Millennium Snow

Millennium Snow (千年の雪), also known as A Thousand Years of Snow, is supernatural romance manga written and illustrated by Bisco Hatori. Appearing as a serial in the Japanese magazine LaLa, the nine chapters of Millennium Snow were collected into two bound volumes by Hakusensha and published from November 2001 to August 5, 2002. The series focuses on a sickly teenage girl and a vampire who just might save her life.

Millennium Snow is licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media. The first volume was released in April 2007, with the second published in July 2007. Other publishers have licensed and released Millennium Snow.

A special chapter entitled Chikai no Hi (誓いの日) was released in the July 2002 issue of LaLa DX.

Plot
Millennium Snow focuses on Chiyuki Matsuoka, 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, but later on he, with the help of Chiyuki, starts to see the world in a different perspective.

Characters

 * Chiyuki Matsuoka (松岡 千雪): The heroine of the story, Chiyuki is a 17-year-old high school student who is hospitalized due to having a weak heart condition since birth. She has frequent seizures when she becomes distressed, and lately the seizures 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 her body is stronger.


 * Tōya Kanō (トウヤ): 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. Later on the series he starts to develop feelings for Chiyuki.千年の雪.jpg


 * Yamimaru (闇丸): 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 to five 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.


 * Satsuki Akiyoshi (有吉 砂月): 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. Later on the series he starts to develop feelings for Chiyuki as well.


 * Keigo Kuramatai: 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. He does not know Satsuki is a werewolf.

Release
Written and illustrated by Bisco Hatori, the Millennium Snow chapters were serialized in LaLa. Hakusensha collected the chapters into two bound volumes and published from November 2001 to August 5, 2002. Millennium Snow is licensed in New Zealand and Australia by Madman Entertainment. Chuang Yi has licensed the series in English and Mandarin.

Reception
In his review of the first Millennium Snow volume, Anime News Network's Theron Martin felt that the character designs "not only have the typical ridiculously lanky look but simply aren't very appealing despite her efforts to portray Toya and Satsuki as bishonen studs." Martin liked the unrelated bonus story at the end of the volume, calling it "exquisitely beautiful and melancholy". Millennium Snow ranked sixth on About.com's 2007 Reader's Poll for Best New Shojo Manga.