Nana

While I've only watched up to episode 23 I've read up to chapter 36 in the manga and from there I gave up. I don't think I can properly review this anime as I haven't finished it but I feel that I need to say a little something.

Nana was really addicting at first, it seemed interesting and it was a mature story. I've also seen the anime and read the manga Paradise Kiss by the same author and it had a similar vibe. I thought I'd like it. I did like it at first, but then it started going down the wrong path. I don't ... have much to complain about with the art and sound, but as for the story and characters I have a lot I don't like about them.

I really hate the main character Nana Komatsu. At first I thought I'd be able to deal with her, as she had her nice moments, but I couldn't bring myself to watch an anime when I hated the main character so much. I am willing to accept a few slip ups, but her actions in the anime are just ridiculous.

I really liked the other characters too at first, but none of them were doing what I wanted them to do, none of them. Basically nothing was going good. Some people may enjoy drama but when it goes this far it is just boring and unbearable.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. Everything was going bad and I needed to know if something would eventually go right, and so I skipped ahead and spoiled myself. And what did I discover? That nothing got better and that it only got even more terrible and convoluted. How are any of the things that happen in this anime supposed to make the viewers happy? I at least expect some positive things to happen after all of the crap that goes down, but what do I get? More crap.

I am tired of watching entire romance anime filled with drama only to give the viewers a little bit of happiness at the last episode. (I don't even know if they give us at least that, from what I could tell from the spoilers I don't have much faith in any sort of happiness appearing.) Nana is full of drama and even if you tell me "it gets better" there is no way I am going to wade through all of this crap to get to the better parts. I'm just not that patient, I have better things to do with my time.

Remember, this review is from someone who did not finish the anime or the manga. I am just telling you what I can see from where I'm standing. Just know that this anime isn't going to be a fun ride if you don't like dealing with so much drama.

A girl I liked at the time made me watch this show, right after I finished she ended up ghosting me and later getting a boyfriend. The show does always remind me of it whenever I see anything related to it.

Overall the anime was fine, not my cup of tea, but I can see why people like it. The anime was older so the art style is different than most modern animes, still pretty enjoyable. 5/10 for me since I’m pretty neutral on it. I would 100% recommend this to anyone who likes older animes.

Note: I’ve moved on and I am completely fine lol

FIRST of all-- i dont often write reviews, and to be honest i tend to be picky so you may or may not agree with what i have to say. but im putting this out there as a WARNING for anyone else like me who read the reviews and came to an entirely different conclusion. This anime has an amazing story, crazy good character establishment, and the art and sound are of course up to par. WHY then did i give this such a poor score? because according to reviews, synopses, and even by genre this was supposed to be a perfect story. every perfect ... story has their tragedies, their tear-jerkers, and their heart wrenching scenes. but in the end, a perfect story leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling. haha ok so i dont need it to be some shallow "the prince and princess live happily ever after" shit. but i expected to feel satisfied after heartbreak occurred over and over again. i wont ruin this review by adding a serious spoiler here but i want you to know that after several depressing episodes leading up to the finale, the "happy ending" was nowhere to be seen. for me, this was an anime that was the work of a genus. the one obstacle that killed this story for me was the one name i needed to see on the happy ending list; NOBUO.

The first time i watched Nana was back in middle school. I couldn't finish it because I was crying so hard when she broke the news to Nobuo about [you know what]. It totally broke my heart into pieces. Now in my mid-twenties rewatching it (and still crying hard over it), it is such an amazing example of real-life relationships in anime. Some characters SUCK and are horrible people, but their actions always align with their own morality and judgement. Some characters are awesome but have fatal flaws that, if they were real, would make you grip them on the arms, shake them and scream, ... "What is wrong with you?!"-- But that's so rooted in reality and everyone you come across in life. There will always be directionless girls with low self-esteem who gaga over men while simultaneously not giving a damn about them like Hatchi. There will always be people who think their only worth lies in the one thing they're good at, and who have major abandonment issues like Nana. Sometimes the best characters can act like total fools and it could all be repaired if they would just talk it out, but they won't or can't. It can be frustrating to see multiple characters with good attributes act horribly or make the wrong decision, but again, I think this is the ultimate slice of life and while it's annoying af, it adds to the realism. Even cheaters, mixed up feelings of love when you're dating someone, and longing are well portrayed in this show.

Sure, the downtime can be a total drag, but that's also the appeal at the same time. It's such an incredible slice of life. You are witnessing the characters in what feels like real-time, and in a real way with everyone getting snippets of info slowly from everyone else about the latest gossip/news.
If you're feeling a little directionless in life and have a strong friendship (or multiple) that you're scared of seeing fade away, this show is for you. If you're a young girl/woman who is aimlessly living and hopping from guy to guy, this show is for you. If you love Vivienne Westwood (RIP my queen), love punk/rock and seeing how music industries work, this show is for you.
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Be warned though, in the instance of cheating in this show, Ai Yazawa seems to think that the person cheated on should fight for / try to stay with the cheater. A stance that isn't really OK imo. It can be super frustrating to watch, but Yazawa fleshes out their mixed feelings better later on in the story and it brings some closure to that cruddy plotline. Also, the manga has never been finished and many believe it will never be resumed. Don't go in hoping for a happy ending.

Being a fairly new anime fan myself, the only reason I even found this show was because I watched "Golden Time" and heard that the character NANA was a reference to this show. Of course, seeing that NANA was one of the top 100 anime of all time according to MyAnimeList, I just had to give the show a try.

The beginning had me immediately drawn in! The diversity and the chemistry between the two Nana's and their developing character/relationships were really great!

But as the series continued, it just got worse and worse...

The main characters became less and less likeable, especially Nana O., character development ... was rather forced or unexplained, and the motives of the character's actions were never reasonable or explained unlike in the beginning of the series. And to top it all off, the writing got more sloppy and unfocused as the series continued; sometimes even getting the chronology of the story wrong!

I haven't read the manga, yet I'm very certain that it is better than this anime. So in case you haven't seen the anime yet, I HIGHLY recommend that you read the manga instead!

This anime literally gave me a stroke. I know I can't stop you from watching it because of how acclaimed it is, but it genuinely enraged me to the point that I have to post a review.

Maybe Nana is a masterpiece and I am the one with no taste. But I had such a bad time that I am willing to be biased. This show is hot garbage. Why is every single character borderline insane? Why can't they go to therapy? Instead they torture themselves, each other, and innocent me. Is this a hidden public service media to educate youth on the importance of ... mental health? And I hate myself for being a masochist because I binged it in two days. I simply couldn't stop watching this train wreck.

To summarise, Nana is the story of two young women in Tokyo pursuing their career and love. They are clearly gay for each other but keep dating trash men for some bizarre reason. Apparently the manga is on hiatus and not all of the material is adapted into the 47-episode anime. Apparently in the manga things got even worse for the characters. Unbelievable.

Plot: 8/10
I have no idea what the author is smoking to come up with such insane plot lines.
Character: 7/10
Nana is well-written, she is cool, stubborn, independent, with many vulnerabilities that flesh out her character. Hachi and Layla are lovable but they need counselling. It is painful to watch these two suffer.
The men are trash... with some exceptions of course, but there is a particularly trash man who brings down the average.
Voice acting: 8/10
Enjoyment: 2/10

Nana has probably got to be one of the heaviest and most depressing anime I've ever watched so far, it's a lot more straight forward with topics here and I like how the dialogue runs smoothly in each episode. Every voice actor did a perfect job.

- Spoilers for the next part of this review -





... Now what I don't like about this show is how Hachi is made to be an idiot here (sadly there are women who act like this irl). Right after the episode where she decided to keep the baby and stay with Takushit, I realized that this bitch wasn't ever going to leave this man regardless of how he treats her. One minute he acts all nice then the next minute when he gets angry, he puts her down and somehow Hachi doesn't see any red flags at all. I really wanted Hachi to get an abortion and find her own self-worth with actual character development instead of repeating the same cycles by acting like she is in love with these men.


What really concerns me is the number of high ratings this anime has, like how do you give such a crappy and rushed ending a 9 or 10. We don't even know if Nana and Ren got together in the end or if they're dead. After all of that past tense shit going on in every beginning and ending of each episode only to not have a good ending, we're supposed to be satisfied with it the way it is???

I was looking out for a decent romance to watch, I found out this had a great score on MAL, so I started it. Well, that wasn't one of my best choices I made in my life, the anime starts pretty interesting but after just a bunch of episodes it becomes "boring" or should I rather say hurtfull to watch. Both main characters (black Nana and red Nana) are pretty interesting itself although, the red Nana becomes a pain to watch, so naive, stupid and careless, I'm impressed how she's already 20+ and so ignorant. Overall the anime has a lot of emotions like sadness, ... depression and some episodes are just sad to watch. If you like sad anime with good music I reccomend it, otherwise don't even start it.

Story: At the beginning of this show its seems like an all out comedy, but as the story progresses you can start to see the story is more sad than funny. The ending is unclear whether it is a happy one, or a sad one.
Art: The art was great in its own way. Some of the things got kinda annoying, like the little white tear things on their heads sometimes, but I liked the unique art.
Sound: i liked the opening and ending songs, and all the other songs they sang during the show.
Characters: nana/hachi- often could be described has a whinny character, but ... she was a great person to be the heart of all the drama.
punk nana- even tho at the beginning of the show she seemed together with only a few problems, as the show progressed you could see just how much she needed nana/hachi.
I enjoyed the show a lot other than the constant drama. overall the show is worth spending your time on

This anime gave me an identity crisis. I call myself a shoujosei fan but didn't like Nana? Scandalous.

*Note: Since both the main girls are named Nana, I will use the primary narrator's nickname Hachiko when referring to her for clarity's sake.

The first half of this was pretty interesting - it definitely felt like we were building up to a very touching GL story when watching Hachiko's various failures in dating men. There are allusions to it as well in her internal narrations ("Nana, if you and I were lovers, I wonder if things would have been different...") but overall, we spend most of our ... time watching Hachiko making the same mistakes over and over and getting increasingly frustrated with each new toxic man she falls in with and builds her entire identity around. I get this is probably supposed to allow for her to have an arc, but when I'm almost 30 episodes in and she still doesn't seem to have learned much, you have a pacing issue that just can't be reconciled. It's possible this problem is unique to the anime, as I understand it didn't complete the entire story told in the manga - I wouldn't know and I'm not sure I want to find out.

Nana as a character is a bit more complex and interesting with a clearer development arc. The way she tries to balance her tough persona with allowing herself to be loved and show tenderness was really compelling. However, this took a backseat to everything Hachiko thinks/feels about of a quarter of the way in. A more balanced view of both characters throughout the series would have been nice.

The animation style is pretty painfully 2000s - weird, long, disproportionate bodies for everyone, weirdly round eyes - the One Piece fan in me doesn't mind, but if that's something you personally care about, well, consider that a heads up.

If you don't usually like romances or are looking for one to get you into the genre, I would highly recommend starting somewhere else, as this is a lot to swallow.

The first OP, rose, is a banger though, and one of the few I never skip no matter how long of a binge session I've been on.

I didn't read the manga and I will do it.

After saying this I can talk about the anime. It started so well that I was really excited every time an episode was ending that I wanted to watch another one straight away but more I was heading towards the end more it start to losing it, I know and I am sorry, because I red a lot of good reviews over here but seriously, I was sooo disappointed by the way it ends. I mean I never had so many questions in my entire life, it leaves you with this hole in the chest that ... needs to be feel somehow, for me it was Icecream.

I mean it was perfect, amazing music, amazing story (is really really really amazing I wish there were more anime like this on) the character were all perfect and well structured and then...poof!!! All gone!!!! WHYYYYYY????

Anyway, I am going to find straight away the manga because I NEED TO KNOW!!!!

The animation is fair-good overall. There are some good scenes when the bands are playing music, but otherwise not a lot of flash. There are some very good backgrounds, but the character detail ranges from poor to good. The character detail is mostly good, but there are scenes where it's lacking. The characters are good, they don't really develope at the pace that I would like though. That being said they have a good amount of depth to them. The story is also good, the plot is engaging, but it does feel overly complicated and drawn out. Nothing wrong with a long anime with a ... complicated story, but only if that story and length are meaningful. The actual pacing is very good. Plot points come at a decent pace and the anime kept me engaged despite my issues with the plot itself. The voice acting was overall fair. The casting is good, but the performances are just okay(fair) and not the best. That and the voice acting for certain characters is annoying from time to time. The soundtrack is good. The actual tracks are very good, but there just are not enough of them for 47 episodes. That being said the ops/eds are pretty great. Across the board Nana is a good anime, but not great. It doesn't do anything particularly poorly, but it doesn't do anything particularly well either. I enjoyed it and do believe it is a good anime, but the length and amount of plot make it hard to recommend to everyone. If you like shoujo this is a decent way to spend your time. 6.80/10

1. If you ever want to see through or understand the mind of those stupid easily carried away girls also known as bimbo, this anime is for you, though not all bimbos are the same and in this anime, it happens to be the nice friendly one.

2. If you ever get confused over whether or not you are lesbian/gay because you feel possessive/obsessive towards your same sex friend despite having no sexual desire to them, this anime is also for you. Loners or introverts often feel this way towards their only friend because they don't have many friends and they don't want to lose them, ... it's a common occurrence, not a sexuality.

3. If you ever get confused over whether or not you love someone romantically just because you admire your same sex friend and want to be close to them, this anime is also for you, because this is normal common thing in friendship, it's not a sexuality.

The only reason this anime have high score is because a lot of the audience are women (obviously), and sadly, most of them do indeed empathize with the characters because most of them are like this. though they may fail to see which part is realistic and which part is fantasy. in a way, this anime is very woman, because most of them don't know what they want, and they can be deliberately shallow and have savior complex, they want to be loved but they keep falling for some version of toxic men, just like the character in this anime.

To be honest this anime is just a normal drama to me, these things happen often, but obviously not so sweet like the blatant female fantasy that happens in this anime. For example, the protagonist thoughts and characters are relatable to most women in real life, but in reality big musicians do not fall in love to their groupies. Hachi's sentiment about the desire to shallow fancy things (trendy clothes, big house, fancy food and furniture) in life is real, but the scenario of multiple hot men genuinely falling in love to a woman who has weak resolve to commit is not real. I mean, lets be real, Hachi got pregnant 6 months after being away from home, that's a shorter duration than the pregnancy itself, in real life women like this are the type who are either crying in abortion clinic or the struggling single mothers desperate to find love, men do not like them. In real life men do not like Hachi.

As for Nana, a lot of loners in real life share that sentiment of possessiveness, attraction and fear of losing towards their friend, but in this period of time where people think personality trait is a gender, they can easily mistake their love towards their friend as a hint of their unexplored sexuality, while in reality its not sexuality unless you feel sexual desire. It's only that they feel like they don't have any other better friend and afraid of losing them, this happens often, and is actually normal, just like how it's portrayed and told in the flow of this anime. Nana and Hachi are not confused bisexuals, they are friends having sentiments often happen in friendships.

I see negative reviews, and I actually agree with them, though many are written by men and they probably don't know the core traits of women is to be completely driven by love and to succumb to it, Hachi is a stupid shallow woman, its only natural for men to not be able to empathize with her, this alone proves that men indeed do not like women like Hachi in real life, so this anime is still far from realistic. The only realistic part of this anime is just the flawed thoughts of the female characters, also the common daily life drama like cheating and break ups, which isn't an impressive drama, story wise.