Of Swords and Parasols

Shirahime-Syo is a collection of short stories focus on snow, winter, love and loss. And it’s by Clamp. This means that it’s exceptionally pretty, and a bit on the depressing side.

The collection begins with a young man encountering a beautiful woman in the snow, and warning her to go home soon, saying that the snow is the tears of the snow princess. It ends with the woman telling him the true nature of snow. In between are three other stories.

In the first, a young woman braves the snow to hunt down a man-eating wolf she believes killed her father, only to be cared for by the wolf after she’s injured. In the second, a young woman swears to wait forever for her lover to return, saying she will look exactly as she did the day he left. It takes him 30 years. In the third, a young lord lost is lost in the mountains after a battle and shoots a heron in a fit of rage, and is later guided by a beautiful woman cradling a skull. It is Clamp, after all.

I found the middle story a little too typical, but the other two stories and the framing sequence very engaging. Not to mention that the art is probably some of Clamp’s best.