Killing Stalking: Deluxe Edition Vol. 8

Killing Stalking: Deluxe Edition #8

by Koogi

THE END BEGINS

Seungbae has hit rock bottom—but things get a lot worse when he receives a phone call informing him of Chief Kwak’s suicide. Seungbae isn’t convinced that Kwak killed himself, though. In fact, he’s pretty sure he knows who did kill Kwak. Fueled by anger and grief, Seungbae sets out to put Sangwoo behind bars once and for all.

The final volume!

Genres: Manga, Horror, Manhwa, Graphic Novels, LGBT, Dark, Comics

360 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2024

Reviews

[Emna · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you think you’re ready for something crazy? Yeah, I thought that too… and then this shit laughed in my face. I went through SO much, but I actually finished it and I’m kinda proud of myself???? Still not over the trauma though 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭. 5/5, but I’d never recommend it lmao.

[Katie Colson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could have SWORN there would be 9 total volumes of this series. I've been saying 9 for like 2 years now. Not once was I corrected or questioned. So, lo and behold, I'm reading this and keep telling myself "That must be a ploy. It's a tactic on _____'s part. Cause that would mean this was over." I gaslit myself for like a hundred pages. Then kept gaslighting myself through not one by 5 different google searches. I was in full delulu. Honestly, haven't fully emerged from it.

That's how it ended? Wowowowow. After feeling a bit lackluster about the last 2 volumes, I'm shocked to report that I really like the way it ended. Now, one of the biggest things to happen, happening off page and just relayed to our character from a stranger, was messed up and I will be demanding accountability on Koogi's end. But, all in all, it ended in a way that actually makes sense and almost feels like poetic justice.

[Teru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread - 2025

Well then 🙂 This story did NOT, in fact, get any better on second read, not even while reading it with some emotional support (big thank you to my dear @axolotl, and @Linn and @Nel, you comrades made this experience almost fun while we suffered xD).
I recommend reading the last chapter with the BGM mentioned at the beginning of it, the experience was properly traumatic ❤️
What started as a thriller ended up being a total psychological mindfuck where no childhood trauma was left out, and I was NOT mad about it. Just traumatized, drained, numbed, and really fucking sad 🥺

First read - 2023
The ending is...well, it's what it is, because this story couldn't have ended well. It's a very interesting character study for both Bum and Sangwoo. Their background is fucked up, so it's no wonder they grew up into fucked-up individuals...

I feel absolutely exhausted after binging it. Be careful of the trigger warnings, because it's not an easy read, not because of any gore, but because of how mentally taxing this story gets.

God I need some fluff right about now.

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End Begins…
tw:// suicide, graphic violence
Seungbae has hit rock bottom - but things get a lot worse when he receives a phone call informing him of Chief Kwak's suicide. Seungbae isn't convinced that Kwak killed himself, though. In fact, he's pretty sure he knows who did kill Kwak, Fueled by anger and grief, Seungbae sets out to put Sangwoo behind bars once and for all.

Holy. Shit. That was an incredibly dark ending. This story is an extreme, bleakly depressing, depiction of Stockholm Syndrome. Once the young man who has been held captive, Yoon Bum, appears to finally be saved… Of course all he can think about is his captor, Oh Sangwoo. Will he be able to see his beloved Sangwoo one last time? That’s going to be a difficult, especially if Sangwoo’s horrific crimes are discovered here…! This is how this most twisted, fucked up, “love” story, concludes.

4 Stars

[Urbon Adamsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

PT Esta série chega finalmente ao seu desfecho com este volume.

O final é relativamente previsível, o que lhe confere um sabor algo agridoce. Para uma série tão fora da caixa, teria sido interessante um desfecho igualmente inesperado.

No geral, foi uma boa série.

--

EN This series finally reaches its conclusion with this volume.

The ending is relatively predictable, which gives it a somewhat bittersweet feel. For a series so out of the box, a similarly unexpected conclusion would have been more fitting.

Overall, it was a good series.

[★ray's bookshelf★ · Rating 4 out of 5]

And Sangwoo really turned to Ashwoo when he turn into an ash I was speechless and I cried ofc

[angry axolotl]

This is fucked up and I feel slightly dead inside ;-;
I'm gonna go bury my hamster now with the shovel I stole from @Teru (please never suggest to put on the BGM again). Special thanks also to @Nel and @Linn for taking me along the ride!!

[Clarice · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do you mean that’s how it ends 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠💀💀💀💀💀😩😩😩😩😩😩

Like I want to give the ending 2 stars, but it’s so ironic and artistic that I’m almost tempted to give it 5.
I’m going to be thinking about this series for a really long time and I wish more people read this so I could talk about it, but it’s so out of a lot of people’s comfort zones that I can’t 🙃

Apparently there’s a new series that Koogi is writing called “Undead Park” but there are no official translations yet 🫠 Apparently it’s also super well written and themed. I’m just going to go cry in a corner until that comes out 🥲

[Linn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not okay. and honestly fuck Koogi for that ending, they could have at least said goodbye to each other like dude.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series rating 4⭐️

Well that was depressing

[Jura Tchaikovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mocne..

[Michelle Easton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy is this such a messed up story. Psychological thriller is not usually my cup of tea, but damn did Koogi do it right. Makes me think of the first time I read this online. Ah the nostalgia.

[KillerBunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐
Entire series review.
Someone looking for BL is not going to find it, in this series. Mental illness and trauma are everything you will find beyond those pages.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If I die first, I want you to die, too. I don't care whether you slit your wrists or hang yourself. If you fail, just keep trying. Don't let me down."

My thoughts are all over the place (so this is gonna be long), but one thing I can say for certain: I didn't expect to like this series as much as I did.

Killing Stalking is kinda infamous; you couldn't escape the discourse on Tumblr/in anime fan spaces for years. I was fully convinced it was the most depraved, twisted thing on the planet, not to mention hideously romantic with no self-awareness. It was !!PROBLEMATIC!!. Unfortunately, I gotta bang my gavel and judge you all with "media illiteracy." If Koogi was trying to romanticize abuse, she did a horrible job.

1) the scaries and the romance

Ultimately, Killing Stalking's an erotic psychological horror about the legacy of familial abuse and how love & devotion can get so tangled up with anger & betrayal. Aren't love and hate opposite forms of extreme obsession and extreme passion? Both Oh Sangwoo's and Yoon Bum's abusers were people who made them feel loved, protected, and special before hurting them (albeit Sangwoo's started with love and Bum's started with hurt), and processing their feelings about those people proves, uh, damaging. To themselves in Bum's case, to other's in Sangwoo's.

"I love you."
"How do you know?"
"My heart beats like crazy."
"It does that when you watch a scary movie, too."
"I think about you all day..."
"But it's like that when something bad happens, too. You can't stop thinking about it all day."
"I feel like I'll go crazy if you're not next to me..."
"You're just afraid of being alone."

The author's got a pretty good handle on the minutiae of abuse. Some of it is overkill and ridiculous (I'll discuss Bum's uncle...), but nothing chilled me quite like the volumes where the guys were acting more like boyfriends, yet every scene was full of Sangwoo's petty cruelties. Look, being tied up with your legs smashed in some dude's grimy basement isn't all that familiar, but I warrant most of us know what it feels like to have a trusted person make you feel stupid or like a failure, put you on edge in stressful situations neither of you can control, or embarrass you in front of others. It was unbearable to read--in the best way.

The trajectory was easy to predict but no less interesting for it: Bum's being favoured and paid attention to, kinda even obsessed over, for the first time in his life. He was already attached to Sangwoo before this all happened, and he's gotta play nice to stay alive (not to mention how this is an erotic horror so his "nice" act of choice is sex). Because of this series' aforementioned bad reputation, I was really braced for it to fall face-first into becoming a romance (even a villain-type romance), but the entire time, I think it would take a pretty stubborn naysayer to ignore how your stomach is supposed to flip every time Bum gives Sangwoo too many chances.

Even when the last volume has Sangwoo forcing a return to the status quo--putting Bum in the old clothes, beating him, threatening to kill him once again--he's still heartbreakingly desperate to be treated as special (even if "special" meant just not getting stabbed to death).

I would have loved a few more out-of-pocket deranged moments (centipede, anyone? bodies in the washing machine?), and though I did love the nasty ickiness of the more grounded emotional abuse of the second half of the series, I did find myself missing the good ol' knife.

2) the in-bad-taste

The yaoi-brand pitfalls...were plentiful. But I've read so much genuine BL that's somehow even more creepy and full of ~romantic~ sexual assault that I can't even pretend this is uniquely a Killing Stalking problem. At least it knows that when someone is yelling "stop!", it's a bad thing.

However, KS is an erotic horror that loves being an erotic horror, and I don't think I'm super well-equipped to draw the lines between, well, uh, erotic horror and Tumblr's second-fav accusation--fetishization. The seme/uke dynamic is taken to a weird extreme here, with Bum frequently looking like an emaciated child. It felt appropriately icky that Bum seems to linger on and enjoy the size difference between them (ie. comparing the size of their hands; I understood the character choice that he would enjoy being treated like a delicate little creature), and yet I was kinda like ehhhhhh maybe let's not linger so lovingly on his scrawny, childish body in sex scenes, maybe.

Some other yaoi things:
- all women are suspect
- casual homophobia (subverted. So much BL positions the "top" being straight/"gay 4 u" as a plot point to overcome or a way to split the Masculine from the Feminine, but here whenever it came up, it felt like a way to shock Bum/readers into remembering the truth of the unevenness of their relationship)
- rape by a man as backstory (bonus points for incest)
- and that rape is ridiculously cartoonish and lingered on
- i'm serious my dude why do authors think rapists are always 2 seconds away from raping. when the uncle is trying to get Bum out Sangwoo's house why was he like "yup now's the time!!" other than to have more frames of Bum with his pants off

3) someone should've given this author a month off

how did she zoom through this in 2 1/2 years?! As we went on, the art was still amazing, truly, but I felt like she was relying more and more on unedited preloaded assets that looked really bad when untouched (THE SNOW...THE CRUNCHY DOORS). Like I'm so serious I hope she enjoyed a nice long break after creating this at breakneck speed

4) the end

reading (and really enjoying) Killing Stalking was not in my 2025 plans but here we are

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t fully know what I was getting into with this series, but once I started I couldn’t stop until I saw how it ended. Given the entire premise I didn’t expect it to be a happy ending, but I’m actually feeling a little gutted! There was so much trauma for both Bum and even Sangwoo, which was revealed towards the end, and call me crazy but I really felt genuine sympathy for him. I do still have a couple small questions that came up as things wrapped up, but the story still feels complete. It was uniquely dark and really toyed with my emotions. I’ll be stuck thinking about this one for a while, that’s for sure.

[Octobur Frost · Rating 5 out of 5]

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

[Seff Liddell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt rushed and as if the person who was writing the first set didn't write this one. A meh ending to a good series.

[✧･ﾟ: *✧aj✧*:･ﾟ✧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

actual rating for the series: 4.5

[It'sSara]

هشدار کمی اسپویل
۱۵ دقیقه‌ست که به صفحه گوشی زل زدم.
۱۵ دقیقه‌ست که منتظرم کلمات بیان سراغم تا بتونم یک ریویوی طولانی بنویسم.
و ۱۵ دقیقه‌ست که هیچ‌کدوم از کلماتی که هنگام خوندن توی ذهنم پرواز می‌کردن سراغم نیان.
توی این داستان تعریف‌های قربانی و متجاوز به صورت ملموس وجود نداره؛ به عبارتی، هیچ‌کس رو نمیشه در طرف خوب یا بد ماجرا قرار داد.
نه سفید مطلق هست و نه سیاه مطلق.
یک قاتل داریم و یک استاکر.
قاتلی که نمیتونه عشق رو تجربه کنه و درگیر گذشته‌ش با مادریه که هیچ وقت از زندگیش پاک نشد.

"چطور میشه یکی رو کُشت بدون اینکه بکشیش؟"

جمله‌ای که بارها توی داستان تکرار شد. جمله‌ای که قاتل زندگیش کرد. و برای اینکه ثابت کنه از اون جمله، از اون گذشته، از اون مادر هیچ تاثیری ندیده، سعی کرد به فردی دیگه تحمیلش کنه. مادری که حضورش توی داستان مبهم، ولی واضح بود.
مادری که کشته شده، اما مومیایی بدنش همچنان گوشه اتاق مونده بود. مادری که هر شب به خواب پسرش میومد، اذیتش می‌کرد، صداش می‌کرد و خاطرات رو همراه با خودش میاورد.
و این خاطرات حالا به عنوان شخصی جدید وارد زندگی قاتل قصه ما شده بود.
یک قسمتی از پیام نویسنده هست که دوست دارم به ریویوم اضافه‌ش بکنم چون به نظرم بهتر از کسی که اثر رو خلق کرده نمیتونم این شرایط رو توضیح بدم:

"از همون اول سانگ وو هیچ وقت بوم رو به خاطر خودش ندید؛ اینکه لباس‌های مادرش رو تن بوم میکرد بیانگر این بود که میخواست از حضور مادرش که فهمیده بود بهش وابسته شده آزاد بشه."

استاکری که هیچ وقت محبتی دریافت نکرده و دچار یک عشق بیمارگونه با کروگان‌گیر خودش شده.
کروگان‌گیِری که بارها و بارها بهش تجاوز کرده، روانی و حتی فیزیکی.
"تو خودت حاضری کسی مثل من رو ببوسی؟ یا بغل کنی؟"
استاکر داستان ما نمیدونه که یک رابطه‌ی سالم چجوریه. نمیدونه دوست داشتن چجوریه، پس کوچک‌ترین محبت‌هایی رو هم نشات گرفته از چیزی میدونه که اون توی ذهنش اسمش رو گذاشته عشق.
حتی اگر اون عاشقش کتکش بزنه، زخمی‌ش کنه، بهش توهین کنه، آزارش بده و بخواد بکشتش. این‌ها همش توی ذهن استاکر پاک میشن چون قاتل بهش گفته "ترکم نکن!" و "دوست دارم".
در آخر این دو فرد گیر هم می‌افتن.
یک قاتل و یک استاکر.
هر کدوم دردها و به اصطلاح، ترومای‌های خودشون رو دارن. به زعم خودشون به هم عشق می‌ورزن، همدیگه رو آزار میدن و در نهایت باعث مرگ هم میشن.
یکی مرد چون فکر میکرد قرار دردناک‌ترین مرگ ممکن رو داشته باشه
و یکی دیگه هم چون فکر میکرد بدون اون یکی قرار دردناک‌ترین زندگی ممکن رو داشته باشه.
حقایق راجع به یکی فاش شد، ولی فرد دیگه بدون گفتن کلمه‌ای همه‌چیز رو با خودش به گور برد.
و اینجا پایان یک رابطه‌ی بیمار، سمی، دردناک و عجیب.

نمیتونم نظر دقیقی راجعش داشته باشم و باید خیلی فکر کنم. شاید بعدا به نتیجه‌ای رسیدم و ریویو رو ستاره بارون کردم، اما الان نه.

*پ ن برای خودم: چون که نمیتونستم دقیق پیدا کنم کدوم چپترها برای کدوم جلدن برای همین به chatGPT عزیزم گفتم که به ترتیب از رو هوا بهم بده تا بر اساس اون پیش برم:

Deluxe Volume 1 – Covers Chapters 1–8
Deluxe Volume 2 – Covers Chapters 9–16
Deluxe Volume 3 – Covers Chapters 17–25
Deluxe Volume 4 – Covers Chapters 26–33
Deluxe Volume 5 – Covers Chapters 34–42
Deluxe Volume 6 – Covers Chapters 43–50
Deluxe Volume 7 – Covers Chapters 51–59
Deluxe Volume 8 – Covers Chapters 60–67

[Manaal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m sorry to say this….I hate the ending.

Why did Sangwoo have to die?
Yes he would never have had a redemption arc.
And yes, he would never be able to have a normal relationship with another human being…but death????? No.

AND YOONBUM???? Tbh I hate how naive he was throughout and yes, I get that its trauma response and that he rationalises Sangwoo..

BUT GUESS WHAT IDIOT…HES A PSYCHOPATH AND WILL NEVER CHANGE. HE WONT LOVE YOU. HE WONT FEEL SHIT FOR YOU. HE ONLY WANTS TO CONTROL YOU.

Was he attached to Yoonbum. Wel yes. And was Yoonbum also attached to him, again yes. Was it true love…no ofc not. But it was emotional dependency…

AND NOW YOU ARE LETTING YOONBUM, LIVE IN THIS CRUEL WORLD ON HIS OWN???? HES DEFINITELY GOING TO BE A TARGET.

Also Sangwoo, no matter how fucked up..was just a kid, he was 20. Psychopath or not. He is still human, yes he needed dominance and control and yes hes hurt people…but take away the violence and you just get a person with aspd…who deserves to be loved, and have a life. DONT CALL ME FUCKED UP FOR ACCEPTING SANGWOOS HUMANITY. HES STILL HUMAN. He has been misguided in life…and no that doesn’t excuse behaviour…but it does explain it and honestly…you should always understand before you start to judge anyone…I read this entire series in one go…and I’ve never been this invested in something…well that’s not totally true but I’m pretty sure Sangwoo would haunt me…forever.

[Tayjah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for the entire series! This story was exactly what it said it was… a fucked up psychological horror thriller and romance(?) between two mentally ill men. Although I absolutely hated Sangwoo (and Bum a little bit), I couldn’t help but feel for them and I was moved at the end. I’m glad I read it

[Chloe Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have very mixed emotions about the ending to this series. This was such an interesting and messed up story. None of the characters were likeable and yet I felt sad for every single one of them. The ending left me feeling quite empty but I struggle to see any other suitable ending for Sangwoo and Bum

[Say · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a rollercoaster ride!!!

[alec • ❤︎︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have so many feelings about this and none of them are good.

[Dana | Rainbow Romance Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like some of the foreshadowing and character development was wasted on this finale, but I still enjoyed it a lot. My heart hurts for baby Yoon Bum 🥺

[Khanh Linh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole series of Killing Stalking is actually an GREAT PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR MANHWA, it's sad how's the fandom is HORRIBLE AND DISGUSTING because of how they romanticizing it when it's literally just stockholm syndrome, violence and r//pe. I do recommend it as interesting and terrifying graphic psychology horror, but whoever consider this as something "romantic" and feels sorry for Sangwoo, you're sick!

[Chrysavgi · Rating 5 out of 5]

WAR IS OVER 🎶🎶🎶

[Jess Elvira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect ending

[Evangeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because it's been hard for me to keep up with the different volumes on here, I'm reading it online, I'll put the synopsis.

Seungbae has hit rock bottom—but things get a lot worse when he receives a phone call informing him of Chief Kwak’s suicide. Seungbae isn’t convinced that Kwak killed himself, though. In fact, he’s pretty sure he knows who did kill Kwak. Fueled by anger and grief, Seungbae sets out to put Sangwoo behind bars once and for all.

I did not know how this ended! I didn't spoil it for myself and because of that I cried my eyes out for Bum. He accidentally kept his promise to Sangwoo and I am upset about this.

[nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

FOR THIS VOLUME:
This is my least fave of the bunch I think, but I gotta say, it's a great ending.

FULL SERIES REVIEW:

I went into this series with incredibly low expectations, not gonna lie. This has a reputation online for being shocking and insane, but there are many aspects to its fandom and I was honestly pretty judgmental of some of aspects I'd seen that kind of made me think this was going to be a little trite or romanticized violence-y or like, just plain bad. As someone who has pretty thoroughly enmeshed herself in a lot of horror media I've seen some crazy shit and I've seen some even crazier reactions to said shit. HOWEVER -- This was really good! Obviously it is not for everyone, but if you are the kind of person who is interested by stories like this or ESPECIALLY if you're a horror fan where stories of kidnapping/stalking/serial killers happen to actually scare you, this is definitely worth the read.

I was consistently impressed by the way Koogi plotted this novel. I think it shows a lot of foresight and meticulous focus on perspective ad we slowly unpack the different layers of psychology for both of our main characters. I think the pacing here is actually fantastic -- I could see how some would potentially think it gets slow around volume four, but to me that's where the story truly starts to reward attention to detail and really enrich your experience here. The twists were always fantastic, also, even when you had a hunch (or fear) of what would happen next, the execution was always so spot on, leading to some excellent tension and some truly jaw-dropping moments.

The reason why I like this the most though is because of the characters. As someone who loves their stories to be very character-focused, this was feeding me a full ass meal with every chapter, which I definitely did not expect when I started this. I cannot stress enough how layered and fascinating Bum, Sangwoo and Officer Seungbae are.

Sangwoo is probably one of my favorite villains I've encountered in a while. I think the author takes the hot evil killer trope that we see so often and so overwrought and manages to do something so fulfilling here as we unpack his backstory, see his relationship with Bum develop, and ultimately see him unravel. He's definitely romanticized in parts of the fandom (I mean, of course he is, he IS hot), but I think the author does a fantastic job of explicitly not romanticizing his actions in her work and managing to humanize him without ever losing sight of who he truly is. That's a very difficult tight rope to walk, and I think the way she manages to inspire empathy for Sangwoo one moment before FULLY undercutting that sympathy the next is one of the reasons this is such a compulsive read. I also really respect the way so much of his backstory is revealed to the reader -- so much of this is there in the first few chapters! It's not coming out of nowhere, it's really well thought-out and makes him feel like fully fleshed out person.

I wasn't really into the introduction of a detective early on because that's usually a death nell in a lot of horror flicks for me. It's not that it's not realistic, it's usually that the payoff for their involvement amounts to so little and it feels like a waste of time. But I think Seungbae is a fascinating character and I adored the way his story folded in to the overarching plot and how he often acted as a foil to Sangwoo. I also think it was a smart way to highlight some of the failures of the police system when it comes to handling cases like these. While I was rushing to get through his chapters at first, I found myself really invested in him by the story's end!

Finally, our boy Bum. So I didn't like him at all in the beginning of this. I felt sorry for him for sure, but I wasn't really that interested, but damn... I can't think of another character I've seen like this that was given this much attention. I love how the author never really attempted to ignore Bum's shortcomings. Yoon Bum is never suddenly hotter for a few pages, or EVER has any meat on his bones at all (which leads to a lot of disturbing visuals during more "romantic" scenes). He never says the right thing, he's always tripping and fucking up and making the reader want to die so that they don't have to see what he's gonna do next, but at the same time, his sincerity and his emotional honesty is just so fucking compelling. Whenever he makes the wrong decision (this happens all the time) you can fully understand why that is a decision he will make. Watching his growth over the series is kind of amazing despite everything he's been through, and I really admire the amount of care and thought that went in to explaining a lot of his thought process to make sure you really understand the amount of trauma, self loathing, and loneliness that is contributing to the way he moves through the story.

At the end of the day -- you could easily classify this as trauma porn, as torture porn, whatever. But I am thoroughly impressed by the way this story comes together and found myself DEVOURING each chapter. This story is toxic, very dark, difficult to read, and incredibly sad, but if that's your thing I don't think you'll be disppointed.