Rating (Out of 5): ~4
Publisher: Shojo Beat (VIZ Media)
Release Date: 2007 (Omnibus on June 3, 2014)
Volumes: 4
Spoilers?: Not really.
Volume: 3
.
Seventeen-year-old
Chiyuki Matsuoka was born with heart problems, and her doctors say she
won't live to see the next snow. Toya 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.
Chiyuki makes the most of the time she has left, even
though things aren't that exciting--until she comes across a reluctant
vampire late one chilly night. Can Chiyuki teach Touya to feel a passion
for life, even as her own is ending?
Review:
Now that VIZ is
releasing the last two volumes of this series, I’ve decided to give it a
reread (and review). I first read it back around the time it was first
released, and remember enjoying it. As I’ve said many times before, Ouran High School Host Club is one of my
absolute favorite series, and so of course I’d already read this. And when I
heard that VIZ was continuing it, when I hadn’t even known that Hatori had
finished it, I got very excited. And knew immediately that I was going to need
to reread the books, since it had been so long, I barely remembered what happened
in them.
When I first
started this, I was a little afraid that it wasn’t going to be as good as I
remembered, and that Hatori had changed quite a bit through Ouran, so much so that this was more
mediocre. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is actually still
really good. I enjoyed it a lot, I am happy to say.
This series stars a
vampire, his bat companion, a dying girl, and later a werewolf. The dying girl,
Chiyuki, is very optimistic and upbeat, immediately accepting of the vampire,
and wanting to be his friend. The vampire, Toya, is a little hard-edge, hard to
get to know, but of course sweet inside, and grows protective/a little
possessive of Chiyuki. Which means that he bumps heads with the werewolf,
Satsuki, who comes to care about Chiyuki as well, when she is relentlessly nice
to him.
I like all of the
characters. This is obviously an earlier work of Hatori’s, but it still has her
charm and humorous characters. The joking between them is fun. Chiyuki is a bit
of a Mary-Sue, maybe, but she’s a very likable character, and I really like how
easily she cares about people, and how she pushes them in just the right way
until they like her, too.
I’m looking forward
to getting to know them all better in the next book, as this one pretty much
just introduced them all, and opened it up to wherever it’s going next. (I’m
also very excited to see where Hatori takes it with the new volume, after such
a long break, but I’ll talk about that more down below.)
There was also a
surprising one-shot chapter at the end of the volume. It was about a girl and
her best girl friend, who has this other person inside her, (a boy,) who comes
out when she gets troubled. It has romantic and friendship elements to it, and
I was rather surprised by it. Particularly the non-issue it seemed to have with
gender. It was a pleasant surprise. It was a bit of a bittersweet, nostalgic,
sweet but sad, story, but I really liked it.
Volume 2:
In this volume,
there was some development between the main three, as well as a surprise with
Yamimaru, Toya’s bat companion (who is adorable). There was a problem with a
haunting that they worked through, and them being lost. And then we got
introduced to a new character, Kei, Chiyuki’s cousin, who is extremely
protective.
I am really
enjoying this series. It’s very cute, and the humor works really well for me.
The romance is slowly budding, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that
goes in the new volume, as it’s obvious (to me) who she’s going to be with.
Kei is a bit
intense to me, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with him in the next
volume. Satsuki is cute, an enjoyable character. Yamimaru is adorable, as was
made very apparent in this volume. And I really like Toya. He’s a little too
shy, or in denial, about his feelings, but he’s also sweet and protective, and
I can’t wait to see where that goes in the next volume.
I am really, really
excited to see what happens next in this series. It has been, like, ten years
since this first came out, and Hatori went through an entire eighteen-volume
series, and so she has obviously developed both her writing and drawing skills
since then. This series could take a big turn, it could go very slow, it could
do just about anything. And the release date is already so close. I seriously
cannot wait for the next volume.
.
is one of my
absolute favorite series. I’d already read the first two books in this series,
back around the time it was released (in, like, 2007?), and didn’t even know
she had finished it after completing Ouran.
) (
). 