Ao no Hako (Blue Box)!

THE PROBLEM WITH ROMANCE nowadays is that it's all been done before. The love triangle, friends-to-lovers, forbidden & destiny love, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity love, second chance love, even the I'm-a-secret-billionaire love. Wait, I think I'm missing one. Don't remind me; I'm-stuck-in-a-video-game love—#SAO.

I've seen it all folks, or heard of it anyway. The, I'm falling in love with a slimy alien monster love (Monster Matsume). The I'm becoming a dragon (sort of) to fall for a red-haired devil love (High School DxD). In other words, love in anime is obsolete. The same logic applies to Ao no Hako. It's nothing new if that's what you're looking for. But I think that's where Ao no Hako thrives. It's not absurd. It doesn't try to exist outside the plane of reality to differentiate itself. What ironically makes it stand out is its unextrordinariness—it's simple, a story exploring two characters.

Upcoming high schooler Taiki Inomata arrives early to school one day to find that there's someone practicing in the gym long before school opens. Curious, he skulks inside to find Chinatsu Kano, star of the girls’ basketball team. And she's there every day, shooting hoops. Partly because he's developing a crush, and partly because he enjoys badminton, he starts doing the same, showing up early. He figures that it's as the saying goes; "the early bird gets the worm." But one day, he's crushed to find that Chinatsu's moving abroad because of her father's job. He finally conjures up the courage to say something to her.

"I'm staying with a family friend," she says.

You guessed it, folks. Ding! As it turns out, Taiki's mother played basketball when she was in school too! What a coincidence—seriously though, that was the last excuse I imagined the author would use for the forced-proximity trope.

Both Chinatsu and Taiki aim to make it to nationals and it's especially important for Taiki since his crush is a year older than him. He's only going to ask her out after he makes it big.

Skipping ahead in the story, the love-triangle, the best-friend love, and even the forbidden love theme, play a part in the story to some degree or another.

The Love Triangle

Honestly, I've seen a lot of love triangles, and I've never really liked them. I don't know if it's just me, but I never know who to root for. In Fruit's Basket, for instance, I'm still lost as to whether I was supposed to vote for Yuki or Kyo. And the love triangle ending, with Yuki telling Tohru she was like his mother? Yuck. Okay, that was a bad example, but you get the point. Love triangles are synonymous with the author having no original ideas. Ao no Haku is no such exception.

While it's a light, fun read as a whole, its biggest failing point is definitely the disproportionate attention the story devotes to its side characters. The reason I found this manga interesting in the first place was because it focused almost exclusively on Chinatsu and Taiki. While the background of the story wasn't blank, it was only peppered with periodic interruptions of side characters such as Taiki's badminton partner pushing him to get better, or Chinatsu's teammate asking her about her love life. Most of the interactions early on served to keep the spotlight focused on Taiki, Chinatsu, and their circling romance.

Now, while I can't say the love triangle dragged the story down significantly, it made me less inclined to keep reading for sure. Basically, this classical Japanese dancer, Hina crushes on Taiki because she loves his work ethic (which was motivated by Chiantsu) and is, coincidentally, also one of his closest friends. As you can imagine, things don't go well. I'll spare you the heart-plucking details but to give you some context, the author spends a good 30+ chapters playing it out. There are currently 95 chapters in the manga: that's 1/3. Ouch.

And now, the author takes the very original approach of having Taiki's other friend (four-eyes sneezing on the left) fall in love with Hina, which will cause those two to ultimately end up together. There's your happy ever after.

I think that's my biggest critique of the romance genre right now. More often than not, things don't end up as happy ever after in real life. Ironically, that's why people read romance. But I think there's a fine line between blemishing the truth and living in it.

The Sports Angle

Ao no Hako was memorable mostly because it tackled love via sports. That is to say, aside from the pre-determined 70% of the story that's dedicated to romance, there's actually something substantial to cover for the other 30%. Nisekoi is a perfect example of a story that focused so heavily on love that the romcom evolved into a pure romance driven story. While sports are certainly not the center or Ao no Hako, it serves as a backbone that the author can fall back on when there are a few panels with no text.

Truth to tell, I had pretty high expectations for Ao no Hako going in. I love sports manga and it's by far my favorite genre. So whenever there's a manga that focuses on a non-traditional sport such as Karuta in Chihayafururu, I get goosebumps.

Since badminton manga are a rarity, Ao no Haku intrigued me. But if you guys have read so far, you know it's not a badminton manga.

To me, Ao no Haku is a manga that could have gone right. To me, Ao no Haku is wasted potential—what the romance genre has turned into. It's almost as if creativity and innovation have been snuffed out. A better way to say it is that romance used to be good. It's not anymore. Not when all an author does it copy paste from what's been done before.

As I mentioned above, a perfect example of romance x sports done right is Chihayafuru. While the manga does take on tropes such as the love triangle, the focus remains the sport. Chihayfuru is what Ao no Hako is trying to be—and failing to.

In the end, Ao no Haku will go down as just another one of the million-romance manga forgotten over the passage of time. But while it's no 20th Century Boys, if you're looking for a light, heart-warming read, this is for you.

Thanks for reading today's post. As always, if you've enjoyed this, hit that subscribe button to get semi-weekly reviews on some of the most popular manga and anime (as well as some of my favorites). Stay tuned for the Shonen that's been taking the industry by storm.