What I liked
I liked the female lead actor slowly getting bloodiesr and bloodier. I liked the variety of types of characters in the play and all the kissing! so much smooching! The interplay with violence and sexuality and manipulation really felt so strangely sickeningly accurate for situations in my youth that I’ve seen or been in in college. It was vivid and refreshing to see my own past reflected back to me so strangely and yet to sincerely and accurately. This show is a dramatic telling of the pitfalls of how we’ve been told love should be: filled with control and romanticizing fixing someone’s problems. I’ve found myself stuck in that pattern for so much of my youth – the pattern of seeing love as fixing someone else even when someone else is just hurt from romantic problems that will probably just be repeated again for you. What’s it like to love someone who can’t protect themself? There’s no answers in Heart Held, just a drawing of a sad tangled web of young misunderstandings taught to us as love.
What I didn't like
I wanted EVEN MORE BLOOD! I also could have seen a bit more of the character with the tazer’s story.
My overall impression
Heart Held at Knife Point truly captivated me and made me feel like I was transported straight into a wild new and frightening metaphor of the pain of love. I found myself pondering this universe’s lore long after the final blood splattered and having conversations with people who’ve seen the show about what emotional wounds count as a physical injuries or what makes someone have one weapon or another or what it means to abandon your weapon.What does it mean to be dating someone holding a gun when all you have is a taser? Where are people’s shields are they just too young to realize they can craft solid boundaries instead of just slicing and stabbing? I could imagine a whole wild anime built around this premise with seasons of wild thick lore. Something akin to magical realism meets gothic drama.
