Nana – Review

NANA is a romantic drama penned by shoujo genius Yazawa Ai. And before all the dudes reading this completely disregard it, let me just say that my ex-boyfriend would sneak my Japanese copies of NANA into the bathroom and read them. If I asked him what he was doing, he would say he was reading JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (LIES!). In other words, NANA is a story that everyone can get hooked on. The manga is essentially a chronicle – 21 volumes, over 70 chapters – and still unresolved; it was put on hiatus after Yazawa Ai fell ill in 2009. While it possesses all the characteristics of Japanese drama (never ending conflicts, petty rivalries, love triangles, fairly unrealistic scenarios), Yazawa has treated the characters and storyline as realistically as possible. While addressing complicated issues like sex (which is depicted in the manga!) and pregnancy, Yazawa captures the most heartbreaking aspects of interpersonal relationships. The original manga has been adapted into an anime series and two live action films.

At its core, NANA is a story about two very different girls with the same name. Oosaki Nana is a serious punk rocker and Komatsu Nana is a girly girl with a penchant for making horrendous romantic decisions. After coincidentally meeting on a train for Tokyo, the two girls end up renting an apartment together in the city. Komatsu Nana also befriends the members of Oosaki Nana’s band Black Stones and the rival rock group Trapnest. The two girls are essentially polar opposites; Komatsu has a fairly weak personality and just tags along with the people around her. She moved to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, only to discover that he had been cheating on her. On the other hand, Oosaki is independent and strong-willed; her dream is to succeed as the lead singer of Black Stones and gave up on her relationship to pursue it. The first live action movie concentrates on Black Stones’ rise to fame and Oosaki Nana’s reunion with former lover Ren, now the guitarist for Trapnest. It also shows the beginning of Komatsu Nana’s relationship with Trapnest bassist Takumi.

The first live action movie generated a lot of buzz in Japan and was given the large budget necessary to do the story justice. A key component of the manga is music; it is about two bands after all. Unlike the unfortunate live action adaptation of Paradise Kiss (which ignored the fashion element of the story), the NANA film maintains this emphasis on music. Oosaki Nana is played by Nakashima Mika, a singer who rose to popularity with her jazz/R&B sound. In truth, this was a rather ingenious casting decision; while Nakashima as an artist has nothing in common with punk rock, she completely transforms into her character for the film. The film used the single ‘Glamorous Sky,’ sung by Nakashima and written by J-rock legend Hyde (L’Arc-en-Ciel) heavily in its promotion and also featured songs from singer Ito Yuna (who was cast as the lead singer of rival band Trapnest). More importantly, the film actually managed to visual reproduce Yazawa Ai’s unique character designs with their casting decisions and considerable effort was put into accurately styling the actors (another lesson that Paradise Kiss failed to learn). While Nakashima Mika could stand to eat a sandwich, her rail thin figure is strikingly similar to the manga. While she portrays Oosaki a bit gentler than the original character, her acting is solid. Matsuda Ryuuhei (Gohatto) also delivers a fine performance as Oosaki’s lover Ren. Miyazaki Aoi (Virgin Snow), an actress known for her pure image, was cast as the hapless Komatsu. Personally, I find Komatsu a bit irritating, but Miyazaki Aoi has the cute Japanese girl role down to a science.

While the NANA Live Action movie gets the casting and the music right, it is hurt by the script. In truth, NANA is a very long story and would probably work best as a live action TV series. Obviously, it would be impossible to affordably produce a TV series with the same production value and actors…but the film seems rushed. The audience really doesn’t have much of an opportunity to relate to the characters and, without reading the manga, it’s impossible to care about what happens to them in the film. It’s fairly impossible for a movie to recover from a lackluster script and NANA ultimately ends up being a 113 minutes of beautiful people wearing cool clothes and making music. Of course, this can be very entertaining but I would definitely recommend the manga or TV series over the film.