Interview with Fe - Creator of "Love of Kill" Ahead of the Anime Release of their Assassin × Assassin Romance-Suspense Series!

── How did you feel when you heard your series would be made into an anime?

── But it did indeed get made into an anime. As the original creator, did you have any requests when it came to the anime adaptation?

── The story is rich with foreshadowing, so I’m sure it would be difficult to cut things out. Director Hideaki Ôba apparently commented, “There are no monologues and minimal dialogue so it's a challenging work to adapt into anime, but that's also part of its charm.”

── I heard you previewed the first episode. How was it?

── When reading Love of Kill, I'm constantly surprised how things mentioned earlier in the story are connected to things later on. Had you already decided the backstories for both main characters when you started making the series?

── The title for volume 1 is "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?", so I assumed everything had been planned out from the beginning!

── So the story started to come along as you were writing it?

── But that's what makes Chateau appealing, right? Even when Ryang-Ha saves her, she just thanks him and plays it down.

── I'm also a creator myself, but I feel it's hard to know how much I should plan out ahead before actually starting. If it's planned out too much, I get bored of it before I pick up my pencils… I feel it's hard to find the balance of deciding what you can ahead of time and letting the story just flow naturally.

── Touching on that a little, at what point do you feel that you can just get started writing?

── When you look at it that way, you've got an amazing talent for matching up the story like that! I've heard that there were some things that you couldn't include in the main series though. If possible I'd like to ask about those, without risking spoilers of course!

── Love of Kill has a fantastic serious tone, almost like a foreign drama series. Are there any dramas that influenced your work?

── How would you define a "drama-esque tone"?

── As a challenge for yourself, did you originally approach creating Love of Kill in a different way?

── So I guess Love of Kill was a way for you to create completely new characters in a way that you'd never done before.

── In contrast, what kind of characters had you been drawing previously?

── I love the bonus title page catchphrase ranking comic in the books. How did that come about?

── I guess some fun banter with the creator will make the editor want to keep their skills sharp, right?

── "Keep a similar taste as the first editor" sounds like a secret sauce recipe being passed down... (laughs)

── The first draft for Love of Kill, titled I Just Want to Read a Manga About an Assassin Couple, was initially posted to pixiv in 2012. Then your series started in Monthly Comic Gene in 2015. These days web manga getting printed copies is relatively common, but it was still quite rare back then, wasn't it?

── You mean pixiv Spotlight?

── I've heard that when you got the offer, you contacted the publishing company's support center because you thought it was a prank.

── You were an author as a side hustle until the first volume was released, right? At first, you thought it would be impossible to make a series while also working full time, but what made you change your mind?

── I'd say quitting your job to become a full time creator must be a big decision.

── You were also posting shorts about Chateau and Ryang-Ha on pixiv too. Along with your experience juggling a full time job and creating a manga, you must be a pro at keeping a schedule, right...?

── It's been 9 years since you first came up with Chateau and Ryang-Ha. What keeps you motivated to keep creating stories about the same characters for so long?

── What's the secret to loving your characters so much?

── Lastly, can we get a message for creators on pixiv who are aiming to make a professional debut?