Nana

Departing from their respective hometowns, two young women with identical names are brought together in their pursuit of new beginnings. With their hearts set on going to Tokyo, Nana Komatsu dreams about blissful love, while Nana Osaki aims for a successful music career.

The former has a cheerful and friendly nature, but her naivety has steered her romantic life astray until she meets her dependable boyfriend—Shouji Endo. Without letting herself be dismayed by Shouji's decision to study in Tokyo, Nana works hard to earn enough money and follow him there. Meanwhile, her namesake is a solitary punk vocalist whose impassioned romance with her band's bassist, Ren Honjou, comes to a sudden end. Though heartbroken, Nana bravely looks forward and travels to the capital with the ambition of becoming a recognized artist.

Shortly after they arrive in Tokyo, the girls cross paths again due to an unexpected coincidence that ultimately leads them to live under the same roof. As they grow closer, the two strive to support one another amid their struggles to forge a future for themselves.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oosaki, Nana Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Komatsu, Nana Main

Kawana, Midori Japanese

Okazaki, Shinichi Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Takagi, Yasushi Supporting

Kawahara, Yoshihisa Japanese

Terashima, Nobuo Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Honjou, Ren Supporting

Kiuchi, Hidenobu Japanese

Ichinose, Takumi Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Serizawa, Layla Supporting

Hirano, Aya Japanese

Shinoda, Miu Supporting

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Saotome, Junko Supporting

Honda, Takako Japanese

Maruyama, Masao Producer

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Nakatani, Toshio Producer

Nakamoto, Kenji Producer

Reviews

Jan 24, 2010

Licorice

Recommended

"Say, Nana... Do you remember the first time we met?"

These words are the introduction of the beautiful world of "Nana". Ai Yazawa is probably the most convincing shoujo manga writer ever. With colourful, realistic characters, breathtaking events and just a pinch of music she creates a world in witch every girl can forget about reality and fall into the embrace of romantic fantasies.

One of the best things about "Nana" are the characters - we can actually see the reflection of ourselves in some of them and believe, that someone like that can really exist. This is proof that you can make a good anime ... without the conventional tsundere, moe or annoying childhood friend.
One thing I didn't like though is Hachi's personality. Her behaviour at times is despicable. Mainly because she has no ideals or dreams (except getting married witch is pretty boring compared to the rest of the characters).

The story is also one of Nana's strong points. Ai Yazawa worked really hard on it, and did her best to create a realistic world so that the reader can almost become part of it and experience it emotionaly.
Even though the plot is a typical shoujo tearjerker (with a bit of music) it has that magical something that makes you cheer unconsciously for some characters and experience emotionally some events almost as strongly as the characters themselves. Another good thing about the story is that it exposes the hard, cruel reality, which has no happy endings and pure loves. Yazawa-sensei gives her characters a big imagination (especially Hachi) But the world they live in is just like ours.

As for the art, it wasn't that impressive. It annoys me how all the characters are so thin and tall. Other that that I think the art matched the story pretty well. There were lots of details regarding shadows and highlights. That's in order to underline the mood of certain moments, mainly in room 707.

Nana has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. The openings and endings were songs by the 2 fictional bands in the show, witch was a brilliant idea imo. Olivia Lufkin and Anna Tsuchiya fit the characters perfectly. Nothing much to add here: the music in Nana is brilliant. Period.

Overall, Nana is a must-see position for shoujo-fans. It tells us a lot about life, it's hardships and also teaches us an important lesson about the mistakes, that we shouldn't make.

This is my first review, so please don't be hard on me ;)

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 26, 2012

melonpanfan

Mixed Feelings

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Mar 22, 2011

Technetium

Not Recommended

Gotta say, this is one of the most disappointing series to show up in the MAL top list. On the one hand, I found most of the characters really boring. Especially "Hachiko" who I couldn't sympathize with at all, and found I felt no pity for her at all in her fate. The other Nana was somewhat better, but overall, all of the female characters come across as being incredibly weak people who have nothing else in life to live for but to succumb to their men. Jun strikes me as the only one with any inner strength but alas she's a side character we ... never really get to know well.

As an anime, it's important to also consider the artwork, and in this area the series fails even harder. Obviously anime allows a great deal of freedom in styles, but in all cases it has to "look right". It's not successful art if I'm distracted from the story because the drawings look wrong. There are several angles where the artist clearly cannot draw heads and they look bloated and misshapen. The men are all strange giants with spidery appendages that look like they would break if they bumped into anything. In several scenes, I noted the ratios were ridiculously wrong and it appeared that arms came out of a person's mid-section rather than the shoulder. Again, if I'm noticing these things instead of the nuances of the story, there's a problem in the delivery here. Another point I'd like to mention is that characters that frequently are supposed to look angry appear to be smiling. It looks stupid and completely destroys any semblance of intended drama in the scene.

It's certainly not the worst show I've seen (I can think of plenty of harem series that are worse, for example), but I'd steer clear of this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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