Koroshi Ai

[neflight86]

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"* Based on an action romance shoujo manga by Fe.

Two assassins face off at a certain "workplace." The cool bounty hunter Chateau and the mysterious and powerful Ryang-Ha.

Chateau and Ryang-Ha become enemies after this fight—at least, they should have, but for some reason Ryang-Ha takes a liking to Chateau and begins following her around. Little by little, Chateau develops a cooperative partnership with Ryang-Ha, which gets her caught up in the struggle against the organizations hunting him down. Furthermore, that battle is related to her past as well. Why did Ryang-Ha approach Chateau? What is Chateau's secret past? The strange gears of fate begin to move.

Source: Official website"

Genre(s):Romance, Intrigue, Action

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1
Well, if you were looking for something different, here it is. Assassin courting a bounty hunter (another assassin, really) who is standoffish and cold, and wanted(s?) him dead. A few interesting things of note here- First, unlike the typical one sided anime simp, Ryang is disturbed beyond just liking Chateau, and isn't afraid of imposing his will on her when she is belligerent to him in a less than healthy way. Usually characters in this position are made to be long suffering 'nice guys' to garner audience sympathy while wearing down their tsundere, but this guy will hurt the object of his affection to get his point across to her because his patience has limits, and that makes an interesting dynamic because they are both working killers, and the show has actually made a character in Chateau who is less likable than this same unrepentant killer.

Seriously, Chateau and I both question what Ryang sees in her, as she is patently uncute, brooding, and... boring. Of course, a flashback at the end of episode one teases there is a deeper connection here, but I hope it doesn't go down the reparations rabbit hole.

The action is bloody, but sparse, as there doesn't appear to be the animation chops for extravagant gun fights or battles, but that is more of a backdrop than the main draw of the show, so it's fine for now. I can only hope I didn't misread and will be treated to an especially dysfunctional relationship going forward. Give it a try.

[neflight86]

2

Not a fan of the unevenness of the violence, let me start off with that. We have lead in with headshots galore, women mangled in car crashes, but a witness is only wounded in his arm (after being suggested he was killed), and Chateau is spared by this new assassin foil? At least the non-killings were by the same character, so I can hand wave it as his character. Not the most exciting cat-and-mouse. The entire episode is spent to say that there is bad blood between Ryang and someone who thinks he wronged them. That's not a worthy revelation for the amount of story (non)progression we got.

Also, I glossed over this last episode, but Chateau's work associates are aggressively boring. "Did I see her with Ryang?" "She's not picking up", "I'm worried." "She's probably fine." Yawn. Another cryptic flashback also does not impress.

So far, I think the focus on action is working against Koroshi-Ai; the action isn't interesting enough to carry it and the premise is slow to pick up because of it, so here's to a refocus soon.