The Spring 2022 anime season is upon us, and many anime titles we enjoyed during Winter 2022 have now wrapped up, including Love of Kill, an anime about two skilled killers and their unlikely connection with each other. In the josei anime, the characters' pasts bleed into their presents in unexpected ways, so the show's climax might seem a little confusing at first. Here's Love of Kill's ending explained:
Chateau's Past Explained
To explain Chateau's past, we need to rewind to a few episodes earlier, when Donny - who turns out to be Chateau's worst enemy - has the original Song Ryang-ha escort a man named Lizst Noble; Chateau's father.
Unfortunately, Lizst was killed before he and Ryang-ha could meet. On their last phone call, Lizst anxiously asked Ryang-ha to find and protect something he had hidden. Ryang-ha found Chateau sleeping inside a suitcase, and decided to take care of her, realizing she was Lizst's daughter.
An unfortunate turn of events (to be discussed in the section below) caused Ryang-ha to temporarily leave a sleeping Chateau in a cabin, with a gun by her side. Already traumatized by her ordeal and the loss of her father, Chateau woke up terrified and hid in a wardrobe, taking the gun with her. When Ryang-ha returned, she shot him in her panic, not realising who he was.
Even though Ryang-ha was mortally wounded, he still managed to put Chateau in a car and drive her to safety before succumbing to his injury. Chateau repelled her accidental killing of Ryang-ha from her memory, though the event was still subconsciously etched in her mind, explaining some of her perplexing behaviors throughout the anime.
Ryang-ha's Identity Explained
Where does the current Ryang-ha come into the story? His role, though incidental, was catalytic to the events explained above. Song Ryang-ha's original name is not revealed; in the flashback's he's portrayed as a nameless adolescent victim of child trafficking who was rescued by the original Song Ryang-ha, who took him in. The two cared for young Chateau together for a time, until the boy decided to go his own way.
Ryang-ha contemplated killing him to keep him from revealing Chateau's whereabouts, but then guiltily ended up trying to help him again, as he didn't want the boy to end up in the hands of the surviving traffickers. Ryang-ha went so far as to temporarily leave the young Chateau alone, unknowingly setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to his death.
The nameless boy was able to kill the trafficker who attacked him but ended up injured in the process. While recovering in the hospital, he found out that the original Ryang-ha had died, and, devastated, he took the man's name for his own as a way to mourn and honor him.
Related: When Will Love of Kill Be Dubbed in English?
Ryang-ha's Request to Chateau Explained
Back in the present, Chateau and Ryang-ha conclude that the former didn't outright reject the latter's advances because, on an instinctive, subconscious level, she couldn't deny the memory of the person she accidentally killed. Knowing that Donny will still be a threat, Chateau attempts to hire Ryang-ha to assassinate him. Ryang-ha, however, tells her that she'll have to work for this by his side, as an equal. He refuses payment and tells her to work out what payment he really wants, leaving her confused.
Does this mean that Ryang-ha is, once again, asking Chateau to respond to his romantic advances? Given that he's often asked for dates as a reward for his services, this wouldn't be unthinkable. That, of course, would make their power dynamic problematic, as Chateau would, once again, not get the chance to initiate a relationship on her own terms.
Will Chateau and Ryang-ha get together eventually? At the time, we can't tell for sure, as the Love of Kill manga is still ongoing and a Season 2 of Love of Kill hasn't been announced. We do know, however, that the two will keep working together, hopefully with a less unhealthy dynamic, having a newfound appreciation for each other even as they're supposed to be enemies.
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