Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu

Kyoutarou Ichikawa may look like a shy and reserved middle school student, but deep within his heart is a bloodthirsty killer. His ultimate desire is to see his classmate Anna Yamada's beautiful face writhing in pain before he ends her life. But this fantasy may never come to fruition, as Ichikawa starts to see an entirely different side to Yamada.

Often seeking refuge in the library, Ichikawa frequently runs into Yamada. It is during these encounters that Ichikawa realizes his model classmate is actually an airhead who can never read the room. As they spend more time together, the boy cannot help but feel not only a sense of endearment toward the very girl he wishes to murder but also a desire to protect her at all costs. Is it possible that this sudden change in Ichikawa's perspective could lead to something more?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yamada, Anna Main

Youmiya, Hina Japanese

Ichikawa, Kyoutarou Main

Horie, Shun Japanese

Ichikawa, Kana Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Sekine, Moeko Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Yamada, Sanae Supporting

Minaguchi, Yuko Japanese

Hara, Honoka Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Kobayashi, Chihiro Supporting

Asai, Ayaka Japanese

Imaginary Kyoutarou Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Adachi, Shou Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Yoshida, Serina Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Matsui, Yuuko Producer

Endou, Kazuki Producer

Lee, Sang-jun Producer

Reviews

Oct 1, 2024

Emarurururu

Recommended

As a neurodivergent and person who suspects she may have BPD, this one really resonated with me. A fantastic romcom with an insanely likeable and goofy female lead as well as a very interesting male protagonist with his own development. Seeing Ishikawa develop into a better person who is able to connect with not only Anna but other people too is one of the best parts. The other being seeing whatever goofy thing Anna is doing, she's such a treasure. The karte style endings is also super cool, makes the eps feel more dramatic. All in all, The Dangers in my Heart is a heartwarming ... story not just about love but finding connection in others. If you like romcoms watch this and if you like silly women who are insanely beautiful also watch this, you will love Anna Yamada.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 6, 2024

Marsh37

Mixed Feelings

This review will be broken down into sections on story, characters, and aesthetics. For the purposes of convencience I will refer to the series as 'Bokuyaba' throughout this review.

Story: Bokuyaba is a simple story following the the slow developing romance of its two central characters, Yamada and Ichikawa. Events within the story often revolve around seemingly coincidental interactions between Yamada and Ichikawa. Particularly the early interactions happen in or around the school library, where both of the main characters spend their break times for their own seperate reasons. The story relies on the quirks of Yamada and Ichikawa to drive their interactions, which sometimes results ... in a funny, cute or heartwarming scene, and sometimes results in a moment of typical anime romcom cringe. The cringe moments however, are to be expected given that the characters are inexperienced middle-schoolers, who are both socially inept in their own ways. Ultimately, the cringe wears off as Yamada and Ichikawa become more familiar with one another. A big bonus for some viewers is the use of the unusual height difference between Yamada and Ichikawa. Many vertically challenged male audience members who like taller women will undoubtedly be willing to excuse Yamada's faults to indulge in various self-insert fantasies. Overall Bokuyaba uses the designs of Yamada and Ichikawa to its advantage in its more intimate scenes.


Characters: Bokuyaba is primarily a story driven by its characters. Ichikawa, being the socially awkward main male character, is clearly designed to be a self-insert character for viewers of a similar disposition. Early on, it is emphasised that Ichikawa has something a little bit more wrong about him in the head, with an obsession over the topic of murder, almost framing him as a potential yandere in the opening episodes. This character trait, whilst occasionally relevant, does die off over time, which is overall a positive thing, both for Ichikawa and the series as a whole. This character trait goes underused for the better, however it does raise the question of if it was really necessary for his character at all in the first place. Overall, Ichikawa's introduction is subpar, and he only becomes a likable character after the first 3 or 4 episodes, when his more relatable flaws start to recieve more focus over what is shown prior. Ichikawa does show himself to be a decent person who is just very insecure and low in confidence, however for many viewers, the damage to his image may already be done within the first few episodes

Yamada is subject to a very similar issue at the start of the story, where her eating obsession and general low IQ are overemphasised to a point that will make her initially come off to the viewer as annoying unless they are really into girls who are, quite bluntly, stupid. Yamada does remain a complete dork throughout the majority of Bokuyaba, however after the first few episodes, she starts to actually appear to engage her brain to some extent. Some viewers will likely find her endearing from the start, whilst others will find her annoying, as some of her more low IQ actions are unrealistically dumb by the standards of a reasonable human being.

The side characters are nothing special, but some of Yamada's female friends do play minor roles in ways that bounce off of Yamada's character well. Despite them being very different to Yamada in lots of ways, it is believable that they are friends with her and genuinely care about her.


Aesthetics: The character design is fitting for the main cast and the art style is appealing to the eye. Other than the opening music being decent, there is not much to say about the music. It neither significantly enhances nor takes away from the viewer's enjoyment of the show.

Overall, Bokuyaba gets off to a rocky start, which may spoil the investment of many viewers early on, however, whilst the anime does occasionally do things that will make many viewers cringe, these moments decrease over the runtime of the show. Generally, outside of hardcore romance anime enjoyers, many viewers will likely fall off Bokuyaba quite early unless Yamada is really their type, or if they strongly relate to some of Ichikawa's less concerning character traits. That said, if you can get through the first few episodes without being completely turned off by Bokuyaba, it only gets better from there.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 4, 2024

Ryan_the_Bread

Not Recommended

Word of the day: Stammer.

Now let’s use it in a sentence: “I wish Kyoutarou Ichikawa from The Dangers in My Heart wouldn’t stammer so goddamn much.” Dangers is a show I dislike more for its modus operandi than its objective. Put plainly, HOW it does what it does is more irksome than WHAT it’s trying to do. The base premise of a lonely boy learning to love and open himself up to others is fine, but the journey he takes to get there is just so loud, predictable and trite that I couldn’t get attached.

The show is often praised as “realistic” and I find ... that notion simply laughable. There’s exactly one aspect of the show that I found even vaguely realistic and it was Ichikawa’s thought process, mostly in relation to how he feels about Yamada (the love interest) and how he thinks she feels about him. We learn pretty early on that him wanting to “murder” Yamada is more of a coping/defense mechanism than a genuine desire and that he’s dealing with a lot of self-esteem issues. I like when this manifests itself through Ichikawa being timid, avoidant and unsure of himself, but more often than not it’s portrayed solely by him stammering his way through interactions with others.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been more annoyed by a cast of characters in my life. Not so much because of their actions, more so because most of them are unnecessarily loud and have incredibly shrill and irritating voices. I ended up watching the dub, but flirted with the sub until I realized it was just as grating. None of this is helped by Ichikawa’s frequent internal monologues and interjections. Let me walk you through how Dangers structures one of its, like, two jokes.

Yamada is the definition of an airhead, so she frequently does stuff that baffles Ichikawa. One of her quirks is that she’s (almost) never without candy, so she’ll sometimes dump a jar’s worth out of her pockets to eat at inappropriate times. That’s the set up. The punchline is almost always Ichikawa screaming (internally) about how absurd Yamada’s being. And that’s pretty much it. It wasn’t especially funny the first time it happened and it gets severely less funny the more the show does it.

Speaking of Ichikawa’s monologues though, when they’re not being used as the punchline to a painfully unfunny joke about Yamada’s lack of social grace, they’re the essence of insipid. Bro just doesn’t have interesting thoughts. He either just recaps what we’ve already seen or meditates on his burgeoning feelings for Yamada – which are usually already obvious. Ichikawa gets like 5 points for being an accurate portrayal of a boy with confidence issues and -50 for being a shrill, overthinking twerp.

Yamada fairs no better; she’s paper thin (character-wise, physically she looks like 2 watermelons tied to the top of a flagpole). I feel like she’s a bunch of quirks in a trench coat parading around as a fully realized character. She loves candy and Ichikawa, she models and acts and she’s ditzy to a “comical” degree, but I feel like I never got a sense of an actual, real character beyond all that. She likes Ichikawa, ostensibly, because he’s not like the other boys (i.e. not blatantly trying to fuck her). However, before long, my suspension of disbelief was pushed to its breaking point because, aside from one kind of cute interaction at the end of the first episode, I just don’t see what Yamada sees in Ichikawa to relentlessly pursue him like she does.

I get it, Professor. Yamada sees who Ichikawa really is, accepts him for it and everyone lives happily ever after. That works thematically, sure, but in a practical sense I just don’t buy her feelings. Ichikawa, due to the self-esteem issues I mentioned before, has trouble connecting with others. Yamada, the angel she’s portrayed as being, however, cuts through all of those issues with the patience of a saint and the understanding of a trained psychologist (okay, slight exaggeration but you get my point).

The word “incel” has pretty much lost all meaning, but a lot of Dangers does play out like the world’s most stereotypical “incel” fantasy. Ichikawa just happens to find the school’s most desirable girl wrapped around his finger basically by showing the bare minimum amount of kindness and personality. She’s not offput by his downer demeanor or morbid interests and is exceedingly patient with him missing her cues and acting like an asshole at times.

This can, no doubt, be approached from a lot of different angles. It’s absolutely important to find someone who likes you for you, warts and all. I don’t think that’s a bad message to try and impart, but Dangers reads almost like total wish fulfilment when it comes down to it. There’s a kind of half-assed thread of Ichikawa coming to love himself because he realizes it’s important to do that before entering a proper relationship. He thanks Yamada for helping him come to this epiphany, but she waves away any responsibility on her part and says that it was all his own doing. Nice sentiment, but blatantly untrue. For all intents and purposes, he was dependent on her to help him realize that he’s worthy of love.

Ichikawa’s backstory is also really quite tame for what he ends up becoming. For his issues, I was expecting some serious trauma, but it essentially boils down to not getting into a really prestigious school and being picked on for liking true crime. I can understand him becoming a bit of a loner but for him to become, essentially, a shithead edge lord Shinji Ikari with a fraction of the personal drama feels ridiculous.

While the show kind of drags its feet with the “will Ichikawa and Yamada realize their feelings for one another?”, it goes out of its way to put them into some ridiculously contrived scenarios meant to push their personal physical boundaries. We’ve got one scene where a teacher finds them and it looks like Ichikawa just blew his load on Yamada’s face and chest (it’s actually a milkshake or something), another where Yamada sits, legs open, right in front of Ichikawa in a cramped janitor’s closet and, my favorite, a scene where Yamada pulls Ichikawa into a dressing room at a clothing store to avoid scrutiny from his sister. I suppose my brain just isn’t rotted enough to find these scenarios as endearing or as funny as I’m supposed to. Great, her tits are right up in your face. Again. What a surprise. Whatever.

It especially doesn’t help when the payoff’s the same every time. Ichikawa gets super flustered, usually pitches a tent and they both awkwardly stammer their way out of the situation. By the millionth time it happens, I’m sick of them being so nervous. They hold hands a few times throughout, and Ichikawa’s reaction is the exact same combination of embarrassment and arousal every time. It’s tiring.

I’m genuinely happy for you if you like this show, and I don’t mean that in a backhanded way. Some people like having their nuts stomped on and some people like working a 9-5. That’s all valid. For myself, however, there’s just not enough justifying Ichikawa and Yamada’s unlikely situationship. I don’t buy her pursuing him and I don’t buy his backstory having as catastrophic of an impact as it does. Beyond that, they’re SO loud and the situations they find themselves in, while they’re intended to be humorous, mostly left me rolling my eyes.

Scores:
Art (5/10)
Music (4/10)
Characters (3/10)
Story (4/10)
Objective (4/10)
Subjective (3/10)

A lot of people like this show, and it’s not totally without merit. There are, infrequently, some genuinely cute moments between the two leads and I still maintain that, while dramatized in a weird way due to his backstory, Ichikawa’s internal thought process is generally well-realized. Otherwise, The Dangers in My Heart struck me as just contrived, unfunny and loud wish fulfillment.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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