Nana | Manga - MyAnimeList.net

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Japanese: NANA

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 21

Chapters: 84

Status: On Hiatus

Published: May 26, 2000 to May 26, 2009

Genres: Award Winning, Drama, Romance

Themes: Adult Cast, Love Polygon, Music

Demographic: Shoujo

Serialization: Cookie

Authors: Yazawa, Ai (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.81¹ (scored by 48,605 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #39²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #77

Members: 159,516

Favorites: 12,631

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8.81

Ranked #39Popularity #77Members 159,516

MangaCookieYazawa, Ai (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /21

Chapters: /84

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Synopsis

Nana Komatsu is a naive, unmotivated girl who spends her high school days chasing one crush after the other. Despite continually facing failure in her quest for love, her spirits have never dampened. At the age of 20, she finds herself on a train to Tokyo with hopes of reuniting with her current boyfriend.

Nana Osaki, on the other hand, is feisty and prideful. After joining a local band during her high school days, she falls in love with music and one of the band members. However, when faced with the choice between her relationship and her musical career, she chooses the latter and separates from her boyfriend. On her 20th birthday, she boards the same train to Tokyo, like her namesake, where she aims to become a top vocalist.

The two girls with the same name but very different aspirations find themselves sitting together on their journey to the city, and, as fate would have it, eventually share the same apartment. A deep and unique bond is then forged, where they will support each other in this saga of love, music, friendship, and heartbreak.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Nana won the 48th Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shoujo category in 2002, along with Kaze Hikaru. The series was placed on hiatus since the July 2009 issue of Cookie due to the mangaka's sudden illness.

The series has been published in English by VIZ Media under the Shojo Beat imprint since December 6, 2005. It has also been released in French by Delcourt since January 1, 2003; in Spain by Planeta Cómic since June 2006; in Brazilian Portuguese by Editora JBC since July 2008; in Argentina by Editorial Ivrea since April 24, 2009; in Mexico by Panini Comics since May 25, 2022; and in Polish by Kotori since June 16, 2023.

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Characters

Osaki, Nana

Main

Komatsu, Nana

Main

Okazaki, Shinichi

Supporting

Takagi, Yasushi

Supporting

Terashima, Nobuo

Supporting

Honjou, Ren

Supporting

Ichinose, Takumi

Supporting

Serizawa, Layla

Supporting

Shinoda, Miu

Supporting

Saotome, Junko

Supporting

Reviews

Feb 23, 2025

Darryldarryl127

Recommended

Preliminary (84/84 eps)

The background of NANA feels like an endless white night. Things seem to be continuously in motion; beginnings and endings wrapped up in an infinite wave of falling snowflakes waiting to melt into each other. The forefront sits in perpetual twilight; characters seem to be eclipsed by their own shadows with barely enough to catch a glimpse of who they are. The entire landscape depicts the frigidity of life rising from frosty gales to a calmer ether, only to revert to stormier lands. Movement here isn’t linear. Nothing is. NANA, as a whole, is pure kinetics; an explosion of emotional energy circling, clashing and always ...

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Jan 3, 2022

abystoma2

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (84/84 eps)

Do you think including sex in a story makes the story mature and for mature audience? Then might enjoy this manga, as that is exactly the target audience of this smut.

The only reason why I kept reading this manga is to try to discover why everyone seems to like this series. I regret to inform you I have failed in this task. For a manga that claims to be about romance and friendship, it surely doesn't have much of either of those. Sure, there are relationships, but actual displays of romance or friendships are scarce. Mostly it's just conflicts, harlotry and playboys - who slept ... with who, who got cheated on, break ups, new relationships... honestly if that's enough content for you, just ask the nearest teenage girl in your vicinity to tell you the latest gossip and you'll get exactly that. The problem with Nana is that all of it feels empty. We're supposed to feel like there are some feelings between those characters, but it lacks displays of actual affections, like it’s something that only happens off-screen and we only get to see the aftermath of unhealthy relationship. The reader constantly gets spammed by this youthful imprudence that only makes me want to shout "Just grow the fuck up already" at the pages.

The characters are unsympathetic and uninteresting. Trendy designs are the only thing they can offer, and even that is already outdated. Same as I don't need a manga to tell me that water is drinkable, I also don't need a manga to tell me that teenagers tend to not be exactly the best at making life decisions. Especially one that doesn't look like it has any conclusion or interesting overall meaning in mind and yet takes up so much volumes. Sure, some of the characters get their sob story and background info, but that still doesn't change that their present version is just not interesting. Reading Nana just feels like reading a generic chick lit. Well, now that I think about it, it is actually a chick lit, so it's nothing not something that should have surprised me.

There is one good thing about this manga though, and that is the art. Even as someone who generally doesn't enjoy the shoujo style of illustrations I liked it, and while it didn't make the manga good as a whole, it certainly made reading it slightly better.

I feel like the target audience of Nana is mainly those at the age of protagonists and similar still with the mindset that spending their teen years indulging in sex and relationship drama while smoking cigarettes is so much cool and oh would it be so interesting if it were me. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that wants something beyond a telenovela-tier content.

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Mar 29, 2025

IbanezEHB1000PW

Not Recommended

Preliminary (84/84 eps)

There is one very simple thing to ask when talking about Nana, where the hell did it all go wrong ?

Nana starts off wonderfully, a cast full of colorful and unique characters and intriguing plotlines and goals of those characters. The anime covers roughly half of the manga and up until the final few episodes of the anime Nana is a perfect series. However at one point everything just starts to go downhill. The downward shift is not much of a problem in the anime since it doesn't cover a lot of it and the events that occur are still acceptable. But when the anime ... is over and you have to jump onto the manga to see how the story progresses, thats when Nana really becomes a pile of steaming hot garbage.

Before getting to the major problems lets start by addressing the smaller ones. The series completely drifts away from music especially after the anime ends. The biggest reason I was so interested in this show was because of the music and being a band trying to become famous and seeing what band members live through in their personal life. The story does a wonderful job in the beginning when it comes to this. The characters that are related to the band part of the series are very interesting for the first half of the series. I especially love that the story is not afraid of underage drinking, smoking and sex. The reason for this is because it is more realistic, these activities are very common in high school (in my country they are at least) and university years especially so the story not being afraid to show them is a wonderful decision. Sadly however as I have said the story drifts away from music completely and just turns into a fuckfest where everyone stars to fall in love with everyone and a fuck ton of unnecessary drama and idiotic situations occur from this.

I am going to talk about the problems that come up with all the characters in a moment but firstly I must talk about Hachi. Hachi might be the single worst main character I have seen in any anime or manga. She starts off fine, being an airhead, energetic woman who has an unhealthy dependency on men and being romantically or sexually wanted by men. This is an interesting background in my opinion and the reader would expect Hachi to overcome this dependency and grow as a person but sadly this is not what happens. She becomes worse and worse when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex and hurts a lot of people some of which very close to her. I mean at leats thats what was supposed to happen but for some reason everything Hachi does in the story is forgiven or overlooked by everybody around her. She has zero character devolopment and turns into a horrible person but still everyone and I mean EVERYONE for some reason never get upset with her and treat her like she is the most precious most important person in the world. If we move on from this problem and return to Hachi's character she is basically a spoiled little child in a 20 year old's body. She is nowhere near likeable and becomes absolutely insufferable as the series progresses.

This might be an outrageous statement on my hand but through out the series I never once understood why anybody cared so much about Hachi. When you think about it this cast of characters who are supposed to know eachother since they were high school students for some reason all care more about Hachi then eachother for the most part. And Hachi isn't even with them for a long time, she is there for only a couple of months and after that she goes away due to the pregnancy situation.

The biggest problem with the series in general is how the characters change overtime. At some point everyone just loses all of their interesting characteristics and the only thing about them becomes the relationships with one another. And towards the final chapters the everyones characteristics start completely changing super suddenly and out of place that you don't even know what the hell is the reason for anything anymore. They become absolute polar opposites of themselves in an instant than turn back and change and change and change ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Everything turns into a shitshow drama festival.

Especially Nana (not Hachi) is effected the most from this problem. She becomes the single worst character in the story. She is always bouncing between dedicating her life to Hachi, dedicating her life to Ren and completely focusing on her career. And these bounces happen literrally chapters between eachother. But for the most part she is focused on Hachi and as I've said I never understood this. Why the hell is Hachi so important for everyone especially her. She is the worst of the bunch when it comes to the forgiving of Hachi about everything.

The series also introduces a bunch of side characters who do nothing but complicate things because a lot of characters look so damn similar due to the art style.

It is time to sum up this horribly written review where I basically emptied my pent up frustration to this series. Nana took up almost a whole week of my life with multiple nights of staying up until the morning to read of watch it and when it comes to the anime I cant say i regret it. The anime was very solid as I've said, one of my favorites, or to be honest was one of my favorites. The manga has completely outshined all the positive opinions I had had about the anime as well. I gave a score of 4 due to 40% of the series being a 9 and the other 60% being a 1 but trust me and do not read the manga at all. Just watch the anime and leave it at that. It is not worth the time and effort. And especially it is not worth learning the rest of the story since it is more of a fuckfest than a story in general.

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Current Condition of Manga NANA's Author Revealed

According to J-Cast, Josei Jishin magazine caught and interviewed Yazawa Ai when she returned home from the hospital. She said she is getting a lot better than befor...read more

Apr 25, 2010 9:42 AM by dtshyk | Discuss (119 comments)

Publication of Manga NANA Suspended Due To a Sudden Illness of the Author

The new thread on this topic is below. Current Condition of Manga NANA's Author Revealed #========================================== According to Oricon, Yazawa...read more

Jun 28, 2009 11:48 PM by dtshyk | Discuss (94 comments)

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Poll: NANA Chapter 84 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) bialovesanime - May 26, 2009	114 replies	by maliphamnhu »» Mar 14, 11:41 AM
[AniTsumi Leaks] NANA potentially returns to full publication according to new information RobertBobert - Nov 20, 2024	26 replies	by RobertBobert »» Dec 1, 2024 11:14 AM
Poll: NANA Chapter 1 Discussion rebwaters - Jul 14, 2009	23 replies	by OV3RCH4RG3 »» Nov 26, 2024 1:57 AM
Poll: Nana Chapter 35 Discussion Ulquiorra - Sep 10, 2018	2 replies	by dreamingneon »» Nov 23, 2024 11:20 PM
Is there any way to convince an author to continue their work? 00002019 - Jul 28, 2013	16 replies	by RobertBobert »» Nov 20, 2024 8:13 AM

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