Sport Rivalries and Voice Acting in Blue Box

At Anime Expo 2026, Anime Trending was given the incredible opportunity by TMS Entertainment to interview Yoshino Aoyama for her new role as Yumeka Kido in Blue Box Season 2! Known for roles like Bocchi from Bocchi the Rock!, Yoshino Aoyama is the third voice cast member Anime Trending has interviewed for the series, having interviewed both Shoya Chiba and Akari Kito when Blue Box Season 1 was announced.

Welcome to Anime Expo! How do you feel now that you’ve arrived after a long flight?

Yoshino Aoyama: This is my second time coming to Anime Expo — actually, it’s the third time! But I got to go sightseeing a lot more than before. I went out today to do some shopping, and tomorrow I’m going to Universal and Hollywood. I feel like I came here to play as well as for business!

Also, welcome to Blue Box! You will be voicing Yumeka Kido, a new character whom we haven’t met in the first season. Can you describe her to us?

Yoshino Aoyama: Yumeka is a childhood friend of Chinatsu, and they were former teammates. Back then, Yumeka was actually better than Chinatsu as a basketball player, and she used to teach Chinatsu how to play basketball. But then time passed, and now we see them together again, but their friendship is in a very rocky place. So what happened and what is going to happen? Those are the things you can look forward to in Season 2.

When did you audition for the role, and did your audition require voice acting together with any of the original cast?

Yoshino Aoyama: Actually, I don’t remember when the audition was, but it was basically a tape audition. In Japan, a lot of the time you send in the recording of you reading the script, and the production committee decides. This time around, we didn’t have a studio audition, so after I sent in my tape, they picked me.

Yumeka Kido is especially important to Chinatsu’s character. Can you describe what it was like working with Reina Ueda on this anime?

Yoshino Aoyama: Ueda is my senpai in the same agency, and I’ve always admired her and always wanted to act alongside her, but to act in this kind of relationship is something I didn’t expect. So when I first heard the news that I got the role of Yumeka, the first thing that came to my mind was, “Oh, I’m gonna have to fight with her!” in a sense.

In what ways do you find yourself similar or dissimilar to Yumeka Kido, and why?

Yoshino Aoyama: In Blue Box, Yumeka is a very rare or unique character in that she’s honestly kind of mean. [laughs] We don’t have a lot of characters like that in Blue Box, but that’s what makes her really human, and I really love that about her. She’s experienced setbacks, and I have personal experience with setbacks as well. It’s a fictional story, but there’s a non-fiction element to it. All those setbacks that I personally experienced made this character of Yumeka so relatable to me, and I’m really happy that I get to play her.

Have you ever experienced a relationship like the one Chinatsu and Yumeka have with each other? How has that relationship impacted you, if at all?

Yoshino Aoyama: Now that you mention it, when I was starting out as a voice actor, I had this VA unit. There were seven members, including myself, and we experienced a lot of fights. Sometimes we would talk behind each other’s backs. In the end, we laid all our grievances out on the table and asked each other, “Why didn’t you say something to me back then?” We were able to become very honest with each other, and now we’re the best of friends! Instead, we created a deeper bond with each other. So yeah, I have that kind of experience as well.

Aoyama-san, you’re most famous for Bocchi from Bocchi the Rock!, but truthfully you have a wide range in your voice acting. You were Meg Raspberry from Once Upon a Witch’s Death and Sakura from Agents of the Four Seasons. All of these characters are vastly different from each other. How does Yumeka Kido compare to your prior roles?

Yoshino Aoyama: Yumeka is a character that holds deep resentment. I had to remind myself of that darkness all the time when acting, because when you look at characters like Taiki, Hina, and Chinatsu, they’re so positive, they’re so bright, and they have the spirit of don’t-give-up. And seeing that from Yumeka’s point of view, it’s such a hard thing for her to swallow. That’s unlike any other character I’ve played in the past, so having to feel and convey that resentment all the time was really tough for me.

As a general question about your voice acting, how do you even go about embodying such different characters? I see you as a chameleon with how well you just fade into your characters.

Yoshino Aoyama: When I work with different characters and try to come up with a voice for them, I think about their skeleton — literally the biological structure of the character. I imagine what that’s like to be in that body. For example, if the character has an overlapping canine, when they smile, the tooth is always showing. So I ask myself, “What does it feel like to have that mouth, and how does that impact the voice?” And if it’s a tall character, then probably the throat is longer, so maybe they have a deeper voice. I try to get into the character from their skeletal level.

Going back to Yumeka and Blue Box, all the characters are involved in sports. Were you ever involved in sports growing up, and if so, what were they?

Yoshino Aoyama: I did ski competitively, but there were only two people who ever made the qualifying round out of three total qualifying competitors who could make it, so I was able to compete at the national level. So yes, I did ski competitively…maybe? Since I was guaranteed a spot due to the lack of competition? But it’s my sports experience!

Did your involvement with the sport influence how you voice act as Yumeka?

Yoshino Aoyama: Actually, there are a lot of experiences I could pull from my skiing experience. I’m from Kumamoto, where it doesn’t really snow, and when I go to competitions, there are people from Hokkaido where it’s snowing all the time. They have lots of experience and good equipment, and they would make fun of me for having poor equipment. Even my senior members, my senpai, would be mean and wouldn’t let me use the maintenance equipment. So yes, I have a lot of experience that I could draw from to play Yumeka.

What are you most looking forward to for the fans to see in the anime?

Yoshino Aoyama: Well, of course, the appearance of Yumeka, but the relationship between Taiki and Chinatsu changes drastically in Season 2. While Yumeka tries to heal her estranged relationship with Chinatsu, Chinatsu is also going through this romantic relationship with Taiki. So each character has so many emotional rollercoasters, but it’s something fans can look forward to in season two.

Blue Box Season 2 will be streaming on Netflix starting October 4, 2026. Catch up on Season 1 before this fall!