Highlights
- Blue Box manga officially ended on July 13, concluding its five-year serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump.
- The romance-sports manga finishes its run with over 10M copies in circulation.
- Although the manga has ended, the franchise continues with anime adaptation, Blue Box season 2.
Kouji Miura’s Blue Box (Ao no Hako) officially concluded its serialization on July 13, bringing its five-year run on Weekly Shōnen Jump to a close. The final chapter, Chapter 250, was published in Issue No. 33 of the magazine on that day.
Miura signaled the finale a week earlier, attaching a short note to Chapter 249 saying the next chapter would serve as the manga’s “graduation ceremony” and that he had planned the conclusion from the start. Blue Box first appeared as a one-shot in August 2020 on Shōnen Jump, before starting weekly serialization from April 2021.
At Jump Festa 2026, Miura first hinted that Blue Box was approaching its conclusion, informing fans that the series was nearing its fifth anniversary and its ending might not be far away.
Blue Box blended high school romance with competitive sports, following badminton player Taiki Inomata and basketball athlete Chinatsu Kano. The two end up living under the same roof and spend the series balancing their athletic ambitions with a slow-burn romance, a structure that sets the title apart from Shonen Jump’s typically action-driven lineup.
Blue Box Manga Chapter 250 Closed a Successful Run for the Franchise
Blue Box manga ended with more than 10M copies in circulation worldwide, underscoring its commercial success. The franchise has already expanded beyond manga with a TV anime adaptation, which debuted on Netflix in 2024.
The series has 26 collected volumes, compiling up to chapter 234. Blue Box will likely conclude with 27 collected volumes; the next volume of the manga has not been announced yet.
Blue Box series won the Global Prize at the seventh Next Manga Award in 2021 and ranked fourth on Japan’s Nationwide Bookstore Employees’ Recommended Comics list in 2022. Its success also reflected broader changes within Weekly Shonen Jump, where romance and slice-of-life titles have gained more visibility alongside action-heavy franchises in recent years.
Even though Blue Box has ended its run in print, the anime adaptation’s second season is scheduled to release this year. Blue Box season 2 will start streaming from Oct 4, 2026, on Netflix. The anime adaptation’s international streaming, along with digital manga distribution through platforms including VIZ, helped expand the title’s global reach during its serialization.
Blue Box’s ending arrives at a time when Shueisha lost several long-running titles in quick succession. Most of its shōnen, such as Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, and Black Clover, have already ended their run. Yuto Suzuki is currently working through the final arc of Sakamoto Days, as well. The timing reflects Shonen Jump’s shift into a new lineup, centering on newer manga properties like Kagurabachi, with continued reliance on established long-running hits like Hunter x Hunter and One Piece.
