Review: Betrothed to a Fox Demon Vol. 1

I've been reading so many realistic manga of late, particularly ones about highschoolers with crushes on one another, that it was a little weird and a little refreshing to pick up a manga full of some of the things I used to associate with Japanese comics. You know, stuff like swords, demons, battles and Japanese mythology. This particular manga is Anju Hino's Betrothed to a Fox Demon, the first volume of which was released by Square Enix Manga in April. In fact, it reminded me a bit of a particular manga—Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha—but only really in a few of the broad strokes, some of which I guess are even apparent from the cover alone. On that cover are Kuro Kyogane and Fuyu. Kuro, known as "The Black Wolf", is a social outcast, but he comes from a long lineage of exorcists; in fact, he comes from a clan of exorcists that have defended Japan from demons for a thousand years. As Kuo is the clan's last male heir, his grandfather is constantly bugging him to marry, but Kuro has no interest in doing so, as he is completely devoted to eradicating every last demon, something he has acquitted himself to after his parents were killed by demons.When his grandfather presents the beautifu...