Is it possible for anime to tell a love story about a socially awkward loner with “8th grader’s disease” who dreams of committing violence against his classmate? That’s the challenge of Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, or The Dangers in My Heart. It took a few episodes, but the anime has won me over with its amazing story and characters. Keep reading to see if the show is right for you!
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The Story of The Dangers in My Heart
Kyoutaro Ichikawa is a troubled middle schooler with no friends…and murder in his heart. The person he secretly wishes to kill is class idol Anna Yamada because she’s super popular and even works as a fashion model. Ichikawa dreams of killing Yamada so often, that eventually he realizes he’s falling in love with her.
Yamada is an uber-ditzy girl who loves sneaking candy and snacks into school. She’s so KY — a Japanese slang word meaning kuuki yomenai, someone unable to read the social atmosphere around her — that she doesn’t notice the huge social gap between herself and Ichikawa. Along with her habit of not sharing her snacks with others, this is part of her charm.
Ichikawa Starts Out as an Unlikable Hero
I started out disliking Ichikawa immediately, because of his penchant for being an edgelord fantasizing about violence against Yamada. He’s kind of a male version of Tomoko from Watamote, and I found her hard to like at first, too. Happily, the romance elements quickly kick in and we start to root for Ichikawa to get over his social awkwardness and find a way to enjoy a normal relationship with Yamada.
Ichikawa has a classic case of chunibyo, or 8th graders’ disease. This is a word coined by Japanese comedian Hikaru Ijuin to describe the internal fantasy worlds he created when he was in middle school, a time when children might escape the pressures of adulthood by building internal fantasy worlds to hide inside. Thanks to anime like Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions, Steins;Gate and Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl, this is a genre that’s been well explored.
My original dislike of Ichikawa as a character got me thinking about how often we meet people online who have views that repel us for one reason or another. Maybe they’re a rabid Flat-Earther, or a proponent of Moon Landing Conspiracies. Often we’re too quick to block them on social media, or loudly mock and deride their opinions. The negative social feedback this causes for these individuals guarantees that they’ll be pushed even more towards the ideas we don’t like, rather than having a chance to re-think the ideas themselves, perhaps by having a discussion with us about how they came to hold those beliefs.
The Delicious Awkwardness of Junior High School
While I don’t remember ever fantasizing about killing my classmates, I do remember how awkward junior high school was, with everyone hitting puberty at different times. Some girls would get their boobs or their periods early, while us guys had voices that were changing and bodies that didn’t know if we were boys or men. This awkwardness is captured wonderfully by creator Norio Sakurai in The Dangers in My Heart. Yamada is super tall, standing a head above tiny Ichikawa, who hasn’t gotten his growth spurt yet.
Part of the awkwardness of junior high school is learning to deal with sexual topics, and learning what’s appropriate to say in front of the opposite sex. This plays a surprisingly large role in Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsusu, as Ichikawa and Yamada are surrounded by classmates with impure thoughts. This, too, is part of the strangeness of trying to navigate the world when you’re 14 years old.
(But…can you imagine Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san with references to masturbation or erections? I’m glad they kept that show pure.)
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