Anime: Nana t49l

Gotta say, this is one of the most disappointing series to show up in the Anidb 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.

Nana is the best anime of its type that I have seen in 20 years of watching anime.

Now that I have dated myself, let me spend the rest of this review both backing up that claim and adding so many caveats as to make it nearly worthless.

Before I can get into the specifics, what do is Nana's "type"? "comedy, drama, romance, slice of life". That seems to cover every genre known to mankind but in the context of anime I think we all know what we're getting into when you see those tags: Some kind of angsty indecision about who will date whom among a clique of stupid high schoolers, stretched out to interminable lengths.

Nana's first, best, and most important step is to throw away the school and make this bildungsroman about young adults. It is a fairly common otaku defense to claim that "in Japan adults watch anime/read manga!" That may be true but you wouldn't know it by the unremitting avalanche of trite, childish shit that shows up in the scanlation/fansub communities.

It's not a surprise. There is a constantly renewing audience of self-absorbed teen-agers they can sell those titles to. I don't bemoan them that. But is it too much to ask for one or two series that aren't about 15-year olds who think taking four years to ask out their secret crush is the most pivotal experience of their entire 85-year life?

Sure, Nana is a "comedy, drama, romance, slice of life" anime. But you're going to get doses of prostitution, people going to drudge jobs they hate but have to do to pay rent, one night stands, and marriage alongside the usual love triangles and damaged personalities. That simple introduction of real-world topics is enough to elevate Nana out of the morass that typically drowns its competition and make it an exemplar.

None of which is to say that Nana is some kind of trancendant masterpiece. It doesn't rewrite the rules of the genre. It never truly rises above the melodramatic stereotypes that are the sine qua non of its peers. It has enough flaws that a boatload of people are going to think I'm crazy with my praise. And it is true, a lot of praise for Nana is at an intellectual-aesthetic level. Which not everyone wants when their watching anime. Or this kind of anime.

Maybe Japan is chock-full of manga and anime that talks about the troubles and travails of adults. If so, they never seem to arrive on these shores. AnimeNewsNetwork lists some "similar shows": GTO, Fruits Basket, Maison Ikkoku, Ouran High School Host Club, Kodocha, Full Moon o Sagashite, Hana Yori Dango, Ai Yori Aoshi, Nodame Cantabile. A bunch of high schoolers and celibate music school students? That's not the real world.

Nana is a show where people have to go to hold down multiple jobs to pay for rent at the studio where they practice every night. Where people make horrible mistakes and have to live with them. Where bands don't "power" up and "practice harder" to beat the competition in some hokey battle of bands for shounen-tards that need everything to be a fight. Where people have sex with their boyfriends. And sex with people who aren't their boyfriends. Where doing the typical crazy anime shit means you get fired from your job...and then how the hell are you going to pay rent next week? Where you keep meeting new people (I'm looking at you Azumanga Daioh).

Nana's not perfect. The first two-thirds are better than the last third, when it turns up the melodrama knob to Full Tear-Jerk Mode 11. The two leads -- Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu -- are the least likable characters in the show. Emma Bovary wasn't likable but that didn't stop Flaubert. Some of the relationships developed a bit too abruptly for my tastes. But that's a small sin in the world of anime/manga where they usually take 5 years to get to the first kiss (BECK). BLAST apparently gets signed after performing three shows. It suffers from "character reuse" (by which I mean, if a show introduces two guys and two girls you can bet that they will couple up in the way that requires the fewest number of characters) but Friends and every other show in the world does that, too. Telling me how awesome BLAST is might work in the manga but in the anime, where I can hear them play the same two damn songs over and over, it doesn't hold water.

I'll stop there but you get the idea. This show has flaws. Lots of them. The fact that it is hard to empathize much with the two leads is going to be a show-stopper for a lot of potential viewers. Hell, the kind of person that Nana Komatsu (aka Hachiko) is content to be makes my modern, liberal sensibilities scream out.

But what Nana does -- and does better than any other anime I know of -- is show a real slice of life. A slice of real people's lives. Dirty, messy lives. Where you're never as sure of love, even when it is requited, as all those stupid high schoolers are. Where the characters are that right combination of cynical and naive, jaded and hopeful, that makes them feel like people who really live and breathe...rather than simply recite shoujo-tripe-quotes. Nana is what drama anime can be when it bothers to talk about the things that really happen in life.

That doesn't mean it is for everyone.

One of the things I like to see the most in anime is how they portray relationships. I’m a sucker for romance, but I hate the cheesy stuff you usually see in typical shoujo anime. Sometimes you’ll find an anime with realistic characters, with the typical flaws of human nature, and usually people love them. We can identify with them. Like in Evangelion many people who have dealt with depression could identify with Shinji (in some levels…).

For those of you who have watched your share of anime about love/relationships, I bet you could identify somehow with “Bokura ga Ita”, “Kimi ga Nozomu Eien” or “Kare Kano”. Or at least you felt connected with its characters. I have watched them all and know what I’m talking about.

Recently, I finally sat down and watched “Paradise Kiss”. It’s a short (12 episodes) anime that, to make it short, is about relationships and growing up. I was impressed by its maturity. The art style took a while to get used to, but afterwards I loved it. After watching it, I decided to watch “Nana”, which is by the same author and deals with similar issues.

Synopsis:
“On board the train to Tokyo to meet her boyfriend Shoji, Nana Komatsu ("Hachi") happened to sit beside Nana Osaki who was traveling to Tokyo to fulfill her dreams of becoming a musician. The vocalist for her punk band "Blast", Nana aims for a major debut for "Blast" in Tokyo where her boyfriend, Ren, is the guitarist for a popular band "Trapnest". Sharing the same name "Nana", both girls quickly form a bond of friendship. Their paths cross again when they encounter each other while searching for accommodation in Tokyo. Eventually they decide to live together in the same unit and this further strengthens their bond as the two "Nana(s)" go through their love lives and career.” – AnimeNewsNetwork

Story (9/10)

I almost have no words to express how it made me feel. It’s amazing. Incredibly realistic and moving. I started watching it without knowing a thing about it (not even synopsis), though the title “Nana” sounded familiar as something popular among anime fans. The anime was broadcasted in 2006, lasting 47 episodes, but the manga first came out in Japan in 2000 and is still ongoing.

The concept itself isn’t anything too extraordinary. People living together, people falling in and out of love, people trying to make it in showbiz and other stuff. You could say it blends many overused ideas, then twists them around and reinvents them, transforming itself into a completely original and brilliant idea. And it contains romance, drama and comedy, but the transition between them is really well done, so it doesn’t feel weird.

What really makes “Nana” shine is the incredible character development. The evolution of each character’s personality and relationships with other characters. The things we watch them go through seem so real, like we’d probably make the same mistakes and choices as they did. No one is perfect – that’s a fact. We often think to ourselves “If I was [him], I wouldn’t have made that choice”, but the truth is we are lying to ourselves. We are insecure, emotional beings, that often ignore rational thought and make reckless decisions. “Nana” is so realistic that it’ll blow your mind away.

This is a long series, but it’s not hard to watch. In the first episodes, the action often switches between the actual time and many flashbacks, but they really are important to understand a character’s background. At some point you might get the feeling that they’re repeating the flashbacks, but don’t worry. This isn’t a filler-filled series.

In the end I felt that the story was really well told. But they leave you in a sort of cliffhanger… because the manga isn’t finished yet. But they made it more than obvious that at some point there’ll be a second season of Nana, so don’t worry. In fact, I loved watching this and the way it ended wasn’t too frustrating because I’d just experienced an awesome series.

Visuals (8/10)

The way the characters look might be a little hard to get used to (at least IMO), but I really like the art style. I don’t think there’s anything too impressive or revolutionary about the visuals here… which is a good thing. I think the plot alone would be enough to hold the audience and maybe if they’d done something too extravagant visually (*cough* Air *cough*) the viewer would get sidetracked from the story itself. I think the animation was very fitting for the anime.

The animation studio is Madhouse, which was also responsible for “Beck”, “Card Captor Sakura”, “Paradise Kiss”, “Death Note” and a bunch of others.

Audio (9/10)

I watched the episodes with the original Japanese voice actors and English subtitles. As for the actors, I think they were perfect for their roles. KAORI gave her voice to Nana “Hachi”, which suited the character perfectly with the childish and girlish tone (but thankfully not an annoying high-pitched voice). For the tough rock singer Nana Osaki we have Romi Paku, who also voiced Edward Elric in Full Metal Alchemist. They knew that “Nana” would be an instant success, so they gave it a cast of famous actors and spared no expense.

At first this seems like an anime about music, but it doesn’t play that much of a part here. I mean, we hear lots of songs, but the story isn’t focused on showing us the making of the songs in detail. Compared to “Gravitation” or “Full Moon wo Sagashite”, music wasn’t as important here.

I loved the songs. The fictional bands’ songs are used as openings and endings. OLIVIA is the singing voice of Reira, and we hear many songs from her. My favourite was “A little pain”. It was the first Ending, and since each episode ended on a relatively sad tone, the song fit perfectly. When I heard the first words of the lyrics (“Travel to the moon…”) it almost made me want to cry.

Characters (9/10)

As I’ve mentioned, the characters are the best thing about the anime. We get the chance to know a bit about each character’s history, motivations, thoughts and desires. They are so realistic that we just can’t help but being sucked in by them.

As the anime progresses, the characters gradually grow. This is a very “slice of life” genre of anime, so we watch them growing up. I love how they all interact and deal with their decisions. I love how they aren’t perfect… but as flawed as humans should be.

Overall (10/10)

I loved this anime and it will definitely become one of my favorite series of all time. I feel like watching it again and again, but since it is 47 episodes long and makes me very emotional, maybe it’ll have to wait until I have more time.

I don’t feel like reading the manga for the sole reason that it is too damn long. If it weren’t for that, I would have already ordered all the volumes. But I gained new respect for the mangaka Ai Yazawa.

There are 2 live-action movies for “Nana”. I haven’t watched them yet, but will soon. I’m curious as to how they squeezed all that plot into 2 movies (I’d say they have enough material to make a whole 11 episode drama or maybe something even longer).

The anime will have a second season… I’m sure of that. But for that to happen, we’ll have to wait until the manga is finished. Hurry up!

Hey, I loved NANA!! Thanks for reading this review, and please, do give me a rating. This review is based on the Ureshii fansubs, and I will re-review it once the dvds are out; but you likely won't find the fansubs now, as it's licensed. (As of August 08, I'm still awaiting for those ^*($ R1 DVDs!)

Quick Take: Nana is a character driven soap opera about young love, finding friends, and the effects of becoming a rock idol. It deals with loneliness, improper childhood events, unrequited love and drugs. It's enjoyable for a mature audience, as there are absolutely no giant robots or cosplay involved. The characters drive the story. Themes are adult, so ages 13+ is appropriate.

NANA [incidentally, Japanese for the number seven] is really about two Nanas, the first a "family, country girl" who is also called Hatchi (Japanese for the number eight), just wants to be loved. She matures thru the events and it is the character development in her that makes this enjoyable. The other NANA, all caps to differentiate her from "Hatchi," is an outwardly different but inwardly quite similar girl. She is ambitious: wants to be a rock star in a band. But she too wants to be loved, by the main singer in a different band, a childhood friend. They grow to depend on each other. In many ways, the plot revolves around the Nana-NANA relationship. Girls will get it, and guys may not, but will stay for the plot. I enjoyed it, but then I like Full Moon, too. Go figure.

Animation: Less fluid, more "anime emo" and detailed during the action, but has beautiful op/ed animation that sets the tone for the episode.A Madhouse Studios production, taken driectly from the Yazawa Ai's josei manga, it's an improvement because we have sound added to that story about band . It has leggy, almost emaciated characters, a la CLAMP. I liked the animation the least of the areas, but did enjoy the character design by Kunihiko Hamada (Galaxy Angel) and art by Tomoyuki Shimizu (Great Teacher Onizuka), so on average it scored an 8.

You have to like the characters in order to enjoy the series, and that shouldn't be hard with the way they are designed and animated. Now, the character design of all the characters reminds me of xxxHolic: stick-thin all-leg-and-arm, so don't expect Disney characters like Belle, or detailed background animation or use of CGI. It's basic 2D manga art, done well enough to sell the story, earning an 8. Overall, animation is not really the strongest point of Nana, but it's not the worst either.

Sound is wonderful, with a 3 catchy op/eds, several songs through each episode, about 6 different EDs by Black Stones or Trapnest. The seiyuu are outstanding, especially a singer-newcomer KAORI (previously in Brigadoon (TV) as Marin Asagi) as Nana "Hachi" Komatsu and veteran Romi Paku (more than 100 credits to her bio) as Nana Osaki. The raw, powerful singing voice for Nana Osaki is provided effectively by Anna Tsuchiya of Kamikaze Girls fame. And don't overlook the award-winning performance of Aya Hirano (Haruhi Suzumiya, Konata in Lucky Star) as Reira Serizawa. Wow, what a seiyuu cast!

The foley work helps flesh out a natural-sounding world around them. You need great sound to make a series about musicians, period, and the songs are gooood. The only complaint I had was the lack of directionality in the sound (it might only have been aired in stereo; my reviews are based on the fansubs), which I hope will be corrected in the DVD. There are times when the depth of the soundstage could have been expanded. But the voice acting is top flight, earning a 9. 

Story is character driven, follows the manga, and the plot is in service of the character. Expect that the events in the story line will be driven by the relationships between the main and secondary characters, and how they work out among them. There are about 7 different arcs through 50 episodes (47 broadcast, 3 "Junko's Room" specials), and the EDs seem to telegraph when the arcs change. Without giving away spoilers, let me say that if you like slice-of-life, character-driven soaps, you'll love Nana, earning a 9.  It's really the next-best thing to watching a soap opera.

Character is king in Nana. Great character design, wonderful seiyuu, superb execution. You will care for Nana and NANA, and you will care about what happens to them and how they develop as people. There is character development in spades. You will see them grow up and become adult and responsible, fail and weep, writhe in angst, have children and mature. It will take 47 episodes, and in the end, you'll likely want 47 more. It's the anime equivalent of a soap opera.

Character rules, and 10 it is.

Value is a good question, since at the time of this review,  it's not on DVD yet.  If you ask is it worth the time to watch, it depends on if you get hooked on the characters, because it won't be for the intricate plot, actions scenes or the ninja swordplay. If you watch the first 6 episodes, I'm willing to bet that you'll hang in there for all 47+ episodes, just like I did for Seinfeld. SOME pleasures are SUPPOSED to be guilty! When released on DVD, I'd like to revisit this to comment more fully, but realistically, I'd buy all those DVDs at $20 each only in an alternate universe, or if they up the soundstage and do a gorgeous HD transfer, maybe with some band or BTS extras. 9 it is, and I will re-visit this if the DVDs match my expectations (I have them on order).

Enjoyable? YOU BET! I found myself waiting for another episode of NANA each week so I could figure out what happens, who is with whom, what's going on with that issue, and moreover, who is going to fix THAT problem now? And I am not a fan of soaps! You will find yourself agreeing if you like slice-of-life stories with a heaping dose of post-teen angst. I know I will watch it again, as I try to explain everything to my wife who doesn't know the end yet. Gets a 10 on my scale, and you should think "soap opera heaven".

NANA is licensed. Out in 4 boxset DVDs As of August 08.

The first thing I want to mention is that I found that this anime is really soap opera like and will be harder for male audience to enjoy. Personally I found that the heavy base on romance was not the issue but rather the characteristics of the people portrayed in this anime hard to bear. To be more specific one of the two main character's in this series is materialistic/ ditzy type of girl whereas the other is the complete opposite a "cool"/independent type. Although after watching more of the series you find that they have more in common but I won't go into detail about that. Anyways the point is that I found it hard to watch the ditzy girl indulge in her own selfishness. That and obviously I can't relate so it really does not help the cause. In of a drama/romance/music anime it is by all means acceptable and suit the themes. The story starts with the two girls both named Nana, meeting each other and recounting there stories up until the present. In the series the ditzy girl is called Hachiko after a while and the cool girl is just called Nana. After that they start there new lives together in a new town and new setting.

Animation
I think it was acceptable compared to other animes and also for the genres it is in. They best parts of it were the backgrounds and settings which were well drawn. I think that the character sets were a bit wacky though and they did use alot of distorted faces to show "anime emotion". I think I also found all the characters looked really sticky. I.e. they all looked way too skinny but it wasn't too big of a deal. Other then the actual characters themselves everything else worked well and looked nice.

Sound
Since the anime is partly about music they do use a lot of it. I found some of the songs they song alright and some of them, I didn't appreciate so much. I liked the first opening and most of the endings they used. But the second and third openings did not suit my tastes. The background music were mostly light tunes to ease the viewer into the anime and these worked very well. In of voice acting they also choose very good actors for the parts. They definitely portrayed the kind of people you expected them to . Thus for the most part the sound was fairly good.

Story
For this anime you could easily separate the main parts as romance and music. I.e. on one side you had bands trying to become famous whereas the other side a girl who is trying to find true love. The story does jump around quite a bit with main different twists that are unexpected. Thus I really enjoyed the variety of scenarios they had. Although as mentioned before most of the things that happened seem very soap opera like. I.e. you would expect the kinds of events happening in the anime also in romance TV shows. Since the manga is not finished yet a proper conclusion is not given at the end of the anime. In fact you get left hanging quite a bit and rather unsatisfied. I'm not sure if they plan on making another season but in of the ending itself. It seemed rather unhappy for all the characters. I guess this made the anime more like real life.

Character
As I already mentioned I found myself unable to relate to any of the characters in this series so I did not feel as much for them. For instances when Hachiko had her heart broken I really did not feel too bad for her. Also her overall inability to make up her mind really makes me have less sympathy for her. Aside from her many of the other major characters have poor personalities that do not make me wish them luck either. I totally understand the situation they are in but they are all just so selfish and don't get much better. The only characters I really felt much sympathy for were Yasu and Nobo because they were both truly sincere and wished for the best. Regardless of how I felt the development and work put on the characters is quite outstanding and beautiful. Even with the lack of understanding I still liked how they worked them into what they became.

Value and Enjoyment
I'm not sure if you can really take to heart anything in this anime. Most of the romantic lessons would not happen to any normal person anyway so not much can be taken from it. I think for some people this anime can be rewatched and enjoyed. I don't think you would really watch it to look for missing parts rather just to feel for certain situations again. I also think I could rewatch some of it since the gaps between the subbing was large so by the time I watched the next episode I had already forgotten alot. I did enjoy the anime since it was a bit different from your average anime. It also had some interesting twists that kept me entertained. I've already mentioned this and I'll say it again I think this anime is more suitable for a female audience. I don't think males can appreciate this type of work as much. Although if you really enjoy its genres you can give it a go and see. So happy watching!