Inomata Taiki is a first year high school student and student athlete on the badminton team. His dedication to the sport leads him to practicing first thing in the morning. He's not the only overly ambitious athlete as he normally shares the gym in the early hours of the morning with second year basketball star Kano Chinatsu. Chinatsu is popular and well loved by everyone in school, highly sought after by many of the boys. Taiki is another one of the admirers and struggles with his lack of confidence, relying on these early morning sessions to be in her presence all on his own. Those fuzzy mornings are about to come to an end when he learns that her parents are moved abroad for work. He doesn't keep; these feelings to himself however and confides in his closest friends, fellow badminton teammate Kasahara Kyo and childhood friend and star of the girls rhythm gymnastics team, Chono Hina. Even though Hina says shes way out of his league he still tries to interact with her, wanting to know her better. When he learns that she will be moving he expresses his sympathy for her. Chinatsu is working hard so that the team can enter the inter-high tournament and try to win it. Supersized, she tells him that she will be staying behind, living with her moms friend, so she can continue to focus on her goals. His relief is soon shattered when he learns that friend is actually his own mother and the girl he has a massive crush on will be living with them.
This is both a curse and a boon for him as it allows them to spend more time together, to learn about each other. But he is nervous and uncertain how to act around her and what he should do regarding his own desires. He is awkward wears his emotions on his sleeve but earnest in his endeavors. In order to impress her and to push himself he declares his intention to become better so he too can shoot for inter-high for badminton. Already driven to be better, he pushes his training and focus into high gear, all while suffering an internal battle over his feelings for the girl living in his house. His work pays off and he shows rapid improvement and earns more respect from his team mates and seniors, but he is still far from his goal as the competition from rival schools belittles his efforts. At the same time Hina struggles for her growing feelings for one of her oldest friends. Spurned by the competition for his heart with Chinatsu, she eventually opens up to Taiki about her feelings and wants. This revelation shakes their friendship and causes him more internal anguish as he tries to find his path forward. Does he have that sort of feeling for his friend and does he even have any chance of success with his crush?
I'll just put it out in front, I am quite negative about this story. The set up and scenario is very much that found in Suzuka, a bad shonen romance in its own right that holds a special place as the series that opened me up fully to my love of the genre. I really dislike the character design. Their faces and eyes are unsettling and their body proportions are wrong most of the time. The biggest problem however is the severe dislike of Taiki and the almost non-existent personality of Chinatsu. Lets start with Chinatsu. Her personality type is agreeable and non-committal. For all of the input she has in the things around her she could just as well be a toaster. Shes obedient, likeable, easy going, passive. That passive part is the key thing, shes the gross yamato nadeshiko thing, where the perfect woman is obedient and quiet, existing in a state of subservience and vulnerability. Its a shame because she is ripe for a lot of complexity. She only exists in the frame of the story as the object that Taiki chases after. She literally has zero opinion about anything around her and adds nothing to the story when it comes down to it. Taiki himself is a bland and uninspired archetypal shonen main character. He's the under dog whose raw determination carried him to success, no matter how many beatings he takes. He's boring, absolutely uninteresting and useless as a character and a narrative center.
The story literally commits suicide when it takes an episode to focus on the romance of two side characters that blows everything since and before out of the water. In one 20 minute arc, where a lot of it is exposition and dialogue around the actual story, more conviction and personality is expressed than all of the other episodes combined. In the 13th episode, he goes to watch his senpai on the badminton team and ends up sitting with his girlfriend. The girlfriend, a model and friend of Chinatsu, relays the story of how they became lovers after years as classmates. I want to see this story told in full, there is so much more room that can be given to this fantastically lovely story and its wasted on this will they won't they indecision each episode. I'll give Blue Box this though, its not full of fan service of terrible tropes about puberty and perversion. Many of the side characters are well fleshed out and agreeable, offering genuine interest to the story. But I just don't care about Taiki and would really like for Chinatsu to have a personality. Its sad, you know the outcome. There is no way it ends without them acknowledging mutual feelings, but I really don't care either!!
The first season was simulcast on Netflix and season 2 was announced to begin directly afterwards. I will watch that one too...so stay tuned to see if my feelings change.
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