![Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One Of Her Closest Friends”: Snow White And The Substitute Prince [Review]](https://thathashtagshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/blue-box-review-2-1280x640.png)
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” has a bit of a emergency happen with the local school’s Snow White play. Mostly due to the prince being a no-show. Fortunately, Taiki is there to save the day as a substitute prince! With some interesting complications for his love life considering that Hina is playing the role of the titular Snow White.
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends”: Details
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” is the eighth episode of the second cours (you can read my reviews of Ep. 13, Ep. 14, Ep. 15, Ep. 16, Ep. 17, Ep. 18, and Ep. 19 here) of this romantic comedy and sports anime, and is the 20th 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
Yūma Suzuki is the director and storyboarder behind Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends”. 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 second cours now features as the opening theme song “Saraba” (然らば) by Macaroni Empitsu. Meanwhile, “Contrast” (コントラスト) by TOMOO is the new ending theme song.
Voice Cast
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” 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. This episode also includes the voice of Kana Ichinose (English dub voice unknown) as Ayame Moriya, who will be an important character in the story.
Other notable voice roles in this episode include Asaki Yuikawa (Kira Buckland in English dub) as Niina Shimazaki, Yuma Uchida (Daman Mills in English dub) as Kengo Haryū, Haruka Shiraishi (Cristina Vee in English dub) as Karen Moriya, and Shogo Sakata (Jacob Hopkins in English dub) as Ryōsuke Nishida.
When and Where to Watch
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” made its airing and streaming debut (aka. simulcast) on February 20, 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. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends”: Synopsis
Alas, Blue Box is still an ongoing anime series. In fact, Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” only made its debut four days ago as of this writing. Thus, I will present to you Netflix’s official synopsis for this episode instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that synopsis below:
After a blissful time with Chinatsu, Nishida’s ominous fortune comes true! His classmate playing the prince can’t perform, so Taiki must take on the role.
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends”: The Good
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” definitely has its story be the most memorable thing about it, which is quite fitting for it. After all, it’s the episode that features the in-universe school play rendition of the “Snow White” fairy tale. Complete with some rather hilariously sensible takes on the classic fairy tale based on Hina’s feedback. No spoilers, but the changes to the fairy tale actually makes the romance between Snow White and the unnamed prince much more believable, in my honest opinion.
Not only that, but the way the events play out produces some surprising amount of drama. Again, no spoilers, but the situation is not played for comedy like what you would expect. Yes, there is a small amount of incidental comedy, but mostly, Kouji Miura plays the whole situation for drama. Mostly due to Taiki being angry at the results of the play due to a rather unfortunate incident that happens near the end. It really shows off just what kind of a person Taiki is, and how much he cares about everyone involved, including the play itself.
Oh, and of course, the animation from Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment continues to be of excellently high quality. Again, in particular, the animation team has done a remarkably good job with the lighting. It’s like each and every different environment has its own uniquely distinct lighting. So much so that you can pinpoint exactly where a character is based solely on that lighting. Oh, and the food in this episode gets a mention as well. The yakisoba topped with takoyaki looks absolutely scrumptious, which is not what you’d expect to see in a non-food-centric anime.
Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends”: The Bad
Alas, if you’re here only for the sports action, then Blue Box Ep. 20 “As One of Her Closest Friends” isn’t the episode for you. There is literally zero sports action in this episode. It’s all basically a drama centered around the school play. If you want action and you can’t wait for it, then might I suggest watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, and/or Zenshu? Those anime should have more than enough action to satisfy your inner action junkie until we return to our regularly scheduled sports action in Blue Box.
Tune back in to THS to find out more about Blue Box and other anime when we do.
