The Betrayal Knows My Name 1

Hotaru Odagiri – Yen Press – 2011 – 9+ volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols 1-2

Mmm. This series has one of the best titles. Makes you want to read it, right?

I’ll admit that I picked up this book knowing that I would more-or-less like it. It’s got pretty art, something to do with demons, and has a lot in common with X. It’s hard for me not to like a series like that. I loved this volume, in fact. Reading through it, though, part of me wondered if there was a huge bias on my part. There were some problems I spotted, but they just didn’t bother me. The fast pace and interesting characters seemed to negate the bad points. But I’ll talk my way through it here, and try to be as diplomatic as possible.

But seriously. I loved this book. It pains me to see that it’s only coming out twice a year. Thank goodness it’s an omnibus.

The story starts with an orphan boy named Yuki trying to make friends with a gloomy, rude boy in his class. Now, I read the omnibus edition of Little Butterfly at the same time I was reading this, and the openings to these stories are so similar it’s a little scary. They both even star chipper guys named Yuki. Other than the orphan thing, the premise is identical. Betrayal is, of course, not a romance though, and it takes a much different path.

Turns out Yuki is part of a family with… special powers. These family members are fighting an ancient war with a race of demons, and their powers are so special that they cannot be lost to death. They are reincarnated with their powers so that they can fight anew. The powers are usually channeled through some sort of weapon, but can also be things like, say, setting people on fire with your voice or whatever. Yuki can’t fight, but he has the power to heal wounds from demons and offer a boost to people with power. After some messiness with the gloomy boy in his class and a demon, Yuki is no longer an orphan, and moves in with his new family and learns more about demons and the powers these family members possess.

Also, Yuki seems to be in a contract with some sort of smoking hot and insanely powerful demon betrayer that only has eyes for Yuki and is extremely over-protective of him. Because this series ran in Asuka magazine, their relationship is not romantic. But it’s there, for anyone who wants to see it.

I love it. I love that Yuki isn’t powerful on his own, and I love that he is paired with a demon because I love demons unconditionally. I like the way this whole demon war thing is being set up, and I think it’s interesting that the characters seem to retain memories of their past lives. Yuki hasn’t recovered his yet. I also like that the reincarnated warriors fight in pairs, and that all of them seem to be interesting people, with their own strengths and weaknesses. There’s a few too many characters being introduced at once, but that the fighters are limited to three pairs and a leader so far is reasonable. I’m also very much looking forward to whatever secret role Yuki really fulfills in this family, and I am dying to know the demon Luca’s backstory.

There are some flags, though again, I think the strengths completely override them. The powers are… a little ill-defined at this point. We are told what they are, but we don’t really see them in play very much. Luca’s powers aren’t explained, and he fights more than anybody. It’s unclear why the family powers are tied to “weapons” that must be kept in “rings.” Except for Yuki.

Any story about teenagers with powers is a little suspect to me, honestly, and the premise of this series is a little generic. I like this story a lot, but the powers aren’t really a big enough part of the story to really let me defend them. Odagiri’s not really building a consistent world yet, where these powers can live and make sense. Maybe that’ll happen later, but her strengths lie in the characters she writes, so more time dedicated to developing the world is a bit of a double-edged sword if it neglects the characters.

There are a lot of similarities to X. Both series ran in Asuka, and this has very, very pretty art. Maybe I’m drawing unfair comparisons, because there are a whole lot of series like X. But X has two main characters with a relationship that’s… open to interpretation, to some extent. Both feature teenagers with different special powers. Both are fairly dark series. And both feature “barriers” that can leave the urban landscape looking unscarred after a battle. I picked all this out after not having read X in about six years and enjoying Betrayal immensely on its on credit. I hate calling it out on these points, because I don’t really think it’s an X clone. Still, though.

Having said all that, I like it for what it is. It’s a crowd-pleaser, and anyone looking for modern shoujo fantasy will probably eat it up. The characters are easy to like and the story moves fast enough that it’s easy to forgive its flaws and look forward to what happens next. Plus, though I made Luca the demon sound generic, he’s by far the most entertaining part of the story, and I am dying to see him in action some more. The release schedule is pretty excruciating, but considering the fact that it’s been running in Japan since 2005 and only has 9 volumes, the slow schedule here is probably for the best.

This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.