The Dangers in My Heart

AustinDR May 21, 2023

8

Honestly a pleasant surprise. Reading about the Dangers in My Heart, I did not initially know what to think about the series (what with it being about a borderline delusional student who fantasizes about killing his classmates), but the show consistently made me laugh and love the characters. I often don't care about school anime shows, but this one is pretty good. For instance, Ichikawa may view himself as having an insatiable blood lust with him wanting to kill Yamada, he's really just confused about how he felt about her. Despite his deprecation of himself, he is actually a nice and considerate person who is just really, really socially awkward person. It almost hurts how relatable he is in that regard. Mainly part of the reason as to why people seem to overlook him is actually because of his low self-esteem for himself and he eventually has a realization that it ends up hurting him in the long run. What makes the show interesting is how Ichikawa is left trying to read Yamada who is a total ball of a character in her own right. First, he'd think that she was either upset about something or whatever, he goes to do something for her to make her feel better only to be totally wrong in his observation. My favorite scene is when he saw how Yamada was getting uncomfortable with that one guy trying to ask her out, and he decided to push his bike into the water to serve as a diversion. Speaking of Anna Yamada, she has a fun personality. She kind of reminds me of a puppy with how her actions seem to be sporadic. She often hangs out with Ichikawa at the library where she eats a lot of sweets sometimes even giving the wrapper to Ichikawa. But there is more to it. While the show does not outright spell it out, Yamada has a slight fear of men one example being when she was displaying signs of being uncomfortable around a boy when he tried flirting with her. In addition, she often makes comments about how she dislikes shallow relationships. Underneath that nice and flighty personality, Yamada appears to internalize her self-doubts and self-worth. In one episode she would stand around at a mall hoping people would recognize her due to her modeling work, or in the roles she has for TV shows or movies. So, despite not wanting artificial relationships, Yamada also wants acknowledgment which manifests in her growing close to Ichikawa. Really, Ichikawa and Yamada were practically built for each other and it is cute. The side characters are also pretty good. Probably my second favorite pairing is Hara and Kanzaki. They are just adorable with how they both like each other but are shy about it. Adachi is a good foil to Ichikawa in how he likes Yamada on a superficial level.

closetneet Jun 4, 2023

9.3

Super biased, as this is my favorite romance manga ever. The way the story and the scenes are portrayed through his eyes gives the viewer a lot of insight into how he thinks and feels (arguably moreso than the manga). Everything from his middle school delusions to his middle school peversions even. This creates a connection between the viewer and Ichikawa that makes what he feels easy to understand, and can in many cases feel more impactful such as his insecurities that get in the way of his reality. There were some shots taken straight out of the manga that blew me away. However, there were some scenes where the character proportions were inconsistent which took me out of it for a second. Overall, I love this anime and it is a faithful adaptation of the source material.

BlackCatLef Jul 1, 2023

4.5

Review No. 87 The following couple of paragraphs will be copy pasted in my reviews for a while, so skip it if you have read it already (skip to where the bold starts) or if you don’t want to bother reading it cause for some it may seem long. On the contrary, imma try to keep the actual reviews of the show shorter than usual. So, I recently presented my thesis for my master’s degree, and against my better judgment, you guessed it, it was about anime, history, retrospective etc. Now, I do not mention this to say that my opinion matters, nor to gain credibility and say that I am right about what I am saying, but none the less having read almost every word that has ever been written in English about anime that even has the slightest academic value, really widens one’s horizons and perspective about the phenomenon. Also, whether you agree with my opinion or not, whether I am bashing or complementing a show, I’m always making a case, I am using reasoning. I am also at a point in my life that I have the knowledge, experience and self awareness, to be able to state that something is good, is of a certain quality but even so I do not like it or that it is bad, it is trash but even so I like it anyway. That sounds really weird and contradictory, I know, alas that is what some people have to go through based on what they chose to do in life, for the vast majority of people what they like is good and what they don’t like is bad, simple as that. Anyway, where am I going with this, as additional research for my paper, I tried, keyword here is TRIED, to watch almost every seasonal anime for the last couple of seasons. Cause I had to make a case for some of my closing remarks about the current state of the anime industry. More or less what I said is that even though the industry is probably at its highest point in terms of popularity and finally it seems that it has solved the oldest and biggest problem that has been plaguing it since its inception, which has always has been for anime to be profitable, unfortunately it is at its lowest point in terms content, in terms of creativity, originality and almost every other quality that isn’t about the audiovisual improvements technology offers. So, where does this Spring 2023 season stand, did it prove me wrong? On the contrary, it solidifies my argument. Another season filled to the brim with sellable, easily digestible shows that have been made dozens of times before with slightly different colors. Safe, unoriginal products that the customer will gulp right down. Now, you can say that has been the case since forever and the same goes for every industry probably. But it wasn’t that bad, those mass production shows were always there, but the safety of those productions, the bread those shows put on the table also allowed the studios to experiment on the side, for every handful of McDonald’s burger you would eventually bite into one with real meat, maybe a spicy silky sauce, some fresh veggies, something new, now you could probably have to go through 100 mass produced patties before you come across a real hefty burger. Also even those sellable shows, at least had some more variation, now it is just isekai after rom-com after isekai after rom-com after isekai after rom-com, it just never ends. I mean what is the highlight of the season? (apart from chibi demon in box and e=mc2 new seasons), Oshi no Ko? The fanbase actually went ecstatic over Oshi no Ko, if this show was made back in the golden era of the industry, would a single soul even remember it? You tell me… Hell even if it aired alongside Chainsaw man and Bleach probably no one would even notice it. But anime fans need to grab onto something, cause anime are awesome, they love anime, there can’t be a season without a so called masterpiece, they just can’t have it. But I am an anime fan, I love anime, apart from watching, I studied about them about hundreds of hours, I wrote 120 pages about them and another 80 or so that I had to cut to meet the length criteria which I still fucking went over. I love anime, but I can clearly see the current status quo, it is sad and it is getting grimmer by the season. So, what you came here for, is this show good? Well, no, it is another cookie cutter uninteresting romance that you meet by the dozens. It is not terrible, it is not insulting but still, I could never recommend it as a great show. You see, after years of observation, I’ve simply come to realization, that anime just can’t do romance. Not in general, in general they can, just not when romance is the genre, when it is another genre that simply has some kind of romance in it, it is almost always better. Another observation that I made, and that I find to be a very very common occurrence in romance shows (as well as parodies), the idea, the premise lets say, is presented to you early on as the show’s novelty and then gets quickly brushed aside until maybe the last episode. This show for example, anyone remembers how it started? I am messed up in the head, I wanna kill her, murder blah blah. And then nope, it is just a cute school romance until we are reminded again about it at the very lost episode. It is brushed aside to the point that the title of the show loses all meaning. That in turn makes the characters and their actions as uninteresting, flat and hollow as the story itself. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not some kind of insulting echhi shit, but aside from being cute, cause I bet a lot of people find it cute alright, it has no other virtue, unless you consider that being an unrealistic fuckin power fantasy for every short emo shy little boy can be considered a virtue. Also, is it illegal for a romance anime to exist where the big sister doesn’t stuff her nose in between the couple? Usually push their relationship forward by making them feel awkward. Animation and sound is what you would expect from the genre, simply serviceable, they barely work and there is nothing to write home about. So, is it worth a watch? Nah, it is not. If you are an an avid fan of these shows, sure, nothing terribly off putting about it, you will gulp it right down, but if you are looking for a great show regardless of genre, this is far from it.