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Description
From Viz: Nana "Hachi" Komatsu hopes that moving to Tokyo will help her make a clean start and leave her capricious love life behind her. Nana Osaki, who arrives in the city at the same time, has plans to score big in the world of rock 'n' roll. Although these two young women come from different backgrounds, they quickly become best friends in a whirlwind world of sex, music, fashion, gossip, and all-night parties!
In 2003 Nana won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo.
If you are looking for something more realistic to read( but still ,the story gets more and more dramatic as it progresses so it is really not that realistic ^^;....well, more realistic than the typical shoujo series, I guess), then you might want to give this one a try. But if you like typical shoujo romance, and reading a story about true love, then you really shouldn't really try this one( it will make you feel depressed if you read it)...
If you read this series, you will see stuff like guys treating on his girlfriends, and breaking their hearts, and people who two- timing and steal other peoples boyfriends and still get a happy ending(how unfair!!! and ya, surely, things like those happen in real life all the time, but if I want to read something realistic, then why should I read mangas then, we all know, manga stories are very unrealistic in general!)...
I am a romance fan, and I did not enjoy reading this series at all....
P.S I totally agree with voraciouszest, this series is turning into a daytime soap opera ....^^;
i got addicted to this manga in the first issue of shojo beat. it quickly became my favorite series in the magazine. too bad shojo beat cut it since it was too mature. in fact, i miss shojo beat altogether. the plot is developed nicely as well as the characters. sad and tragic things happen and you really feel for the characters. if you read this manga based on single chapter releases, you might get confused on what's happening. the mangaka likes to skip around, so you might prefer tankobon. i hope yazawa-sensei gets better. this series has been on hiatus for so long.
From the first chapter of Nana, I was hooked. I would always read Nana first in Shojo Beat magazine (I'm so sad it was cancelled) and long for the next chapter as soon as I was done. I love all of the characters, the story and the beautiful drawings. Nana and Hachi's relationship is wonderful. They are blended perfectly as sugar and spice. The story seems so real and really touches me. This is one of my favorite mangas. I totally recommend it! It pulls at your heart and makes you smile at the tender scenes. A certain plot twist really saddened me, and almost ruined it for me, but it showed the unfairness of life and how you must continue on. Overall, a must read.
Peel away everything, and I think the whole idea of the story was about friendship between the two Nana's that began by a chance encounter.
The extra is the fact that there is an extensive backstory to each character, thus the reader can observe and predict the character's actions to an extent.
Still, I think the massive amount of characters in the manga results in too much information overdose.
The manga essentially ended for me when the two friends started living apart (as to how, that would be a spoiler, wouldn't it?), and for me at least, I think that my reading of this manga completed then.
Great story, although I think at this point, it's a little too drawn out and lengthy, and I am considering to drop this manga series. I'd still recommend readers to read it, as the introduction, the characters and the events leading to the friends not living together is absolutely interesting and a great read.
I love NANA, and I love Ai Yazawa. NANA has an ensemble cast: Hachi, BLAST memebers (4) and TRAPNEST (4) plus others. This manga is about the answer of the following question: Can you really tie a person to you with just the mere reason of "I like you"? Or do you have to be my roomate, or singer in my band, or my client, or involved with someone I know, or the father of my child, or my first love?
Art: Excellent. Distinctive style, good use of shading and lets not forget the gorgeous use of real scenery background. Also, everyone's fashion is glamorous (hair style, accessories, shoes and clothes). You can clearly see how dedicated the mangaka is.
Story telling: Very good. The mangaka knows when to speed up things, and when to drag on a scpecific event. There's suspense and twists,
Spoiler (highlight to view)
the biggest one is the fact that all what you're reading are actually flash backs
!
Character Development: Not bad. Some change, some still make the same mistakes. I'm not sure if this is used to increase the drama, or to emphasis the realistic aspect of this manga: real people develop and mature, but can still make foolish decisions.
Oh, Yazawa Ai... I'm not judgemental. I know that you have to earn a living as a mangaka. But why must you do it?
Nana is one of the biggest and best examples of the very worst feature of Shoujo manga - it's a total sell-out. The story has been stretched thin, the characters are becoming more and more stupid as the series progresses and as long as the mangaka is earning money from her story, she will find numerous and ridiculous ways to keep the story going.
Nana is also a good example of a Shoujo manga that would be really, really good if the mangaka had some integrity instead of being money hungry. The art is good and (in the beginning) the characters were interesting and the atmosphere was charged. Alas, the story has melded from a good drama into a daytime soap opera for housewives and bored teenage girls.
What I learned from Nana is that if you're in a band, your life will suck.
lol, just kidding. (somewhat)
Nana was EXTREMELY addicting, I couldn't stop reading. The art is unique and nice, and I love the feeling of friendship. However, I feel like everyone in the manga is so STUPID and can't express their true feelings. This gets really annoying sometimes. Why can't the mangaka let anyone be happy??
Still, I enjoyed it a lot, because even though it's very sad and tragic, some parts made me laugh a lot.
I didn't want to read this manga in the beginning, because it seemed way too scandalous and dramatic. I read it anyway after finishing Paradise Kiss, and in the beginning I found Nana entertaining and the punk rock art beautiful. It's a great josei read, and I love the narrations at the end of each volume. It taught me a lot about life in the real world. As I read on, everything becomes so complicated and depressing that I'm becoming reticent to even continue reading. Many horrible things happen and it becomes so unrealistically depressing. But then again, this is expected since this story is a tragedy. I just hope the author will get better from her illness, though.
The good thing from reading Nana is we learn about life.. Sometimes we can get wrong, but we must continue to live on, be wiser, and we will be better person than before.
I like Nana because the plot is realistic, what can happen in our lives. It's different than typical manga(s). But recently I feel it got stagnant...
when i first read Nana, I stopped at one part because Hachiko was so damn annoying. Leave her friend, go for this guy. Too fickle. Blah Blah. But then after a year, I picked it up again and it's actually not that bad. Life can be pretty dramatic at times and we do make bad decisions. The second time around Hachiko left a better impression. I understood her more.
I also felt this way towards Hot Gimmick and Parfait Tic. 0_0 Second time around is tolerable. I don't know why. You just understand the girl more?
But recently something has bothered me!!!!!! For people who have read the latest chapters you probably get what I'm saying.. or maybe not whatever. Anyway. the mangaka needs to prove why she did such a thing. 0= Because honestly I did not see the point of it. What exactly?
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