If there was ever a romance anime series that spectacularly shattered my heart with each episode, it’s “NANA.” This 2000s best-seller perfectly portrays the halcyon and heartache of being in your early 20s.
It follows the titular characters, Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu (also known as Hachi), two vastly different young women who befriend each other during a chance encounter on a delayed train to Tokyo. When they first meet, you can see the chemistry between the Nanas down to a science.
Despite their aesthetic differences, with Nana being a punk rocker/former vocalist of a hometown band and Hachi being a hopeless romantic with a cutesy, idyllic outlook on love, their dichotomy is what makes the series such an addicting watch.
“NANA” excels with the characterization of our two main girls, each interaction between them feeling so fluid and endearing. When the two finally become roommates, it feels like fate, and you just get so easily attached to their friendship. Their friendship is contested through the romantic escapades that the girls, especially Hachi, go through.
I love Hachi and her sunny disposition on love, but at times, it saddens me to see just how desperately she wants to be loved. Her whole arc of going to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, Shoji, devolves into heartbreak hell – I didn’t think a fictional breakup would be so gut-wrenching, but with sentimental instrumentals and gloomy aesthetics abound, it’s hard not to feel for her.
Nana’s arc follows her trying to make it as a rockstar in Tokyo with her new band, the Black Stones. At the same time she’s trying to make a breakthrough, she is still lamenting her breakup with her boyfriend and bassist of her hometown band, Ren, who ran to Tokyo to join another band, Trap Nest. Talk about messy!
Nana is, hands down, my favorite character! Punk rock appeal aside, she is genuinely an endearing and thoughtful character. When she’s not being a diva rocking Vivienne Westwood with a cigarette in hand, she’s quite vulnerable in the relationships in her life and has an immense fear of abandonment.
When she and Ren reunite, that fear still very much lingers, especially with the toxic codependency they have on each other (and they even compared themselves to Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen…).
But, of course, she finds solace in her friendship with Hachi, almost to the point of infatuation. Can I just say that it’s incredible how an endearing friendship, such as theirs, is attached with quite a lot of sapphic subtext?
From Hachi getting jealous of one of Nana’s female fans from back home and having a jealousy fantasy of the two hooking up to Nana comparing her feelings towards Hachi to a “teenage boy falling in love for the first time,” it’s clear that the two have some clandestine feelings for each other. If you ask me, I think that makes the plot much richer and complex, given their respective love lives.
Another thing this series does well is making characters, especially male characters, perfectly hateable. For example, Shoji, Hachi’s ex-boyfriend, is quite literally one of the most selfish men in the series. Whenever he had screentime, I wanted to turn off the show almost immediately. For someone so immature and unloving, he sure is critical of Hachi’s immaturity and clinginess. And he isn’t even the worst character! That honor goes to Takumi, Ren’s bandmate. I think he’s so exceptionally hateable because he feels like a real person. Arrogant, unfeeling, troubled, and calculated! I won’t spoil anything, but he throws a wrench in the plot and THEN SOME!
As much as I adore this series, it does have some themes that I really don’t like. I get that this takes place in the 2000s, but that isn’t an excuse for having really uncomfortable age gap relationships.
Still, for all its melodramatic charm and emotional turbulence, “NANA” is my favorite romance anime by a long shot. It masterfully shows different dimensions of love through two vibrant yet intricate main characters and a rollercoaster of a dramatic plotline.
It’s a shame that the manga has been on hiatus since 2009, and we’re not sure if the story will ever be completed. If you check it out, sorry in advance if you develop an emotional attachment to strawberry glasses (if you know, you know)!
