Millennium Snow

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Millennium Snow

Millennium Snow English volume 1 cover.

千年の雪
(Sennen no Yuki)

Genre

Romance, Supernatural

Manga

Author

Bisco Hatori

Publisher

Hakusensha

Other publishers:
Viz Media Chuang Yi (English and Chinese)

Demographic

Shōjo

Serialized in

Hana to Yume

Original run

November 2001 – August 2002

Volumes

Millennium Snow (千年の雪, Sennen no Yuki^?), otherwise known as A Thousand Years of Snow, is the title of a manga series written and illustrated by Japanese manga creator Bisco Hatori about a sickly teenage girl and a vampire who just might save her life. It was first serialized in the Japanese shōjo magazine Hana to Yume, published by Hakusensha. The manga has since been licensed by United States based company Viz Media.

The manga series was first serialized in the Japanese shōjo manga magazine Hana to Yume with the first bound volume released in November 2001. The series ended with the release of the second volume on August 5, 2002. The series contained nine chapters. A special chapter entitled Chikai no Hi (誓いの日, Chikai no Hi^?) was released in the July 2002 issue of LaLa DX. The series is believed to be on hiatus, as Bisco Hatori is currently working on her hit series Ouran High School Host Club. In a side margin found in the first volume of Ouran, she stated that Millennium Snow has not ended yet.

[edit] Plot

Millennium Snow is a story revolving around the main protagonist Chiyuki Matsuoka who is a high school girl hospitalized with a heart problem. Since birth her heart has been very weak and she was told that she would probably live to be only fifteen. However, one day she meets Tōya Kanō, a vampire, with the opposite problem: Tōya lives for about one thousand years. It's customary for a vampire at his age of eighteen to choose a human partner to be with for 1000 years who in turn would let him drink their blood and share his life span for the millennium.

Early in the series, Chiyuki offers Tōya her blood, so that she would be able to live longer, but Tōya refuses, claiming he dislikes the sight and taste of blood. In the beginning, he even looks down on humans, believing that they are weak creatures who will only die before him and leave him behind.

This story also mixes many different ideals that her other work Ouran High School Host Club has been known and loved for, such as the typical girl that has her own complex. Both Haruhi from Ouran and Chiyuki grew up with one or both of their parents dead. The 'orphan' theme seems to be a popular recurrence in many of the author's works.

[edit] Characters

Chiyuki Matsuoka (松岡千雪, Matsuoka Chiyuki^?): The heroine of the story, Chiyuki is a 17-year-old high schooler who is hospitalized due to having a poor heart condition since birth. She has frequent heart attacks when she becomes distressed, and lately the heart attacks have been worsening. She tends to be a spunky person who is able to withstand anything. However, she also can be very emotional and cries a lot accordingly.

When she first meets Tōya, he tells her that humans are weak. Later they go out shopping but Chiyuki has an attack and is immediately sent back to the hospital. When they return to the hospital, she believes she is dying and tells him not to be sad if she dies, because other people out there need him. He saves her by giving her a little bit of his blood to save her temporarily. Since then, she cannot die and does not want to leave him. After gaining some of his blood, she has recovered enough to go back to school, but is held back since she was in the hospital for so long. The blood he gives her though may not be effective because he has been going on so long without sucking a human's blood, so she can still get attacks, but is stronger.

Tōya Kanō: Tōya is the 18-year-old vampire that Chiyuki meets. While Tōya tells Chiyuki that he hates blood, Yamimaru reveals to Chiyuki that he, like any other vampire, does indeed like blood, but simply doesn't want to be a burden on anyone. He can be out during the daytime, though still avoids garlic. Since he doesn't take in any blood, he has become anemic and whenever he is starving for food, he often falls over and is unable to move around until his bat Yamimaru comes to help him.

The main reason Tōya doesn't want to look for a partner is that he has too nice a personality and wouldn't want to force anyone to live for 1000 years as he sees it as more of a curse than a blessing. He often puts on the façade that he's a tough guy, but in reality he's quite the opposite. He extremely dislikes Satsuki. As noted by Yamimaru, he is just jealous that he and Chiyuki have become so close because he cares for Chiyuki more than anyone else.

His character design bears more than a passing resemblance to Kyoya Ootori, a character from Bisco Hatori's other series Ouran High School Host Club.

Millennium Snow main characters: Tōya (left), Chiyuki (center), and Satsuki (right).

Yamimaru (闇丸, Yamimaru^?): Tōya's servant bat who is the only one that Tōya can rely on, especially if Tōya has collapsed from a lack of energy. He has the ability to transform into a normal looking human, though this can only be done for about four and a half hours per day. He has two human forms: one that is very tall (6'6") and theoretically looks like Tōya's older brother, and a much younger version who can theoretically appear to be Tōya's younger brother. The latter form looks a great deal like Haruhi Fujioka, the main female protagonist of Ouran High School Host Club.

Satsuki Akiyoshi (有吉砂月, Akiyoshi Satsuki^?): He is a very handsome student at Chiyuki's school who is very popular among the girls. He tends to be very suave and flirts a lot with the female students. As noted by Chiyuki, he also has a great sense of humor.

Satsuki lives with his grandmother and has been able to gain a lot of her wisdom because of it. Also, like Tōya, he is not a human but in fact a werewolf. It is due to this that he constantly tries to appear as a normal person. If he didn't, he would always feel very insecure about him being a werewolf. He also seems to care a lot for Chiyuki and likes to protect (as well as flirt with) her to annoy Tōya.

Like Tōya, Satsuki also bears resemblance to another character of Ouran High School Host Club, Tamaki Suou.

Keigo Kuramatani: He is Chiyuki's 26 year old cousin who shares a brother-sister bond with her. He is very protective of her due to her health issues; he can also be very possessive of her. Chiyuki believes that he left for the United States to study English, but the truth is that he is studying to become a heart specialist for her sake. He tries to separate Chiyuki from Tōya. He even goes so far as to try to kill Tōya with a rock but hits Chiyuki instead.

Keigo Kuramatani is most in resemblance to Hikaru and Kaoru, twins from Ouran High School Host Club.