Ao no Hako
Blue Box

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The manga presents a great story about a boy who loves his senpai, and who focuses on their respective sports, which connects their bonds and will be very important to the story, the growing narrative is very good, and the relationship between the characters is very deep, the characters are charismatic, well developed and above all very human, which creates an easy identification with the characters, the manga presents the sports side very well too, with the national championships, the training and what the life of an athlete is really like with ups and downs, this manga is so peak and I recommend it.

There are a lot of problems with the writing. Little details here and there that bother me. Illogical remarks that suddenly take me out of the story, or situations that are a little too conventional, which make me sigh.
Moreover, the dialogues are sorely lacking in rhythm and spice. It's the last straw for a high-school love story, a bubbly, intrepid period.
Taiki's clearly not the most exciting boy on earth, and there's nothing wrong with being banal, but it's all too predictable. I've had enough of dull romances, I can't find myself in them.
The drawings, on the other hand, are quite brilliant, and ... the author really puts in the effort, especially for Chinatsu (I can almost smell her), even if the sports sections are a little thin and lacking in detail.

I'm going to carry on reading, and maybe I'll come back to my review if the next part takes a completely different direction, but my gut tells me it'll never really be moved by this manga.

If you want to be pissed off, go on forth and read this manga...
While the beginning of the story (first 60ish chapters) was compelling, the manga took the way of the lightly written romcom and that because of the one-shot,
A seemingly light hearted romcom took my little ball of happiness, shot it in the head and crushed it into rubbles
If you want to read the badly wrote critic of a broken man, here you go

HEAVY HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD, if you click on this you'll be spoiled an sent directly to chapter 110, no way back (but thats kind of fun)...




...



WHYYYYY WHYYYY???

We should have all seen it coming from 350km... but yes Chinatsu is falling deeply in love with protag-kun because plot and because she is the first girl we saw in the manga... it was inevitable because it was meant to be in the one-shot of the series, and the author went on and created this story following this plot.
But I'll tell you this is bad, not because I've got an obvious preference for Hina, but because it is a story well made for a one shot and not a 160 chapters long story, it is due to a mistake the author made, let me explain.

Well, Chinatsu is an awesome shallow character that you can easily like in a short story (and could be awesome IF DEVELOPPED, more deeeeeeeepth), she is cool, popular, pretty and she's giving herself for the sport she loves, that's why Taiki falls for her, and that's great, but not here.



The fact is that when turning this manga into the long story this is, all the author did is dropping DLC characters and content seasoned with classic romcom stuff (like "oh i'll get the dishes" whoops and trips over protag-kun developping feelings??? BS!!).
But you'll tell me, "that's how every romcom is", meeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh yes, but no.

You see, when you get to read your good'ol feel good romcom manga, the author FOCUSES on how the 2 are going to get together, creating wholesome moments of the two, discovering their feelings and all, creating a feeling of affection from the reader BUT HE DIDNT.

To cut it short, Taiki is obsessed with Chinatsu and sees her everyday in sports class, and at home, where they only say "hello" before turning into dust because of shyness and Taiki has more admiration than love for her...



Here, when the author should have been focused on the relation of the 2, the author made the mistake to introduce us to Hina.
And, Hina, well she is a true character... and thats a problem, because when Hina is there, she is (with Kyou ) the realest, down to earth person in the whole manga. She has all that Chinatsu has but better, PLUS DEPTH, PLUS EMOTIONS.(yes there are actual pannels of Chinatsu with a dead stare and mouth half opened with taiki beeing amazed, and she's meant to be more appealing than Hina that just explodes with cuteness each time she appears????)
She is in love with Taiki and has the balls to confess while knowing Taiki likes another, AND TAIKI GROWS FEELINGS FOR HER, once his best friend, she wants to be considered more, and IT WORKS!!

In fact the author did this weird and refreshing Focus Shifting technique that get us to grow attached to Hina 1000 times more than Chinatsu, and wrote a romance between Taiki ad Hina, and to be honest he could have changed the story to adapt to this, creating a believable love story!!

It reminds me how I had this crush on a girl in highschool and it was litteraly just like Taiki and Chinatsu, just saying hello and staring at her won't lead you to love and I know that damn well

To be clear, at this point there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO EVOLUTION in the romance between Taiki and Chinatsu, and the only believable thing that crosses my mind about WHY he rejected Hina so quickly is because he saw his crush
................carrying and old woman...... and giving him band-aids 2 chapters before.....
AM I READING A ROM COM OR A SHONEN ON THE RED CROSS?????



SO, while shoving away the realest and most appreciable person of the whole story, whom had equal chances of ending with him than Chinatsu, the heat death wipes this manga out, adding characters like Yumeka to expand the story, "justifying" Chinatsu feelings for Taiki.

Then we can read after the confession, a pamphlet on why Chinatsu is the best girl because she cooks omurice, nononono you wont get me with this.... Their relation becomes so predictable with bad romcom actions, i've been able to predict all the "woooooaaa she did this i'm blushing" moments 3 pages in advance. The fact they go out together and those cheap moments are the only interraction they have is just a proof that the author didn't put the effort into building a true bond between Chinatsu an Taiki before...

In fact I now only want to read it till the end to see how Hina deals with all this, each time I see her she is so devasted and it's so sad to see, she handles it like a pro and tries to overcome all the hardships and recreate this friend bound she had with Taiki, while beeing the absolute best girl out of all romcoms.
This is the only romcom that has made me dislike the main characters and thats crazy???? The point is to feel the protag and to be happy reading it???

While Taiki does nothing about it and Chinatsu, well she's Chinatsu, plain flavorless, the author rolls us in the dirt while destroying this little ball of happiness that once was Hina, that is now a ball of tears...

At least the art is really nice and except what i was whining about it is a fine manga but god damn infuriating.
If you don't agree with me I don't care, don't even try to put the "confusing" reaction I couldn't be clearer than that (i'm not english so there are mistakes and nonsense sorry)
(If you wanna fight with me or cry with me, dms open)