the magazine's final one, depicting Shirahime. At that point, the characters and story type were undecided, although the concept had been determined. Shirahime's character design had been used earlier on a postcard in the group's newsletter; at the time, they had considered using the character in a future story dealing with folklore. They considered Shirahime not quite a yuki-onna, but more similar to the eponymous character of Osama Tezuka's manga Phoenix in that she was a vital supporting character "who exists separately outside the individual stories". Although the group lacked the time to research a time period for the costumes of the characters, the costume "trends" differed from chapter to chapter to evoke the sense that each chapter occurred in a different time period. Due to the "tight" schedule, Clamp had ten days for the completion of the artwork. The art was done with a brush and ink, to evoke the atmosphere of a folktale and because the group lacked the time to ink the manga with a pen. Rough drafts were almost nonexistent. According to Mokona, they finished "everything up to the background" at one time, after the frames were finished. Diluted ink replaced screentones in the artwork, although this created time-consuming difficulties during the "plate-making process" as the group had to make sure that "the halftoning for the parts with diluted ink wouldn't be ruined." Mokona drew the calligraphy on the cover. Release Shirahime-Syo was published by Kobunsha under their Haru Pretty imprint on June 10, 1992 (). A re-release on Kadokawa Shoten's Asuka Comics DX line happened on August 1, 2001 (). In North America, Tokyopop licensed Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales for an English-language translation. It published a hardcover edition on December 9, 2003, and a softcover edition on June 15, 2004. After Tokyopop returned the license following the closure of its North America publishing branch in 2011, Viz Media republished the manga digitally on January 13, 2015. It has also been translated into French by Glėnat, and German by Egmont Manga & Anime. In 2007, it was licensed in Indonesia by M&C Comics. Reception In a retrospective piece on Clamp's works, Animefringes Lesley Smith described Shirahime-Syos short stories as "breathtakingly beautiful". Sequential Tarts Sheena McNeil enjoyed the collection, praising it as "both brilliant and beautiful"; she highlighted the "unique" artstyle and frame story. References External links Shirahime-Syo at Viz Media's official site 1992 manga Drama anime