Ok, this is my first stab at Manga review, so please bear with me as I stumble through it. Nana is a Shojo Beat serial that reads like a soap opera for young adults. No! Wait! I mean that in a good way! Since Shojo Beat is VIZ media's "manga from the heart", it's really no surprise that the 2 stories contained separately in this publication are all about the loves and losses of Nana Komatsu and Nana Osaki. Both young women are hovering on the brink of adulthood, and both end up moving to Tokyo for love. But there, the similarities end. I read Nana 1 tonight, and despite the utter silliness of Nana K and the posturing bad-assedness of Nana O, I ended up rooting for both. The girls are just so perfectly teenaged; they do stupid things, waffle and whine and take ridiculous moral stands, throw love away and date the wrong men...but every once in a while, they both display an inner strength and determination that makes it all worthwhile. They make the same mistakes as I did, or could have, and they recover from them with a fragility and fortitude that I hope I recognize.
Reading this installment was literally like watching the Nanas grow up, and I can't believe it, but I'm now addicted. I *MUST* read the next installment, as soon as possible. This first book is really just a prologue, telling you about how Nana K gets dumped by an older slimeball and mends her broken heart, and how Nana O gets left behind in a small town by her rock star boyfriend. Both Nana's end the installment by moving to Tokyo, and the forthcoming books will tell about how they meet and become best friends.
Audrey, these books are so good that next time I come over I'm going to bring them for you to read. You can return them at any Victoria public library, because BC just instituted a program where libraries have to ship returned books all over the province for borrowers. Nice, huh?
1 comment:
Ok, this is bad. I just finished installment no. 3, and I up and wrote author Ai Yazawa fan mail after I was done. Not that she will ever read it; it went to Nana c/o viz media. And even tho it was on badly translated Japanese stationery, it was written in english. I'm such a twit. sigh.
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