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NANA is…pretty good. It's not my kind of story to watch for that long, slice of life stories with a focus on romance don't tend to interest me much most of the time, unless they're funny, have an important theme or have something special enough, and NANA has that.
Let me tell you something first: I dislike the drawing of the characters, I dislike the “anime faces” they sometimes make that are very cartoonish, the overreactions, and I dislike the voice of Nana Komatsu, or Hachi, in Japanese, because it is shrill and I have sensitive ears. All of that would easily take me out of this anime and make me run into a lava pit and yet, I didn't.
I can see past all that, and that's because it's so damn well written. It's not the most impressive, but it manages to create believable characters with flaws and conflicts, which makes me connect with what's happening, even though the visuals don't help me at all.
Now, NANA has a very extensive cast of characters, and of course, the two protagonists are the winners of the big, fat, veiny prize, but the vast majority of the secondary characters are quite solid and three-dimensional in a way that gives life to the world.
A fault of the series is that it does not focus enough on them, I think they could have given a little more, but is not like they were abandoned. Everyone has their moment to shine and even if you don't care for their stories, you have to admit that they work. But like I said, a little more wouldn’t hurt. Like Ren and his addiction to… I'm not sure what, and Shin and Reira. Because if that relationship doesn't work, Shin's supposed problem that the relationship was fixing is never resolved.
The two protagonists are complicated, they are the ones who have the most flaws, the selfish ones (whether consciously or unconsciously) who must mature, and both have friends who are already mature, who give them advice and who sacrifice themselves for the good of the rest, something they must learn the hard way. They never get rid of these primordial personality flaws, but they learn to recognize, manage and understand them, although the bad practices and desires never leaves them.
Did I mention they were complex?
Komatsu is the girly one, the overly emotional one, the one who falls in love easily and is naive, but she matures as the series progresses, she questions herself, she hates herself, and in the end, she makes the difficult decision, the executive decision, the pimp decision, and must deal with the consequences of said decisions, and of her flaws. She is a person who does not fully understand herself, she is somewhat stupid and continues to search tirelessly for what she really wants, and what she needs.
Osaki is the more rebellious, the cool one, the one with the dark side that I wish we had seen a little more of. She acts as a calculating villain a couple of times, and that was fun. But the same thing happens with her, she improves as a person, she questions herself, she tries to accept the decisions of others, but she is someone who is difficult and very selfish and, like Komatsu, wants everything for herself and doesn't quite understand what she really wants.
They are in their twenties, it is understandable. They are good characters, very human and slaves of passion. But aren't we all? Except me, of course, am chemically castrated… Don't ask.
I want to give a special mention to Takumi. Because at the beginning I thought that there were two paths in which the series was going to go, either making him the stereotype of the womanizing Rockstar, or the counter-stereotype of the misunderstood. Yes, it's anime, I didn't trust it.
Luckily, they took the best path, the superior one, the one that has nuances on the track. They put him sort of in the middle of both things, in addition to giving him a more Machiavellian and upright personality. He is an organized, determined and responsible guy. He is quite good, deeper than he initially seems. It was a pleasant surprise.
Something that helps a lot is that the series has the advantage that many audiovisual series lack and that books do have: internal monologues. I've never understood that criticism that it doesn't feel right or that it's weird, blah blah. I have seen some series and movies that have some narration and internal monologue and I have never felt that problem. Damn, Fleabag is a series where the protagonist speaks directly to you and I still enjoyed it. It's a stupid complaint, and it makes me angry... Anyway. A lot of animes have that, and I wish it was more common in other things.
Internal monologues are very good for empathizing with the character, to understand them better, it shows us their doubts and self-reflections in a cruder way, more difficult to ignore, it puts you in their position, in the reasoning process. It is an important experience of what it means to be human and I consider it something vital. NANA uses it very competently.
Also, NANA is divided into two parts, each one focused more on each Nana, from their point of view, with their own narratives full of personality that rounds them out as complex and human characters.
It makes it stand out among so many other slices of life with boring formats.
So much style!
Also, NANA is divided into two parts, each one focused more on each Nana, from their point of view, with their own narratives full of personality that rounds them out as complex and human characters.
It makes it stand out among so many other slices of life with boring formats.
So much style!
These narratives add a mystery that intrigues you. I thought damn Osaki was dead or something. They make you think: What? What happened? I need to know!
Of course, it's not all dancing titties in NANA. What I've talked about is mostly good things with a few flaws, but the following is a complete flaw. It's a waste of a narrative and stylistic tool. My biggest disappointment was the songs in universe, because there are only two of them. I myself have a couple of characters who are musicians, and I write songs to reflect something that they or people close to them are experiencing in the story, is a different way of presenting the theme, in a poetic way and full of emotion.
But there is very little of that in NANA. Osaki doesn't write anything despite how important what is happening is to her. More than just a message on TV one time, she could have written a song for Hachi, where she subtly tells her what she's going to do and what she means to her.
Ren and Reira probably should have made a pair. We spent an entire chapter with Reira and her difficulty with writing something, but in the end, we barely listened to her and it didn't have much to do with what was happening or what was most important to her. Then Ren's idea of making real art and not just to keep selling was never touched upon. We didn't explore that side of the series much, the importance of art and music.
It's strange considering how important it is to the series.
Well, that's my biggest complaint.
In the end, there are certain plot lines that feel incomplete, that are incomplete, but also more or less work as is. The reason is that the manga was not complete, and they preferred to leave it until then than try to finish it themselves. Which is something they could easily do, because the reason they more or less work as they are, is that you see where most of them are going to end up.
The thing about Nana and Ren seems kind of difficult, and from what I saw happen in the manga I don't like the idea, but I would have to see the execution to judge.
And the ending of the series is the most screwed up, because it seems that Osaki disappeared, and I don't understand why, and it's a very strong question that maybe they shouldn't have asked if they weren't planning to answer it. The series could have easily ended without the time jump.
That's all. I don't like to extend myself much into things that I like, I like to say something as a recommendation and explain why I like it, and let you enjoy it if you haven't seen it.
It's a good series, with good characters and a decent story. He didn't blow my mind, but it was very competent. I'd give it an 8, but the final time jump drops it to a 7, a pretty solid one. I don't usually punish something too much for being incomplete, I prefer it to it ending badly, but they did just that, they ended it badly.
So… Yeah.
Goodbye.
PS: The English dub is decent.
PS 2: The openings and endings are good songs.
PS3: Two girls meet by accident and both are called Nana? What are the odds of that!? I don't know, man. Sounds like a convenience to me…
7/10
