The title of Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” should probably give you an indicator of the episode’s overall tone. To be fair, much of the episode is the romantic comedy sports fluff we’ve come to expect from the anime. It’s just the last bits of the episode that leaves you with a bunch of dramatic angst to satisfy your romantic drama cravings.

Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”: Details

Blue Box NA key art
There ain’t going to be much smiles in this episode, especially not from Taiki.

Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” is the 10th episode (you can read my reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, Ep. 7, Ep. 8, and Ep. 9 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

Ryōsuke Azuma is the director behind Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”, 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. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” 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. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” made its airing and streaming debut (aka. simulcast) on December 5, 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. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”: Synopsis

At least nothing can change their memories together.

Alas, Blue Box is still an ongoing anime. In fact, Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” only premiered 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:

After a sleepless night, Taiki asks Haryu for relationship advice. Later, Chinatsu realizes her recent behavior might hinder her dream and trouble others.

Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”: The Good

Blue Box Ep. 10 "It's Not a Good Thing" screenshot 1
When both Chinatsu and Taiki are happy.

It’s still the story that’s the best part about Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”, but for entirely different reasons than in previous episodes. Well…maybe not entirely. After all, much of the episode is still the romantic comedy fluff with sports in it that we’ve come to know and love. It’s only in the final few minutes do we get the drama that gives this episode its rather ominous title. Misunderstanding is the name of the game here. It’s the classic formula for drama in any romance story. Admittedly, it can get a bit stale if overused, and can come off as off-putting if done wrong by making one or more characters unlikable.

However, Kouji Miura is pretty good at this sort of thing. She makes both Taiki and Chinatsu’s actions pretty reasonable and in-character for them. Honestly, this makes their misunderstandings in this episode more tragic than anything else. And alas, this is not a story with telepathy in it. They can’t read each other’s minds, so the only thing they can do is fumble around in their romance. Sometimes badly, like in this episode.

An episode which is made even better by the quality animation from Telecom Animation Film and TMS Entertainment. This is still one of the prettiest anime series I’ve ever seen thanks to the hard work of their animators. Especially the lighting. You would think that wouldn’t matter since much of the episode takes place at night. However, the way light bounces off of the characters and objects, whether coming from indoor lighting, street lighting, or even just the natural ambient lighting from the moon and stars is so gorgeous that it makes you forget about reality for a few moments. This is one anime that’s competing with Black Butler -Public School Arc- for pretty animation.

Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing”: The Bad

Blue Box Ep. 10 "It's Not a Good Thing" screenshot 2
The moment it all starts to go wrong for Taiki and Chinatsu.

Alas, if you’re not onto romantic drama, this may not be the episode for you. In fact, if you’re looking for the usual sports action, then this still isn’t the episode for you. Blue Box Ep. 10 “It’s Not a Good Thing” is dedicated completely to the romance side of things for now. If you want to scratch that action craving, then might I suggest 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 series when we do.

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Blue Box Ep. 9 “I’ll Be Rooting For You”: How To Deal With Failure [Review]