Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” is basically one big lesson on how to deal with failure. How so, you might ask? Well, mostly because it shows how to deal with failure in a healthy way…by first showing how someone deals with it in an unhealthy way.

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You”: Details

Blue Box NA key art
At least one of these smiles will be upside-down for this episode.

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” is the ninth episode (you can read my reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, Ep. 7, and Ep. 8 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, and production and planning, respectively. Netflix is the company licensing this anime for its global release.

Production Cast

Yuka Yamato is the director and storyboarder behind Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You”. 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. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” 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 roles in this episode are Yuma Uchida as Kengo Haryū and Shogo Sakata as Ryosuke Nishida.

When and Where to Watch

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” made its airing and streaming debut (aka. simulcast) on November 28, 2024. 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. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You”: Synopsis

Fortunately, we get to see a lot of Chinatsu in this episode to go with Taiki.

Alas, Blue Box is still an ongoing anime. In fact, Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” only made its debut a week 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:

Frustrated with his loss to Sajikawa High, Taiki overworks himself studying for midterms and falls ill, when Chinatsu suddenly appears in his room.

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You”: The Good

Blue Box Ep. 9 "I'll Be Rooting for You" screenshot 1
The bad comes with the good here.

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” is all about the story in this episode, but in a far different way from the action-packed sports story of the previous episodes. This is a much quieter episode, with Taiki trying to focus on schoolwork to take his mind off of his loss in sports in the previous episode. And as you can see above, this is also an opportunity for Taiki and Chinatsu to build up their relationship together. It’s not just in the physical aspects though. This episode shows how they’re becoming closer in an emotional sense too, with Chinatsu empathizing with Taiki’s situation because she’s been there. She knows what it’s like to lose, so she has a lot of empathy for people in similar situations as hers. Especially Taiki’s situation. This is one episode where Kouji Miura clearly demonstrates her romantic comedy and drama skills.

Adding to that heartfelt story is the still-wonderful animation from Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment. Their combined work results in yet another episode with feature-length anime film levels of animation quality, especially in the lighting department. Seriously, the way the light scatters onto objects and how the shadows deepen and pale depending on position is just beautiful. It seriously makes you forget about reality for a few moments.

Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You”: The Bad

Blue Box Ep. 9 "I'll Be Rooting for You" screenshot 2
Alas, it’s pretty clear that academics isn’t Taiki’s strong suit.

Unfortunately, if you’re only here for the sports action, then Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting for You” probably isn’t for you. Yes, sports is still the predominate subject of this episode because our two main characters are both athletes. However, there isn’t any actual sports action in this episode, mostly due to Taiki being sick for a good portion of it.

So if you still want action, then might I recommend watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, and/or DAN DA DAN? Those anime have more than enough action to make up for the lack of it in this episode of Blue Box.

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