Killing Stalking Season 1+2 review / recap

Viewer discretion is advised. The following content may contain violence , inappropriate language, and graphic senses.

Also contains spoilers.

read at your own risk

It is also very long … as i will be covering two seasons worth of content.

The web manga that surfaced in 2016 as has spread throughout the internet and become infamous in the anime and otaku community.

today, i will be writing a review on season one and two as they are the only parts that have been completed as of this.

however i will once again say that this will contain spoilers and graphic senses, inappropriate language  and mature content. yet, if you have read or are a fan of killing stalking you probably have already been scarred enough already.

so let’s get on with the review.

PLOT

Oh Sangwoo, a fashionable, charming and smooth talker Korean college student, who turns out to be a sadistic serial murderer, kidnaps Yoon Bum, a strange and exiled man, who has been obsessively stalking him.

The story starts developing when Bum decides to enter Sangwoo’s house when he’s away, finding out that the man Oh portrays to the world has nothing to do with reality. The moment the house owner discovers that Bum broke in and saw what he’s been hiding, he decides to hold him captive. Despite being an object of affection for Bum, Sangwoo tortures him. The plot follows his multiple attempts of breaking free and its consequences.

well, let’s look at the characters who play a major role throughout the first two seasons :

Yoon bum in season 1:

We are introduced to Yoon Bum in the first panel of the first chapter, however he seems to be looking feminine at that stage. Yet we soon undercover that Yoon Bum is nothing but an obsessed stalker not just in the sense of taking photos. However, he is obsessed with sung woo to the extent of trying to get his way into his apartment. He appears to be shy, which is correct yet he is seen to be able to hide his true feelings and motives under who he really is . We do find out though the series that he does have a personality disorder. Throughout the series we continue to see how life is  through yoonbums eyes, from being captured and tortured and used by sungwoo to eventually adopting a form of Stockholm syndrome towards the sungwoo. This may be due to YoonBums Borderline Personality disorder, which make him develop strong attachments to people who show him affection and his fear of rejection to maintain relationships with others. As he will do anything for them.
Overall yoonbum is a character that the readers will connect with you may feel pity on him as he has encountered and has continued to encounter a series of unfortunate events. Throughout, his entire life.

However in moments of happiness I can’t help but feel happy for him.

Even though throughout the season 1 Yoon bum is forced into things he would never do, such as kill the girl who represented yoon bums former high school classmate. Which he got rejected buy.

Here I actually feel bad for yoonbum as you can tell he doesn’t want to go through with and is quiet distort after wards.With sungwoo now having leverage over yoonbum to go to the police with makes it seem that yoonbum has really become a prisoner.

I do like his character though. He is shy yes. But i also say he is smart as he is able to survive being around sungwoo not just because of his infatuation with him, but because he knows that to continue living he just needs to do what he is told. Therefore, i that about him. I do admit though he is seen to be ‘creepy’ at times and disturbing.

YoonBum in season 2;

Though in season 2 yoonbum is the same man we saw in season one we do see a bit of his past.

Where his parents have tragically been killed in an accident and poor yoon bum is forced to like with h

is grandparents. However whilst living their yoon bum becomes sexually assaultd by his grandfather, which i think is fucked up to be honest.

I understand that he needs a tragic backstory but hasn’t he had enough?. Though the relationship with his grandfather we learn that he continue to rape him as he looks like his mother. The sick thing is the grandmother knows all this is going on, and does nothing to stop it. Besides when her husband is out by feeding at this point famished YoonBum as he basically looks like a skeleton.

This is mainly why i think yoon bum puts up with the sexual harassment he faces with sungwoo. Yet when sungwoo and Yoonbum are captured by the police Yoon Bum stays loyal to sungwoo, as i feel he is afraid that if he doesn’t stay loyal he will be sent back to his uncle or worst killed by sungwoo.

i have included a summary here of the kinds of relationship ships yoobum was in prior to sungwoo :

Parents:

Yoon Bum’s mother and father died in an accident when he was very young so he was forced to live with his abusive uncle. He doesn’t seem to have any other family members so he only has his uncle and grandmother left.

Uncle :

Yoon Bum’s paternal uncle is severely abusive to him. He raped and beat him regularly. He seems to take his anger over Bum’s mother leaving him for his brother, getting married, and having him together.

Grandmother:

Though cruel at times, Yoon Bum’s grandmother is much kinder than her son. She tries to stick up for him and feeds him against her son’s orders. Although unknown if intentionally or not, she told Yoon Bum one day to sleep in his uncle’s room, even though she was aware of her son’s abuse on Bum, mentioning that she wanted to sleep alone and that her son wasn’t coming home in that night, which turned out to be a lie, since the uncle came home when they were sleeping, causing Yoon Bum to get abused by his uncle in his room with a belt, and then raped.

Oh Sungwoo in Season one

• Sunwoo, is undoubtedly an antagonist in the sense he seem to be the reason misfortune
• ne is happening to bum after they make contact, even as early as their military days when he saved yoon bum from 
• haven’t they?
• being sexually assaulted from senior officers. Wow, the tables have turned 
• Throughout, the entire Webtoon we see two side to Sangwoo, one moment he can light-hearted, sweet and sarcastic;  other times he can be ruthless, sociopathic and absolutely terrifying. Sometimes these moments happens seconds apart.

I have been theorising that sungwoo also have a personality disorder or different personality altogether one in which he has no control over cause its his real self an

d an image he would like to keep ( and maybe just keeps him sane). I’ll let you guys decide which you think is his ‘ real’ personality.

Sangwoo is first seen in several instances of flashbacks from the mind of Bum, and is later seen in-person accompanying a female when he is approached by a police car, where he greets Officer Park and Yang Seungbae. After engaging in small talk with Park, he remarks on the new face beside him, and asks where Junjae is. He then introduces himself to Seungbae beforee momentarily peering down at him in a looming manner. He drops the intimidating atmosphere by joking about Park’s athlete’s foot. Park then informs Sangwoo about his cousin visiting his house, to which Sangwoo responds with confusion.

When Sangwoo returns home, he finds Bum having discovered the tied, gagged body of a woman he’d kidnapped in his basement and approaches him from behind with a bat.angwoo deducts Bum as a middle-aged, unemployed class loser. He addresses Bum’s scarred wrists, supposing his father beat him or if it is related to his homosexual tendencies. Sangwoo says that he’d normally kill Bum, a boy, then kill the girl later, but reveals he hasn’t murdered a male since the death of his father. He compliments Bum’s effeminate frame, like

ning it to a girl, exempting his hair. It is also noted that sungwoo keeps yoonbum around as yoonbums feminine frame and hair reminded him of his late mother who he seems to have loved dearly.

Note: if you think that sungwoos messed up don’t forget that His basement is his location of choice for holding his victims captive, torturing them, and eventually killing them. He even sleeps in the room attached to the closet with the basement hatch in order to be near it. I feel like this is to make sure they don’t escape or worse yet to here them cry.  This man is one messed up fellow

Throughout, the chapter i came to hate and love sungwoo as he would be vicious but then show acts of kindness towards yoon bum and thus ,returning my hope that maybe he could stay like that. Nope. i was wrong, so wrong..

Sungwoo in Season 2

In the middle of season two the a particular police officer Yang Seungbae who had suspicions about sungwoo since the moment he meet his in season 1, begins to try to uncover sungwoos secret.

Upon discovery of yoonbun in sungowoos apartment, he is attacked by sungwoo with a knife and sangwoo and yoonbum are taken into custody.

Once, in custody sungwoo uses his charm to plea that officer yang seungbae has assaulted a homosexual ( sungwoo is claiming that he and yoonbum are in a romantic relationship. Even though it is only one-sided). Upon, arrest yoonbum is taken back to the apartment and we don’t know what goes on down at the station. I however assume sungwoo had a chat with another police officer to convince getting yang 

seungbae removed as he would claim never attacking yang seungbae with the knife (which we know he did). Sungwoo being set free at the end of the season demonstrates to me that he is able to manipulate all people even the people who claim to be ‘protecting ‘ the ‘innocent’.

My overall thoughts on the season 

1 + 2

I love it and I hate it? It tricks me into shipping them and then I remember that the guys a murderer and the other a stalker.It definitely plays with your sense of morality. And with the consent back and forwardness of sungwoos personality and the hallucinations faced by yoonbum it does play with your head. Hence the term ‘psychological horror’.

The art overall isn’t unique,but that doesn’t make it bad. Killing stalking has an interesting plot that can keep people enticed, it is however not aimed at the faint hearted. I do recommend reading it as it is still publishing. I’d love to see where the story goes and how its characters develop, though i do not reckon that the two main characters will branch out from their original personalities 

I do love the police characters he is like a visual representation of the audience, as he ‘knows’ the inside working of sungwoo, i hope they don’t just disregard him in season as there was so much character development for him.

My overall rating

4 / 5 –

My next post regarding killing stalking will be regarding the 3rd season once it has ended.

Thank you for reading as always,

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