Nana Mix!

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STORY: 7/10
So basic setup; to look for her childhood friend, our female lead transfers to a school where the majority of the student body are females- a 20:1 female to male ratio be exact. I know what you're thinking, so basically the male lead is guaranteed a harem from the start right? Well... kind of, I'll speak on that in a bit. The manga is basically composed of fan service, ecchi scenarios, misunderstandings, romantic-comedy and slightly awkward action/battle sequences. I didn't like how sometimes the male lead aka our narrator would sometimes interject his thoughts via monologue. It reduced the impact of the suspense and ... made the story feel a bit pretentious at times. The end was also a bit of a cop out, with the whole "we solved the main conflict, next chapter = time skip" thing so there's that.


ART: 7.25/10
Overall, the art work in [Nana Mix!] was superb. Character designs are exceptional and made each and every character unique and distinguishable. The attention to detail for each panel complimented each scene well. The background designs for each panel were rather simple as in most of them were textured, shaded and glowed but they were implemented and thought out. Character expressions were decent and I must commend the mangaka for the fluidity of the action scenes as they were top notch. I was surprised that this was published well over five years ago, the art really is that good.


CHARACTERS: 7.25/10
Female tsundere lead - check.
Somewhat dense, yet natural chick magnet male lead - check.
Typical supporting roles in a rom-com - check.
Despite the stated 20 female to 1 male ratio of the student body, I don't recall more than 3(?) males including the protagonist. And even so, they aren't your typical supporting males in a harem/romance/school manga. That's a good thing right? Well not if they are flat and pretty much useless aside from being minor plot devices I suppose. Though I will give it up to the mangaka for having an exceptional antagonist for the story. The majority of the ending chapters focuses on the villain and the character has a pretty fleshed out back story and motivational reasons for being said villain.


ENJOYMENT/OVERALL 7.5/10
As an avid fan of rom-com manga, I enjoyed [Nana Mix!]. It had just enough of other story elements to balance everything out.- action, drama, minor harem (I say minor because the females that become attached to the MC has some sort of history with him beforehand and not a random stranger who wants to have his babies). The art was friendly on the eyes and the story was good enough to keep me hooked. Overall, a easy recommendation for those interested in (insert genres tags here), although for others that hate rom-com/harem/fan service stuff, well, then you're looking at the wrong place anyway.

Nana Mix! is one of those titles that fully live up to ones expectations: I expected something mediocre and I got exactly that.

Reading synopsis is enough for reader to know what to expect from this story. It's simple, predictable, rushed and forgettable. Despite having "20 to 1" female to male ratio and "harem" genre it didn't feel like harem at all. Comedy was really weak. The scenes that (I think) were supposed to be serious turned out cheap and cheesy. There was no tension at all, which can also be seen as a positive - there was no real drama in this manga. Most of ... it was slice of life with typical rom-com moments and fanservice.
Thing that kind of saves it is the conclusive ending done in a way that I really liked. Seriously, many better titles should've learned from Nana Mix! how to make nice epilogue chapter.

Characters managed to keep up with the level of story, that is bland and uninteresting. They had pretty much no backstory, no real development and weren't cute or funny enough to carry this manga. From fanservice point of view there was not enough variety.

Art was just average. It wasn't good but there isn't much I can complain about. Sometimes things were hard to read because of effects and backgrounds were weak, but that's it.

Overall I'd say Nana Mix! is ok manga. Despite bad story and characters it was enjoyable enough to finish and ending left me satisfied. Being only 18 chapters long there is no reason to don't give it a try.