English Dub Review: The Dangers in my Heart “Karte 1: I Was Stolen Away”

Overview

At first glance, Kyoutarou Ichikawa is just a mentally disturbed dude, and Anna Yamada is just a popular girl within their class. But people are more than the sum of their parts, as both Kyotaro and Anna are about to discover…

Our Take

In a nutshell, Kyotaro your typical mentally disturbed student who harbors horrific edgelord fantasies about harming his classmates, particularly the magazine model student Anna, who carries a box-cutter for that purpose (which I’m surprised this school allows at all). Thankfully a chance encounter in the library leads to an unexpected interaction, where Kyotaro notices Anna’s peculiar behavior, such as humming mischievously. But in a surprising turn, he lends her his box cutter impulsively, only to find it later on his desk, revealing Anna’s awareness of his seat.

As Kyotaro observes more of Anna’s odd actions, he finds himself compelled to offer help discreetly. Their accidental intrusion during a classmate’s confession leads to a humorous situation where Kyotaro is coerced into making cat noises. Despite his confusion, he continues assisting Anna. A revealing moment in a shop prompts Kyotaro to buy a magazine featuring Anna, hoping to understand her better. However, the story takes an unexpected turn when he witnesses a classmate harassing Anna and responds with an impulsive and clever distraction…

Overall, this is a bit of an awkward story for a jumping-on point. At times we’re gazing into the “Intrusive thoughts” (Basically, the malicious or violent angsty edge lord attitudes most teenagers are guilty of having.) of a school kid without much background, other than he might take an interest in Anna? However, it’s not explained where these twisted influences stem from. I don’t know what direction this love story is going to take, but it sure as hell wasn’t boring…