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'Betrayal Knows My Name' seemed like a promising anime with my interest lying in the central plot (or what I originally thought was the central plot prior to completing the anime) of Yuki and Luka. In Yuki's past life he and Luka fell deeply, and madly, in love. Luka finds Yuki again in his next life (reincarnated as a male) and stays by his side for the entire 24 episode run.

Up front that seems like a promising romance story. You have Luka who is madly in love with Yuki and will protect him as well as do anything for him. But ... then you have Yuki, the main character, who has no memories of his previous life with Luka or the love that they shared. Through more than obvious hints and comments from the side characters of the story, Yuki does in fact have a good idea that he and Luka were past lovers. But through the 24 episodes all he seems to do is have a complete and utter lack of interest in it. I can't say that he was 'avoiding' the subject because the subject never came up!

In fact, BKMN seems to focus ten thousand times more on the relationship between Yuki and his childhood best friend, Kanata. There are more flashbacks, memories, and emotions tied between the two of them. And Yuki is shown having much more feelings for Kanata than Luka, in my opinion, throughout the 24 episodes of the series.

By the end of the anime Yuki and Luka's relationship has not progressed one single step forward. Yuki uses him as a means of protection and comfort and takes him for granted more or less. For example in Episode 4 Yuki first tends to Tsukumo who is wounded by a slash on his shoulder, then he goes to speak with his school acquaintance who is emotionally scarred and depressed, then he goes to the orphan children to untie and comfort them only to be upset himself as they react very negatively to his presence and tell him not to touch them. Yuki then has his own moment of feeling sorry for himself and cries to Luka about how pitififul he feels. Luka who has been standing by his side watching him tend to everyone and everything with a deadpan expression on his face and a gaping hole in his abdomen. Luka, out of everyone there, was the one most severly injured and the ONLY ONE who Yuki ignored. In fact it isn't until the next day, in the afternoon, in Episode 5, that Yuki turns to Luka and asks him if he would like him to heal his wound as well.

Whoops, guess Yuki forgot that he had been stabbed. Everyone else was on his mind, apparently, and everyone else remains on his mind for the rest of the series. Luka is probably dead last on Yuki's 'my most important people' list.

I love Luka's dedication and loyalty as well as his deep, emotional, feelings of undying love... but those traits just turn negative and annoying when they are spent on a character who doesn't deserve them. Luka became a mindless drone in many of the scenes where he literally has no reaction to anything. He literally means that he will do anything for Yuki, let Yuki do anything, and never 'betray' him even if Yuki puts him last on his list and treats him like the dog he's acting to be.

Aside from his obvious mistreatment of Luka, there are an onslought of additional things I despise about Yuki. For starters I cannot stand how utterly useless and worthless he is. For the entirety of the 24 episodes he literally stands around and does NOTHING. He mopes in his own self-misery and only has fleeting moments of happiness --- which only surface when the entire side character cast is surrounding him and gushing words of love, admiration, and need. He is constantly putting his 'team' in danger as he recklessly rushes off to be a part of the battle. And by being a 'part of the battle' to Yuki that literally means just standing in the background, wide eyed, and watching everyone get beaten up while he continues his internal monologue of how useless and powerless he is.

The cast of other characters in the story could have had potential and could have been likable if they all didn't dive into 'Yuki Worship'. And when I say 'ALL' I mean 'ALL'. Hell, even the main bad guy dives into 'Yuki Worship'. The entire anime is glorifying the main character over and over shoving it down the viewers mouth just how wonderful, brilliant, loving, innocent, sparkly and selfless Yuki is.

Well, I don't know where that Yuki is or where he went because the main character I've been watching for the past 24 episodes is nothing but useless, worthless, SELFISH, insensitive, and again SELFISH. Yuki is the most selfish character in the entire anime when it comes to the good guy team.

With how pathetic, selfish, and useless he is it's no wonder he and his teammates have been reincarnated over and over for the past thousand years to fight a never ending battle that they keep losing. News flash, guys, it's time to kick God's Light to the curb. He's the one putting you all in danger in the first place because he's constantly inserting himself into danger intentionally and can't seem to comprehend that that, in turn, puts his entire team in danger because now they have to run out and try to save his sorry but AGAIN.