluid and highly detailed animation bringing life to the badminton match, right down to the sweat drops rolling down both player’s skin.

All thanks to Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment, of course. Their animators have once more produced a very good-looking episode in this second cours. Not just in the bits I described above either. The lighting continues to be jaw-droppingly gorgeous. It definitely looks as though some feature-length anime films have met their match.

Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally”: The Bad

Blue Box Ep. 13 "I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally" screenshot 2
This is only bad if you’re not a fan of sports action.

Alas, if you’re not really into sports action, then Blue Box Ep. 13 “I Want a Back-and-Forth Rally” isn’t really the episode for you. If you’re here for the romcom like me, then this episode might be a bit…boring to you. If that’s the case, then might I suggest watching Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF, Senpai is an Otokonoko, or My Deer Friend Nokotan to relax with some romance and/or comedy after this? At least, until we get back to our regularly scheduled romcom, that is.

Tune back in to THS to find out more about Blue Box and other anime when we do.

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