Blue Box Anime Is Coming to Netflix

Anime franchises focusing on sports are kind of a big deal now. Last year, the soccer-fueled manga Blue Lock was the highest-selling series of 2023, with the first movie seeing success at the box office. This year, Haikyu was able to hit new heights thanks to the release of its film, Haikyu: The Dumpster Battle, in theaters in Japan, North America, and the world at large. There is one manga series that takes a radical approach to its story in that it fuses two sports into its tale thanks to its two protagonists. Blue Box features protagonists who play basketball and badminton and the Weekly Shonen Jump franchise is set to hit Netflix later this year.

First hitting Shonen Jump’s pages in 2021, Blue Box has over one hundred and fifty chapters to its name so far. The series itself doesn’t see some radical new sport created that takes elements from badminton and basketball, but rather, it introduces two characters that are attempting to make their way in each field. Taiki and Chinatsu train with one another despite playing different sports and the shonen franchise injects romance into the sports story for added effect. 

Blue Box: Anime’s Next Big Sports Series?

While Netflix didn’t reveal a release date for the Blue Box anime adaptation, the streaming service confirmed that it would be arriving this year. The series will be animated by Telecom Animation Film, which anime fans might know for their work on the likes of Baki, Tower of God, Lupin The Third Part IV, Shenmue The Animation, and many more. Not only is the studio working on Blue Box for Netflix, but Telecom is also working on Rick And Morty: The Anime for Adult Swim, also dropping this year.

If this is your first time hearing of Blue Box, Weekly Shonen Jump has a description of the original manga that slams two sports together. Here’s how the publication describes the story of Inomata and Kano, “Taiki Inomata is on the boys’ badminton team at sports powerhouse Eimei Junior and Senior High. He’s in love with basketball player Chinatsu Kano, the older girl he trains alongside every morning in the gym. One Spring day, their relationship takes a sharp turn … And thus begins this brand-new series of love, sports and youth!”

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