Thursday, July 26, 2007

Nana (the anime series)

I am continually inspired by Yazawa-san work. Both her art and writing/plot-creating have really influenced me. I finished watching her series, NANA, just yesterday but was surprised of the ending. It seemed half-assed and cut short and didn't tie up the many loose ends that remained.

If you haven't read or watched the series, NANA is about two 20-year old girls from the country. Komatsu Nana is a carefree cute girl who is obsessed with her current boyfriend, Shouji. In fact, she decides to move to Tokyo to be with him once saving enough money to go there. On the train, Komatsu-san meets Osaki Nana, a punk-rock singer for her band, Black Stones (BLAST). When Komatsu stumbles upon Osaki looking for an apartment to live in, they agree to be roommates (even though they are almost completely strangers) to split living expenses for room 707 (Nana = Seven in Japanese). We see everyone's relationships with each other evolve as BLAST strives to gain stardom.

So many questions remained at the last episode: will Takumi remain faithful to Hachi (Komatsu Nana's nickname which is also a common dog name apparently and means "eight" in Japanese), did BLAST succeed in surpassing Trapnest (rival band whose guitarist is also Nana's boyfriend), did Nana end up getting married to Ren, will Nobuo ever confess his feelings for Hachi? It seems unlikely that Yazawa-san will create a sequel, but I'm left feeling unsatisfied and discontent at all the issues still left unresolved in the story. I think Yazawa-san's Paradise Kiss was much better compared to this. However, NANA, will still remain on my recommended list of shoujo anime for any hopeless romantic teen to watch.