Sandbox / Girl in a Box

Girl in a Box on-page examples from this TRS thread, which decided to Yard the "character is introduced by being found in a box/other sealed situation" concept.

---

Examples

Anime & Manga

• The contents of the bag that Akatsuki was carrying throughout the first half of the first episode of Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero was revealed to be Miu, fully naked.
• The titular character from Ayako is a Deconstruction and an especially disturbing example since she spent more than twenty years locked up in a basement and now hides in a box whenever she gets scared. Which is often.
• Ciel in a suitcase in the first episode of the second season of the Black Butler anime.
• Chii in Chobits is a girl on a garbage can, all naked but for the bandages she's wrapped in.
• Chocotto Sister: While not a box (it's a bag), Choco comes delivered in a present by Santa.
• Parodied in Colorful with Connie the Consolation Prize, a deliberately two-dimensional girl delivered in a box to a salivating recipient.
• In Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou, The Stinger of episode 7 shows Jirou and Judas finding a box containing the deactivated body of Robot Girl Earth-chan.
• Ein of Cowboy Bebop originally comes packaged in a metal briefcase in the episode "Stray Dog Strut".
• During a dream sequence in Eureka Seven, Anemone appears naked and in the fetal position in a refrigerator.
• Hyatt, Ropponmatsu I, and Ropponmatsu II are introduced to ACROSS members this way in Excel♡Saga. This only applies to the anime, not the original manga.
• The Frame Arms Girls turn up at Ao Gennai's doorstep in this fashion, courtesy of Kotobukiya drone delivery.
• Hako-chan (literally "Box-chan"), from The Girl Who Leapt Through Space. Her appearance is still mostly unknown due to her not leaving the box yet, though we do learn that she has light skin. There was one point where she almost came out, but then Aleida convinced her that staying in the box was better because "being in the outside world is worse than being in the box". Admittedly, it does seem to be a pretty nice box: it has some sort of camera system allowing view outside, though not from outside in, and text can be displayed on the door of the box like it's a computer screen. Also, it apparently has some sort of hovering/movement device.
• Lucille Lilliant from Gundam X was a Lady in a Capsule. For worse, she's been locked for 15 years inside of it, and the enemy now wants to get to her to use her considerable Psychic Powers. Poor Lucille is physically indefense, as her body is pretty much comatose, but her conscience finds a way around that.
• Hina from Hinamatsuri first arrives in Nitta's apartment wrapped in a small metal cocoon.
• Mimi from I Dream of Mimi. Akira buys her in a box thinking she'll be a normal personal computer, but she turns out to be a gynoid.
• Izetta: The Last Witch begins with the title character being transported in a steampunk suspended animation pod to New Berlin by the Germanian military. Unfortunately for them, she wakes up enough to recognize her beloved Princess Finé, a prisoner on the same aircraft. One magical outburst later, her pod has been blasted open, the plane rent in two and the Germanians are short two important assets.
• Michiru from Kono Kanojo wa Fiction desu first appeared naked in a large bag instead of a box.
• Ginga Nakajima in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS was stored in a metal suitcase to be transported to the Big Bad when she was defeated and captured.
• Princess Snow from MÄR. In her first appearance, she's encased in ice, only to be freed (and accidentally kissed by) Ginta. This freaks him out since she looks, sounds and acts exactly like his childhood friend Koyuki. Oddly enough, the second time she needs to be rescued, she's inside of an ACTUAL box in a fetal position. A Rubix Cube-like deathtrap to be precise, which will kill her if not solved correctly and even if it's solved correctly will kill whoever solved it instead. Putting a bit of a dark spin on this trope.
• Byakki/Shiro in Our Home's Fox Deity, who was delivered in a box.
• Puella Magi Kazumi Magica: Kazumi is introduced by breaking out of a suitcase the villain was carrying.
• In the third season of Robotech (aka Genesis Climber MOSPEADA), Marlene (Aisha) is found in an alien egg.
• Sgt. Frog: Keroro first met Angol Mois after finding her inside a closet that landed on Keron.

• In Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry, the boxed loli is found by the villain, and becomes his replacement sister and Morality Pet. She doesn't do such a good job of the latter, since, as it turns out, he was already crazy to begin with.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: According to Word of God, Team Dai-Gurren found Attenborough in someone's luggage.
• Today's Cerberus begins with Chiaki receiving a box from his globe-trotting father. Inside is Cerberus in a Little Bit Beastly human form declaring she'll be his guard dog.
• Misty in Vandread was rescued from an escape pod.
• Lacus Clyne in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED was found in an escape pod, but she's rescued by an enemy ship.
• In the Millennium World arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, we first meet Mana hiding in a large ceramic pot.
• Literally happens in the ending of Love Flops where all four love interests of the male MC arrived at his home in their respective large delivery boxes.

Comic Books

• The first issue of Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C. has the title character learning to his horror that the girl he likes is actually an android, built as part of an evil conspiracy. He learns this by finding her disassembled in a box.
• In Pikappa, an alternate continuity of Paperinik New Adventures, the android Lyla Lay is found deactivated in a box in an old factory. Luckily, the janitor who found her happens to be versed in super-science, and can "revive" her.

Fan Works

• In Walking the Line by Starving Lunatic, Shego finds Kim in a box and keeps her as a pet.
• Though the girl in question is a pony, the protagonist of My Little Dashie finds Rainbow Dash in a box.

Films — Live-Action

• In the Meet Cute of Just You and Me, Kid, George Burns finds a naked Brooke Shields hiding in the trunk on his car.
• Liz in Live Animals is found in a small box, having apparently been kept for some time as a "toy" by the antagonists.
• Bianca in Lars and the Real Girl quite literally comes in a box (although, despite the title, she's not a real girl).
• In the film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Gael is discovered in a supply barrel after stowing away aboard the Dawn Treader.
• Oblivion (2013): Julia Rusakova later Harper kicks things off when her escape capsule lands on Earth and Jack investigates.

Literature

• E. Veltistov wrote a series of books about the adventures of Electronic, a Ridiculously Human Robot in shape of a boy. The first book is titled "Electronic - a boy from the box"
• Mr. Hook's Big Black Box: There's any number of people trying to open the titular Box, all with their own ideas what might be inside. But when they finally get a moment of quiet, our heroes finally hear a young girl begging to be let out. Her name is Hope, and she doesn't know why someone locked her in there.
• Provenance has a non-binary version: Ingray arranges for a famous convict to be smuggled out of prison and is dismayed when the person is delivered as a Human Popsicle — the only available ship out of town won't transport human cargo without proof of prior consent, which raises some very awkward questions.

Live Action TV

• Firefly:
  • Early ads trying to drum up interest for the series used the tagline "What do [list of quirky character archetypes] and a girl in a box have in common?" However, Fox messed that one up; they aired the pilot, the only episode where she's actually in a box, last. The reveal was an obvious homage to the trope-codifying scene in Outlaw Star.
  • Tracey was introduced to the show in a coffin. Too bad the episode has Book Ends.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • In the episode The Perfect Mate had Picard meet, and have to give up, a woman initially being transported as "cargo" possessed of the power to become anyone's Magical Girlfriend.
  • Later on in the episode The Emissary, K'Ehleyr, Worf's Love Interest, arrives at Enterprise in what is essentially a torpedo casing. (Getting there fast was imperative, so they really had to improvise.)
• In Star Trek: Enterprise, Trip meets a cargo girl, only to find out she's a Well, Excuse Me, Princess!. (Naturally, they make out a lot eventually after the hilarity starts ensuing.)
• The Man Show had a skit where a midget woman in her early twenties was carried around in a suitcase, as a portable stripper.
• Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie was a Girl in a Bottle, but close enough.
• In Pushing Daisies, Chuck is in a coffin when Ned revives her.
• Blindspot opens with the main amnesiac character, named Jane Doe until her identity can be found, discovered naked in a duffle bag in the middle of Times Square. The CCT cameras for Times Square can see the duffle bag being dropped off, but not who did it.

Manhwa

• In The Breaker, the protagonist finds a girl in the trunk of a car.

Mythology & Religion

• The Bible:
  • The baby Moses escapes Pharoah's order to throw every male child in the Nile when his mother makes him a basket covered in water-repellent pitch before sending him down the river. He's also promptly found by the Pharoah's daughter and raised as her own child.
  • Zechariah the prophet sees a vision of a woman in a basket with a lead covering over the basket, being carried by two women with stork-like wings to a place in the land of Shinar. Given that she is mentioned as being the personification of Wickedness, she is also considered Sealed Evil in a Can.

Video Games

• In Artificial Girl 2, the heroine awakens from a crate in the protagonist's room.
• Pokémon Colosseum: The female character is first seen (er, heard) trapped in a Bag of Kidnapping she was stuffed in.
• In To Heart 2: Another Days Silfa / HMX-17c makes her appearance being shipped in a box to Takaaki's house. She also uses the box as her hiding place.
• One of the fighters in Cyberbots is a girl in a jar, who hijacked a robot to escape from the government facility where she was stored. She beats up everyone she comes across due to fear and extreme misunderstandings.
• Octavia in Tears to Tiara is found inside a box, tied up and helpless. Arawn decides he has enough women hanging around annoying him about how they're his wife or just being ditzy elves, so he decides to seal her back in and pretend he never saw her. Sadly, Arthur catches him and you recruit her instead.
• In Killer is Dead, this is how Juliet (the heroine from Lollipop Chainsaw) makes a cameo. In Episode 51, a DLC chapter, if the player breaks open a barrel on a ledge that's shaking, Juliet leaps out and jumps away to the sound made in her own game when she uses her Big Jump move.
• Fatal Frame 2 had a ghost woman in a kimono box. She hid in the box to escape the Repentence, but died there.
• In the Updated Re Release Ultra Street Fighter IV, Decapre is shown breaking her capsule before joining the cast.
• In Suguri you meet the Final Boss Hime sealed in a glass chamber in the final stage. Shifu awakens her and blackmails her to fight you.
• Sarah, the protagonist in the white chamber, awakens in a boxy coffin and is seen hiding in one.
• The Red Mage job questline in Final Fantasy XIV involves the PC and their job mentor finding a girl drugged and amnesiac in a shipping crate.

Visual Novels

• During the rescue operation in The Eden of Grisaia the Thanatos system's autonomous behavior is finally noticed by Ichigaya, who begin shutting out its systems. In response, it fights back as well as it can as well as sending JB to remove its core: Kazuki Kazami, who has been in a tube for years. When she gets out, she's so weak she can barely even stand, let alone walk, requiring JB to carry her out.
• This is how Ibuki meets his first Cat Girl, Mikan, in Let's Meow Meow. She is curled up, naked, and sleeping in a cardboard box on the street which he happens to stumble upon on the way home. His response? "I was expecting to see a kitten. How disappointing." Let me remind you that this guy specifically wished on the Cat God to have his own catgirl and he has a catgirl fetish.
• At the beginning of Nekopara, the protagonist receives two boxes containing his sister's catgirls. They sent themselves by mail to stay with him after he moved.

Web Comics

• Elie in Gifts of Wandering Ice was found in a little cryo capsule as a baby.
• In the beginning of Not What I Was a scavenger finds an amnesiac feline girl in a medi-tube that fell off the back of a transport.
• In one story arc of Full Frontal Nerdity, the guys are playing a crossover campaign of Dungeons & Dragons mixed with Pirates of the Caribbean. They are hired to deliver a mysterious, locked box and while en route to their destination find themselves being followed by ships from three different navies. Realizing they've been setup they decide to open the box and see what is so important. Frank says that inside is a little girl which prompts massive freakouts from the guys.
  Shawn: AAAGGH! A little Girl!
  Lewis: The stuff of every adventurer's worst nightmares!
  Nelson: I'll just work out the point spread on her being a demonic horror, a dragon, or a device for making us have an alignment violation every five minutes.

Web Original

• Ruby Quest begins with the protagonist Ruby (a bunnygirl) waking up in a box-like locker.

Western Animation

• Aelita of Code Lyoko: Jérémie finds his virtual Magical Girlfriend in suspended animation in Cyberspace.
• In the DC Animated Universe, Superman first finds Supergirl as the last frozen survivor of her homeworld.
• Star Wars Resistance: In "Signal from Sector Six", while investigating a derelict freighter that was attacked by pirates and has dangerous creatures roaming loose, Kaz and Poe find an unconscious woman inside a crate, and take her off the ship to safety. She's one of the pirates who attacked the ship, and hid inside the crate to escape the giant creature eating the other pirates.

---