A common thread in my reviews is that Im not really sure what score to give. I think thats because writing reviews on Anilist is a lot of work and its especially hard to find 400 words of this is great or this is abysmal. So I usually write reviews when I am in some way conflicted about a mangamost often when I feel let down by one unfortunately. Let me tell you why I feel conflicted about Love of Kill. I wanted to say something like its a good manga that tells a good story but thats not quite right. Love of Kill is two good mangas that tell two good stories. Theres a dark romcom about two assassins which is how the manga starts off and theres a moody mystery thriller withmaybea romance subplot which is where it is now. It feels a bit unfair to complain about this. The mysterythriller volumes have been good. Theyre well plotted tense etc. etc.everything I would want from a moody mystery thriller. The thing is moody mystery thrillers are not in short supply. I wanted a dark romcom about assassins dammit. And that dark romcom had the potential to be not just good but brilliant. At this point the thrust of my review should be pretty clear: Love of Kill is a good manga but if you came here based on the blurb or on comparisons to Spy x Family it probably is not what youre looking for. So you can stop reading now if you like. What I propose to do with my remaining hundred words or so is to vent a bitto explain why I think Love of Kill could have been really special and what I think were collectively missing out on because it took a more serious route. I sometimes think of the first two volumes of Love of Kill as alternateuniverse Mustang/Hawkeye FMA fanfic. Ersatz Roy Mustang is an assassin. On a job he meets fights and disarms Ersatz Riza Hawkeye a rival assassin. He is immediately smitten so he asks her out. She is decidedly not smitten and so begins about 2.5 volumes of mostly lighthearted banter flirting and gunplay starring our heroes. At least for me this is pretty much perfect. I like romcoms I like manga assassins and I love Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye. And in those first few volumes the author absolutely nails the tone the art the dialogue everything. If wed just gotten more of the same I would be a very happy reviewer. The trouble is that to pursue the more serious plot the creator apparently had in mind from the start the series had to abandon everything I liked about it. Gone are the flirting the assassinations the humor the idea that the heroine is capable of accomplishing anything on her own. In their place we have a gloomy romanceless mystery that centers on a mysterious connection between the male and female leads from the distant and tragic past. This is as I said not a bad story: Even on its own terms its not as good as the romcom but its not bad. But its very different from the story I signed up for. Edit: One other point that I originally did not plan on mentioning. The heroines name is Chateau Dankworth. I find it impossible to take that name seriously but I didnt plan on mentioning it because it felt like such a minor point. But on reflection I think it illustrates the internal confusion that bothers me so much about Love of Kill. Chateau Dankworth is an awful name for a character in something serious and grittyin other words for a character in the series that Love of Kill has become. But it is a phenomenal name for the female lead of a romcom about assassins. That illustrates my larger point: As a romcom about assassins Love of Kill was brilliant. As a serious thriller its merely good. Update Some more volumes have come out and Ive revisited the series. Im through volume 9 at this point. Maybe because I did so without the first couple of volumes fresh in my mind or maybe because the story is picking up steam I think its a bit of both Im enjoying it a lot more now. They even changed Chateaus surname. Im revising the score upwards to 85.