Fe once again mentions they underestimated how long the flashback arc would be, even admitting they unintentionally faked out the editor three times about when it would end. Love of Kill volume 6 is just over 150 pages, and it takes about 120 of them to get back to the present.
Yeah, Fe was way off thinking Ryang-Ha and Chateau’s shared past could be done in three or four chapters!
While the in-story explanation for this arc is Chateau’s memories returning to her, the perspective continues to bounce between Ryang-Ha the Original and Ryang-Ha the Current. This means readers know things that Current and Chateau shouldn’t know or, at best, can only assume. Even though volume 7 returns to the present, the two still need to clear the air and compare notes about Original and the surrounding situation.
So in essence, I highly doubt the flashback arc is truly over yet.
Original’s fate continues to play out (and be parodied in the volume’s extras), and Fe generally finds a good balance for the character between being an important figure in the leads’ lives without being an ill-fated, almost-divine hero. Original was clearly over his head, and combined with Chateau being a young child, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Meanwhile, Current is found by the gang members from before. Even Fe is a little surprised by their own handiwork in a shoujo manga. Obviously a manga featuring assassins is going to be violent. But while readers will probably sympathize with Original’s situation, man, they’re going to feel every hit Current receives. Despite knowing the outcome of this arc, there is a rather large dose of tension with both of the Ryang-Has. There is also at least one potential area where there is room for the past and present to collide, so that will be interesting to see if it’s revisited.
However, I think the flashback runs a little long. Or maybe I don’t like how the one chapter in the present and the related extra is mostly trying to get Chateau to snap out of her haze after passing out from memory overload. As I said earlier, I think there are still pieces of the puzzle Current and Chateau can offer each other, and I wish that would have been the way this volume ended.
I don’t think Fe could have done to much make Love of Kill readers not want to finish this significant arc, and while this volume is a bit of an improvement over the last, I couldn’t help but feel it needed a little quicker wrap-up or more aftermath here to give it that extra umph.