Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales
The tragic collection of short stories that teaches us to appreciate and respect nature and each other more.
During my trip to the San Diego Central Library I encountered a CLAMP series that I do not own in my personal CLAMP library. Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales is a collection of four short stories which follow the relationship between humans and nature. In classic CLAMP style, the cover featuring the snow princess really caught my eye so I picked it up and found a nice comfy spot to read it.
Genre: Supernatural
Age Rating: Teens
Publisher: Tokyopop (OOP)
Status: Complete, one shot
Synopsis:
This collection of short stories begins with the tale of a man wandering in a blizzard when he encounters a woman who is waiting in the snow and then tells her that the snow are the tears of the snow princess. From there we read three short stories all which involve the snow princess in some way.
”On Wolf Mountain” is the first short story which follows a young girl named Fubuki as she seeks get revenge on the black wolf that supposedly killed her father. The second short story "The Ice Flower" follows a man who leaves his lover, Kaya, waiting by a cold lake. She promises him that she will wait for him as long as possible for his safe return. The last story "Hiyoku no Tori" is a tragic tale about a soldier who loses his way on a snowy mountainside while returning home to his fiancée and shoots two herons in love.
The manga ends with the continuation of the opening scene where we learn that the woman we first met is Shirahime, the snow princess and she reveals that the snow are not her tears but the tears of humans.
Favorite Things:
Artwork: Is anyone surprised that this collection of short stories would have beautiful artwork? Probably not since it’s by CLAMP. The portraits of women and animals are beautifully illustrated. I was in awe of how well their illustrations are able to convey emotion without the characters having to say much.
Tragedy: This is a great representation that shoujo manga can most definitely be dark and have supernatural elements. These short stories were written beautifully and serve as a reminder to be more appreciative and respectful of nature and other people.
Notable Things:
Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales was published September 1992 making it almost 33 years-old! It always blows me away how progressive CLAMP was early in their careers and how they were able to provide such a variety of stories to young Japanese girls.
Different for CLAMP: I will say that a lot of CLAMP work have so much heart and even those series that look lighthearted like Cardcaptor Sakura handle darker topics well, but Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales presented so much emotional maturity and sadness. I really enjoyed how vulnerability was portrayed in the short stories by the males and female characters. Some were genuinely kind people, while others had to endure tragedy in order to change.
Rating: ★★★★ / 5
This was such a great read! I was so glad to have seen this at the library to read it. If you’re a CLAMP fan, then I highly recommend checking Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales out so you can discover something different from CLAMP. I would also highly recommend it to anyone who typically doesn’t read shoujo, maybe something like this can open up your eyes to see the variety of storytelling that you can get in the shoujo demographic. It was a short but fantastic read with beautiful artwork.