Love of Kill

Episode 9

The curtain to the show's prevailing mysteries are finally starting to be pulled back, and some of the revelations we get this episode are very intriguing despite the fact that, by the time we reached the end of the episode, we didn't get nearly as many answers as I was expecting. Love of Kill definitely knows how to string its audience along with its mystery. My favorite part of the entire episode was Ryang-ha and Donny's interaction at the beginning, which is filled to the brim with tension and anticipation. I was glued to their every word because I just needed to know if these two had a connection at all. We know that this mob boss looked after a kid named Ryang-ha who apparently was transporting a young Château. However, despite looking very different, there is a very real possibility that the kid from the flashback and Ryang-ha of the present is the same person. Given everything we've seen so far, I would've totally bought that he faked his death and got some kind of surgery that altered his appearance. But based on the beginning and ending of this episode, it does seem like there isn't any connection between our hitman protagonists and the mob boss. Or is there?

Of course every revelation just leads to more questions. Not only has Ryang-ha taken on the name of that kid from the flashbacks, but he apparently also completely mimicked his falsified life history. So there is a connection there and based on Ryang-ha reactions as well as the end of this episode, there is a deliberate reason for why that was done but we're not sure why. The show has spent so much time setting up this red herring that it also kind of highlights just how little we know about Ryang-ha even now, which for the most part has worked in the story's favor. However, I hope that Love of Kill will be able to effectively introduce and wrap up Ryang-ha's history. There's not a lot of time left and I'd rather not see the show try to cram in a bunch of answers in the 11th hour. Still, despite the rather few reveals, there were other engaging aspects and character conversations in this episode. I liked the conversation that Château had with Jim, and his explanation of why he won't accept her resignation was one of the only times the show had made me laugh so far. Ryang-ha interacting with and showing off his combat prowess against this organized group was also fun. I'm a little annoyed that the show seems to be going the route of “I can definitely kill you in this instance but I'm gonna let you live for the sake of a thrill and it's definitely going to bite me in the butt later“ and I really hope that there's more to it than that. All in all, nothing extravagant in the grand scheme of things, but definitely an episode packed with a lot of solid and effective execution.

Rating:

Love of Kill is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.