Manga 156 Sennen No Yuki

Well, first off, I can say that I cried. That's something that should be taken with a grain of salt, however, seeing that I've cried watching Winnie the Pooh before.

But I sure have a lot to say.

I usually never read any manga that doesn't have an anime (if I watch an anime and like it, I'll read the manga-- usually an effective strategy because the manga is better so it doesn't ruin the anime for me). However, Millennium Snow doesn't have an anime, yet I found myself here.

I am a massive fan of Ouran High School Host Club. After watching the anime (and being ... quite depressed about the ending) I read the entire manga in three days, and since then, I've reread it countless times, each time crying my heart out because I just plain adore the series. This time, I couldn't bear to finish reading it, but I was still in an Ouran slump, so I decided to go see what Bisco Hatori has written other than Ouran. Because of Hatori being one of my favorite authors of all time, I had obviously heard of Millennium Snow before, but I'd never gotten a chance to read it.

I got into it, and well, it was great. The story line is pretty good, and there are many relationships you can see between the characters and the character designs that you can relate to Ouran, if that's the connection you're seeking to find. Satsuki and Tamaki not only look similar (face, height) but have similar tendencies considering their flirtatiousness and the importance of their grandmas in both of their lives, while in different ways. Satsuki's grandmother also physically resembles Tamaki's. Touya's name is most similar to Kyoya's, while his appearence is a mix of Kyoya and Mori's appearence (albeit much shorter) while his personality is sorta a mix of the twins and the tsundere bad boy the club lacks.

Hatori also mentions her love of detail and twins, which I found to be amusing.

In terms of story, the love story wasn't developed too well and I found Chiyuki to be slightly bland compared to other characters, as well as much too eager to become immortal. Everything moved a tad bit too fast, and in the last volume, I found myself lost by the new arc and the sudden end. I feel like for this style of story, it would have been much better if the story had been dragged out a bit so that we could see the character development instead of strange and random time skips.

The art greatly improved after the return out of hiatus, but the art wasn't my favorite to begin with, just extremely better compared to the first volume. The characters were fine, but I found myself liking pretty much everyone except Chiyuki. There were many questions still left unanswered that I wish I knew the answers to, but I understand why they were never addressed-- there simply wasn't enough time.

However, I enjoyed it a lot, even though I was greatly biased by the author and her other works. Hopefully, you will too!

Since I can only find reviews from almost 10 years ago, I will provide a fresher set of eyes on this manga series since it's finished. I'm no manga critic but I can say that this is probably one of the better short mangas that I have read in a while.

Hatori really did an excellent job executing the plot, and her character development was great considering she only had about 17 chapters to do it. Short stories don't have to be complicated or unique to be good. While the premise and the actual characters are very basic, Hatori is able to make it an ... enjoyable read.

I noticed while I was reading that Hatori understood that it was a bit of a cliche and acknowledged that through direction of the character development, making them act in less serious ways than one would normally think (for instance, the fact that Touya is an ANEMIC vampire and how Chiyuki always teases Touya instead of being hopelessly distraught by her feelings).

This story isn't a "true work of manga genius" in the way that many may think. It displays Hatori's skill in character development (for sure) and her ability to incorporate a more realistic touch in a story based in fantasy, making the reader think "yeah, this seems possible". (She only adds a little fluff in the end)

As an Ouran High School fan, I really appreciated reading something else of hers and would really recommend it to others who enjoyed the Ouran manga and even the anime. I love her drawing style <3

P.S. ~ Whoever reads all of this is really super mega cool 'cause
1) You like old manga (or are at least considering reading this)
2) You read all that I wrote, which is pretty ridiculous for an 18 chapter manga...

This manga is a bumpy ride but if you're a fan of Bisco Hatori I'd give it a read! I picked this up because I'm doing a reread of Ouran right now and was curious about her other work. I think this manga is a really interesting representation of that - Millenium Snow comes with a couple of Hatori's older oneshots (one from the Love Egoist universe and another separate one), and the fact that she picked it back up after 10 years of hiatus is something you don't often see. In the last volume, she talks a lot about her planning process, and how ... she had to switch things up when restarting this one because her loose planning that style that she used for Ouran just wasn't working out, which I found really interesting. The plot itself is nothing special (it's not super comprehensible, tbh) but I do find a lot of charm in all the characters. I'm a sucker for vampire stories, though, so I might be biased.

I wouldn't go into this one expecting extended character development or a non-rushed conclusion, but I enjoyed it as a chance to spend a little bit more time in the Bisco Hatori verse!