Millennium Snow 1

Millennium Snow 1 by Bisco Hatori, 2007. 200 pages. Published by Viz Media (Shojo Beat). Source: Borrowed from Library.

17-year-old Chiyuki Matsuoka was born with heart problems, and her doctors say she won't live to see the next snow. Touya is an 18-year-old vampire who hates blood and refuses to make the traditional partnership with a human, whose life-giving blood would keep them both alive for a thousand years. Can Chiyuki teach Touya to feel a passion for life, even as her own is ending?

Story:
The synopsis does NOT do the story justice, it just makes it sound cheezy and well just like a kinda blah story. My suggestion would be to completely bypass the synopsis and just give Millennium Snow a go.

I really liked how Millennium Snow began, were Chiyuki sees Touya fall off the roof the hospital (she actually thought that he had jumped to his doom). I thought it was an interesting way to start because from there you have Touya and Chiyuki thrust together (unwillingly on his part) and the beginnings of their blossoming friendship (maybe even more). Plus Touya has a bit of a barbed tongue.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing were the story will go in the next volume, and to see how the characters will evolve. I've even already checked it out from the library so I can see what will happen between the two- I mean three- characters.
What I liked the most about Millenium Snow was that the story didn't beat-around the bush and drag along. I was especially glad to see that it didn't take the whole manga for Chiyuki to find out that Touya was a vampire, mainly since in the synopsis it plainly states the he is one.

Content-wise, Millennium Snow is a pretty squeaky clean read being as I don't recall any swearing or nudity. Although I did kind of speed through it over lunch one day, so I could be mistaken about the lack of swearing.
Character(s):
The one thing I loved most about Chiyuki was that even though she was very gravely ill, she never gave up and that she was just so full of life.

Touya was actually probably the most intersting character in the manga, with the fact that he was a lonely vampire who tried to keep everyone at a distance because he didn't want to be hurt when they would adventually die before him. He also made me laugh with how much he came to care about what happened to Chiyuki, especially when he wouldn't even admit it to himself that he liked her.

Artwork:
After having read Bisco Hatori's OHSHC series (okay, most of the series) Millennium Snow's art was just kind of weak, it lacked the attention to detail that her newer work has. But since it also happened to be her first manga it was easy to over look that (the artwork wasn't bad, just not nearly as good as Ouran High).

Final Verdict: Millennium Snow is a sweet, light romantic comedy with just a dash of seriousness. In short, loved it.

Millennium Snow 1 earns 4 out of 5 pineapples.