Blue Box Episode 4: A New Challenger Has Arrived

Key conclusions

• Taiki faces a new rival, Shoichiro, for Chinatsu's heart, adding to the tension and drama.
• Episode 4 introduces some serious sports action, showcasing the show's potential as a sports anime.
• The episode ends with Taiki receiving a reward from Chinatsu if he wins, setting up a potential romantic development.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Blue Box Episode 4, “If He Wins,” now streaming on Netflix.

There's quite a lot going on in the Blue box episode 4, “When He Wins”. It even starts with a little delay that takes place a month after the previous episode, when Taiki is finally getting used to living with Chinatsu. Plot-wise, Episode 4 has a great balance of comedy, drama and, for the first time in the series, serious sports action. However, the big highlight in episode 4 is the appearance of another character who looks up to Chinatsu.

visually, Blue box still stunning as before. Beautiful stills showing how beautiful each character looks are sprinkled throughout the show. The audio presentation and voice acting are consistently decent. Nothing groundbreaking, but not bad anyway. Visual where Blue box always shone.

Taika has a new rival to win Chinatsu's heart

Unlike Haryu, this one is not a red herring

In episode 3, Taiki learns that Haryu already has a girlfriend and only sees Chinatsu as a classmate and friend. Just when you thought Taiki could finally take over Chinatsu, a new challenger appears: Shoichiri Kishi, Haryu's former doubles partner and current Shimotomi High player. He's clearly been in love with Chinatsu ever since he was Haryu's partner, long before Taiki even met her.

Shoichiro's appearance is a pretty big deal considering Taiki has never really had a true rival before. Although it was established after episode 1 that Chinatsu had a ton of fans, they were never significant characters and Taiki never got a chance to interact with any of them.

The appearance of a new opponent causes an event that leads to why the episode is called “If He Wins”. Haryu made a bet with Shoichiro that he would give him Chinatsu's phone number if he could defeat Taiki in their singles match the following week. To be more precise, Haryu only promises that he will ask Chinatsu if he can give her number.

However, Kyo tells Chinatsu about their bet during the fateful match. He says that unlike Shoichiro, Taiki won't get anything for winning the match, and offers Chinatsu to take Taiki to the aquarium as a reward for winning. After thinking it over, Chinatsu agrees to take Taiki to the aquarium “If he wins”. Episode 4 ends there, but the next episode is called “Aquarium,” so viewers can probably connect the dots as to what's about to happen.

More trouble in paradise

As if having a new rival in love wasn't enough, more drama ensues when Chinatsu tells Taiki that he doesn't need to train so hard because there's always next year and the year after that. Sounds pretty harmless, except Chinatsu is a year ahead of Taiki, so she'll graduate after Taiki's second year. The thought immediately crosses his mind, causing him to growl.

In a year? But it's after you finish… It's not good enough for me.

Chinatsu seems to blame herself for the incident, thinking she was being insensitive and hinting that losing is okay. It's a nice change of pace to finally see some tension between the two, and it makes fans look forward to some sort of resolution.

Taika's first official matches

Blue Box is starting to look like a sports anime

One small problem with Blue box it's that it never really felt like a sports anime, despite most people and media platforms classifying it as one. Even Netflix, the only platform currently streaming the show, has “sports” and “sports anime” as two of its Blue boxgenres.

Well, episode 4 starts to delve into the sports aspect of the show with the Taiki vs. Shoichiro match. There are some neat scenes where Haryu analyzes the match and explains the strengths and weaknesses of both players. Of course, they're not as deep as the scenes from something similar Haikyuu!! or Basketball Kurokobut at least there's something to cheer about for fans who watched, believing sports were an important part of the show.

However, surprisingly, they didn't do the same with the doubles matches that Taiki and Haryu were involved in earlier in the episode. These matches kind of flew by without the scenes surrounding them. Taika and Haryu's opponents aren't even given names, which is a strange decision for Taika's first official high school match.

Blue box Obviously, romance will always come first, and sports and bits of life come second. Sports are primarily just vessels that allow the plot to move forward.

Cute Clothes Shenanigans

Showing Clothes Swaps and Six-Pack Abs

Towards the beginning of the episode, viewers are treated to a cute segment where Taiki and Chinatsu accidentally bring the other's gymnastics leotard to school by mistake. The whole thing was pretty hilarious, especially the scene where Taiki convinces Hina that he's never washed his leotard since last summer so she doesn't know it's not his. It was one of the funniest and most creative scenes ever Blue box for now, and hopefully there will be more scenes like this.

Then, in the middle of the episode, it was Taichi's turn for a silly scene with clothes. Chinatsu mentions that Taiki has his shirt on inside out, and without thinking, Taiki takes off his shirt to turn it around, completely forgetting that Chinatsu is still watching. The result? A great scene with an embarrassed Chinatsu and Taiki inadvertently showing off their six-pack.

Blue Box is now available to stream on Netflix. The next episode of Blue Box, Episode 5, is scheduled to air on October 31, 2024 at 8:30 AM PT.