Kyoutarou Ichikawa (I’ll be shortening to Kyou) is, by his own admission, “messed up in the head”, reading horror stories and dreaming of murdering his classmates, chief among them the statuesque class idol Yamada Anna. Which is to say, he’s a fairly typical teenage boy in middle school.
But despite his best efforts to be aloof and scornful, the more he learns about Anna by watching her, the more he learns she’s an endearing space cadet, and he finds himself wanting to help or support her in little ways, starting by lending her a box cutter.
Kyou also seems oddly attuned to Anna in ways others aren’t, like when Anna’s poster has been replaced by her friend’s and she seems upset and even breaks down into tears. Kyou tears his own group’s poster to get everyone’s attention.
But at least this time, Kyou’s actions aren’t necessary. Whatever Anna was upset about, she isn’t anymore once she correctly spots an Osprey helicopter in the sky. Kyou just comes off like a poster-slashing weirdo to everyone else.
When one of his male classmates (who prefers bigger girls) asks to meet the girl he likes to meet him in the library, Anna is a clear third wheel, while Kyou is invisible behind the bookshelves. When Kyou drops his book, Anna actually covers for him by saying there’s a cat in the room.
Kyou meows, Anna goes to investigate, and gets him to meow along with her like two cats fighting. The couple-to-be end up alone and hit it off, leaving the library side-by-side in spirited conversation about cats. This skit shows that Anna and Kyou can make a good team.
Kyou learns that his #1 Murder Victim modeled in the latest issue of Ciel, he heads to the bookstore, but not in his school uniform. There he finds Anna there, also in disguise, desperately trying to get random customers to notice her in the magazine. She even prepares for autographs!
Kyou does by the magazine, but when he sees the photos of Anna, she looks like a stranger, and thus the little bit of distance they had closed gets wider (though he does fish it out of the trash later). It’s understandable that an outcast teenager with few friends would feel like he and someone like Anna were completely different species.
That discouragement builds when he spots Anna with a similarly tall lad. He assumes it’s her boyfriend and declares that “that’s how it is”—those of the same species tend to pair up. But far from her BF, he’s actually a guy she’s not interested in, pretending not to know what LINE or social media are.
When the lad, who turns out to be a cad, grabs Anna’s damn arm when she tries to leave and freakin’ insists she give him her contact info (always great start to a relationship!) Kyou considers walking on by. It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care, he thinks. But it does matter, and he does care…about Anna!
So once again Kyou does something dumb and impulsive and very much not in his best interest: tossing his bike into the river! It makes such a commotion, the exchange of information seems to have been interrupted. Anna didn’t see it, but one of her friends did and reports what Kyou did.
When he explains he “hit the gas when he should have hit the brake” Anna has the biggest laugh and smile of the whole episode, and tells Kyou he’s funny. It seemed to me in the moment that she knew why he did what he did, and is grateful for it.
But the fact that Kyou can tell that Anna had no interest in the cad hitting on her means he’s not the demented psychopath he builds himself up to be in his dark thoughts. His heart is a lot lighter and warmer he thought, and continuing to interact with the tall, adorable Anna will only reinforce that truth.
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