Love of Kill Episode 3 – Fall Out Keeps Falling Out

Love of Kill has apparently decided that it is going to start every episode with a visual recap of the main events in the previous episode, though at least in episode 3 it doesn’t go for as long as the one that preceded the events of episode 2. And after the focus on danger in episode 2 with Chateau being forced off a cliff, episode 3 switches gears as it deals with the day after as well as giving us a brief (and somewhat ambiguous) flashback of Song’s past.

What is great about the episode is that Song and Chateau do spend most of it together. Either initially after waking up, as Chateau contacts her office, and after a brief visit to her office, Song is waiting for her when she returns home. Yeah, he’s still hitting all the warning flags for creepy stalker and yet somehow he’s still coming off as pretty likeable. Though potentially that has more to do with the flat nature of every other character so far.

Love of Kill still feels like we’re in set-up mode.

Three episodes in to Love of Kill and while Song’s pursuit of Chateau is pretty straight forward, even if she’s still trying to find his hidden motives, it isn’t clear where else the story is planning to go. Sure there’s clearly a group out for revenge against Song as the message Chateau received last week directly called him a traitor and the flashback we saw seems to indicate exactly that. Though at the same time, we don’t know why he carried out that action and it seems unlikely he did it on a whim.

There’s definitely more to the story and yet Love of Kill isn’t in a rush to lay its cards on the table.

Meanwhile Chateau’s past is clearly mired in family tragedy. From the flashback we saw in episode one to the picture’s Song looks at in her apartment to the phone message from her ‘mother’ it is clearly a big part of the reason she’s so emotionally shut-down and disconnected from others. Again though, we’re missing a lot of pieces to this puzzle.

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Part of the puzzle is also Chateau’s boss and why he doesn’t seem to take any specific action against her despite the fact that in the three episodes we’ve watched she pretty much continually ignored directives, at various times just gone missing, and now, despite her apology, she’s outright refused to provide a reasonable explanation for the events that ended with her car going off a cliff. The boss has very little presence in the story at all but it seems bizarre that as Chateau walks out of his office again he just continues on without there being any repercussions.

The various plot threads being woven by Love of Kill seem largely standard fare for this kind of story with shady organisations, favours, betrayals, family ties and so forth and to be honest they probably aren’t interesting enough to carry the story. Really, the only major selling point so far would be the pair at the centre of the story and that’s only if you enjoy seeing their interactions. And with Chateau being pretty emotionless (other than irritation) and Song being just this side of creepy stalker material, I can understand some viewers not finding it all that entertaining.

For me, I am enjoying most of their interactions even while acknowledging that in real life this wouldn’t be the basis for a healthy relationship. I’d actually like to see these two characters get together in Love of Kill. I’m also a little hopeful that as the anime continues some of the backstories and other plots will develop further and become a little more engaging (though that may be a false hope).

At this stage, I’m enjoying Love of Kill but I’m not going to jump up and down to recommend it. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out.

Images from: Love of Kill. Dir. H Ooba. Platinum Vision. 2022

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Karandi James

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