Where Does Blue Box Take Place? Real-Life Locations
Location Guide · 3 min read
Published August 27, 2026
Blue Box takes place in present-day Tokyo. Kouji Miura's sports romance keeps its cast inside the fictional Eimei school for much of the story, but the anime grounds their world in a real, wonderfully ordinary neighborhood: Oyama, in Itabashi ward, on the Tobu Tojo Line in the city's northwest — with Ikebukuro one stop down the line for the bigger moments. We have verified 30 real locations from the anime, from the shotengai outside Oyama Station to the tournament gyms across Kanto.
Oyama: the neighborhood behind Blue Box
The texture of Blue Box's daily life — the walks home, the errands, the small conversations that carry the series — is drawn from the streets around Oyama Station, right down to the platform the characters wait on. Along the covered shopping arcade and its side streets you can find the real shops from the show: the Murai shoe store, the Mirabelle supermarket, the Fukushin ramen shop by the station, and a string of small storefronts like Enpa and Merumo that most series would invent rather than draw. A few minutes away sit Koyasu Shrine and an unassuming Seven-Eleven in Itabashi Nakamachi that made it into frame. It is one of Tokyo's most walkable pilgrimages: every spot on the Blue Box locations page around Oyama fits in a single afternoon loop.
Where is the Blue Box aquarium date?
The aquarium episode is set at the real Sunshine Aquarium, on the roof of the Sunshine City complex in Ikebukuro — one stop from Oyama or a short walk from Ikebukuro Station. The anime uses the aquarium's signature exhibits, and we have verified the exact vantage points: the Penguins in the Sky overhead tank, the Sunshine Lagoon, and the coral reef ocean tank. Pair it with Takase, the retro Ikebukuro bakery-café that also appears in the series, and you have a ready-made date-episode itinerary.
Where do the Blue Box tournaments take place?
Blue Box stages its badminton and basketball tournaments in real Kanto sports venues: Ageo Sports Park Gymnasium and the Tokorozawa Citizen Gymnasium in Saitama, and the Yamato Civic Gymnasium in Maebashi, Gunma. Like the arenas of Hajime no Ippo, they are working public venues — which means a tournament weekend there today looks exactly like the show.
Is Eimei High School a real place?
No — Eimei, the sports powerhouse where Taiki, Chinatsu, and Hina train, is fictional, and there is no campus to visit. What is real is everything around the school story: the Oyama neighborhood the everyday scenes are drawn from, and the travel episodes. The anime's trips lead to verified spots in Hakone — including the Hakone Kogen Hotel by Lake Ashi and the Shirayuri-daienchi lookout — the scenic seaside platform of Nebukawa Station near Odawara, and Hojo Beach in Tateyama, Chiba. As always with locations that are hotels, shops, and shrines in daily use: visit as a customer, and photograph the place, not the people.
Which studio animates Blue Box?
The Blue Box anime is animated by Telecom Animation Film, and it premiered in October 2024. The manga, by Kouji Miura, runs in Weekly Shonen Jump. The adaptation's backgrounds are faithful enough that frame-matching in Oyama is easy — the shopping street's signage and the aquarium tanks line up shot for shot.
Keep exploring
- Where Does Tokyo Revengers Take Place? — another series that lives in Tokyo's residential backstreets rather than its landmarks, a few stops away on the same side of the city.
- 5 Anime Stops You Can Visit in One Tokyo Day — how to fold an Oyama-and-Ikebukuro morning into a full day of Tokyo anime locations.