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Killing Stalking: a review

image sources for banner: lehzin/koogi

To start off, as this is my first post on this blog, my reviews are precisely just that, it’s how I feel and my thoughts about this series and all the other series that I’m going to review (this is also just for fun!!). I might be a bit late for this (even though it recently finished?), but this feels like a good start.

THIS IS ALSO VERY SPOILER HEAVY SO IF YOU HAVEN’T READ KILLING STALKING COMPLETELY, PLEASE STOP NOW!

I originally started reading this when it came out and from the start, it took me aback with the concept, since at the time I was about 16, but I ended up not finishing it and only originally got through half of the second “season” of the comic, but I picked it back up and reread from the beginning in one sitting about a week ago.

It was a goddamn trip. The art, beautiful. The story, interesting. The after feeling. An absolute, and very big oof. The story itself with all the twists and turns and reading as both Bum and Sangwoo progressively add on to their insanity because of each other is a good punch to the stomach.

The ending is what’s still sticking with me, and there’s a good reason why. The buildup to both Sangwoo and Bum’s demise is most certainly great, after everything they went through together, but I have some feelings about all of it, specifically about Bum’s death. I’m going to put it simply: I don’t think Bum should have died. Controversial, I know, but this is why I believe that: Bum went through, well a lot (both of them did, and that’s beside the point), and the fact that he was actively a victim from before the webcomic even started is what sits wrong with me. Bum was manipulated in more ways than one by Sangwoo, from killing three people to believing that he’s “in love” with Sangwoo and many more. Quite honestly, I sympathize with Bum, as I see it, Bum could have healed and actively gotten help once Sangwoo was gone, even if it meant that he wouldn’t have actively been able to do much in society afterward because of the mental health stigma in South Korea, but he deserved his own slice of what normality feels like. I know not everything needs a happy ending, especially Killing Stalking, I never expected a happy ending for the webcomic, but I think Yoon Bum deserved some sort of peace and justice after the events of Killing Stalking. Yoon Bum getting help doesn’t mean a happy ending, it means he’s on a long path to recovery after traumatic events, which can lead to a sort of more open ending, leaving the reader to decide and interpret how they think Yoon Bum would live his life with help, instead of well, hallucinating, walking into traffic and getting hit by a  c a r.

Now you’re thinking “What about Sangwoo?”: fuck him. Honestly, I believe he got what he deserved. Getting burned severely in your childhood home and then dying in a hospital, calling out for someone he “loved”, or I guess the only person he had left and then dying? Perfect *chef’s kiss*, love it. Sangwoo almost had a more fucked up childhood than Bum, you know, with his mom trying to kill him several times, his mom cheating on his father right in front of his face, his father becoming abusive, being blamed for his father’s death. The list goes on! Sangwoo became the way he was directly because of his mother and how she treated him and raised him, a good old “nature vs nurture” scenario. The only way that I appreciate Sangwoo as a character is for his dumbassery and I thought he was a little funny, but that might just be because I’m desensitized to this stuff. 

Sangwoo’s “relationship” with Bum is something that bothered me too. As someone who is in the LGBTQ+ community, their relationship scared the absolute hell out of me. It is by far the worst representation of a gay relationship, which of course is part of the point of this webcomic, but still. If I had been more gullible while reading this, I’m sure that when things were going “well” for the two of them I would have been very ship heavy for them and enjoyed more ship content (now it’s just memes of their relationships that I enjoyed, specifically tik tok cosplay memes of it), but I didn’t because I knew from the very start that their relationship wasn’t healthy and not something that should be wished for, so for anyone who would question “Do you support this abuse trip of a webcomic?” No. I don’t support the abuse in this webcomic, but what I do support about the webcomic is the compelling story and the gore.

To continue talking about their relationship, let me bring up Sangwoo’s sexuality since I’ve seen a lot of back and forth between other readers about Sangwoo being straight. I knew he was straight from the beginning, that might sound bad, but it’s true. I knew there was no way in hell Sangwoo was gay, it wasn’t about how he was drawn, or anything, it was how he acted towards several characters that set it in stone for me that he was indeed very straight. That brings it to “What about the NSFW scenes between Bum and Sangwoo?”. The answer is simple, it’s not hard to fake things, especially when you’re a good actor like Sangwoo was, motherfucker had everyone around him fooled about who he was as a person! Sangwoo was even hesitant to go down on Bum, which is an obvious sign, at least to me. It was all to play to Bum’s fantasy of Sangwoo and we all should know it, especially since he said directly to Bum’s face that he wasn’t gay and that he imagined Bum as a woman when they had sex. I understand where the confusion can come from, but you don’t need love or anything really to fuck someone of any gender or sexuality and have seen several occasions where straight men pretend to be gay and this is another example of something like that.

Overall, Killing Stalking is a great read if you can stomach it, but is terrible with representation for the LGBTQ+ community. Despite most of my thoughts being negative about, well a lot of the series, I really liked it, especially for the writing and the art style. Killing Stalking is going to stick with me for a long time and I’m glad it will because it can open some good conversations about a lot of things for people who have read the series.

Now that you’re at the end, go ahead and send in asks and start up conversations about my thoughts or your own thoughts!