The Dangers in My Heart/Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu was an anime I saw getting a lot of scorn at the surface level at the beginning of the season. While I didn't watch it, I saw as people who did actually sit past the first 5 minutes sing begin to sing its praises left and right. I was looking for some enemies-to-lovers type romance, and decided to dip in.

Simply put, this anime surpassed all the expectations I had for it- or perhaps, it didn't conform to any of them. It should be noted the supposed "enemies-to-lovers" aspect is... not really prevalent. This is honestly the only core "con" I can really say the show had.

Despite the anime somewhat defying its premise, it makes up for it in quite literally every other aspect.

Bokuyaba protrays a middle-school romance between a reclusive boy and a social butterfly girl, which is a typical trope. What it does best however, is the fact that it laser-focuses on this aspect and plays it out in a way that feels very, very genuine with all the awkward edges that being at that age has intact. I really love this show because of how real Ichikawa Kyoutarou is portrayed- Yamada Anna might be more of a stretch, but she's still endearing in every way. Both of them pull their weight in making the show what it is.

Ichikawa Kyoutarou is a creepy, overly edgy chuunibyou type boy that plays up his "dark side". The show exaggerates this fact immensely in the beginning, showing him fantasizing about murdering Yamada or writing stories about a guy who kills everything he touches. Trying to be unique and odd, he wants to keep a distance from people by spending his free time in the library. This is where he meets his target Yamada, as she shows a different side to her. After being shown her more airheaded and innocent nature, Ichikawa can't even keep up his dark charade.

That's the beauty of it. Seeing his edgy persona fall apart in the face of genuine compassion for him as he begins to truly and gradually allow himself to be vulnerable and open with Yamada is so well done and charming that regardless of the "hook" of the show being fleeting, I couldn't help but be glued to them

Ichikawa is a creepy kid, but that comes with the territory, and this show isn't afraid to show that. It's not overly forced, as you see him become less evasive with his behaviors- and in fact realizing that aside from his dark charade, he's fairly normal as Yamada does similar little things as they both desire to learn more about the other.

I wholly recommend this show, I think it's harder to explain why it's great- when you can see for yourself why it manages to hold itself up. This isn't long, but I do think it should be mentioned why you should give it a chance, if anything. It's worth not underestimating.

...Lastly I think Ichikawa and Yamada's height difference is cute lol.