Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” definitely puts Taiki into the spotlight here. Yes, Chinatsu is still an integral part of the story. However, it feels like now the spotlight is swinging onto badmindton rather than basketball.

Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins”: Details

Blue Box NA key art.
Apparently, Mr. Badminton is the star of this episode.

Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” is the fourth episode (you can read my reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, and Ep. 3 here) of the very first season of this romantic comedy and sports anime. 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, production, and planning, respectively.

Production Cast

Masato Kitagawa is the director behind Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins”, with Yūko Kakihara as the writer, and 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. 4 “If He Wins” features the voices of Shōya Chiba as Taiki Inomata, Reina Ueda as Chinatsu Kano, Chiaki Kobayashi as Kyo Kasahara, and Akari Kitō as Hina Chōno. The other notable voice role in this episode is Yuma Uchida as Kengo Haryū.

When and Where to Watch

Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” made its airing and streaming debut (aka. simulcast) on October 24, 2024. You can watch 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. 4 “If He Wins”: Synopsis

Again, Chinatsu is still a big part of this episode, but…

Alas, Blue Box is an ongoing anime that only fairly recently made its debut. In fact, Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” only just made its debut five 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:

A gym uniform mix-up leads to a heart-pounding exchange. Later, Haryu raises the stakes for Taiki’s match, while Kyo makes a secret request to Chinatsu.

Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins”: The Good

Blue Box Ep. 4 "If He Wins" screenshot 1.
I’m already hearing the “Boop” in this gesture.

Despite the implications of my own words in the opening paragraph of this review, it’s still the story of Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” that’s the best part of this episode. Kouji Miura shows once more that he has a knack for writing adorable romcom stories, and this episode is no different. The way Taiki and Chinatsu interact with each other is just plain adorable. They really feel like two kids starting to explore romantic love for each other, and their silly antics with each other in private will thaw even the coldest heart. At least, in my honest opinion it would.

The other thing that’s great about this episode remains the animation. Specifically: its quality. Once again, Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment prove that they are highly committed to producing a very good-looking anime in this episode. The lighting, the blushes on both Taiki’s and Chinatsu’s cheeks, and even the fluid animations as Taiki and his opponent make their serves in their badminton match are all just so gorgeously beautiful that it makes you forget that reality exists for a few moments. Honestly, this is feature-length anime film levels of animation quality the studios have going on here. It appears that Black Butler -Public School Arc- finally has a bit of competition to it now.

Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins”: The Bad

Blue Box Ep. 4 "If He Wins" screenshot 2.
Chinatsu has a reason to have such a disbelieving face here.

Honestly, there is one aspect to the story of Blue Box Ep. 4 “If He Wins” that I’m not quite fond of. That would be how the spotlight seems to be centered on Taiki not only for this episode, but the previous as well. Granted, the story does have a reason for that. Taiki is depicted to be a hard-working newbie badminton player at the beginning of this story, while Chinatsu is depicted as already being a very good basketball player. Taiki is the one who has to grow in skill to catch up to Chinatsu, at least, going by the themes the story is going through. Thus, it does make sense why the spotlight would be on Taiki…even if I wish the story would give some equal depiction of Chinatsu getting better at her sport as well.

Aside from that, action junkies who want bloody, violent action might not find this episode all that interesting. All the action in this entire anime is sports action. It does get intense, but not in the way a bloody fight would be. If you want that, then may I suggest watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, and/or DAN DA DAN? Those fights get intense enough to satisfy any action junkie.

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

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