This review is spoiler free __________________________________________________________________________________ Shoujo. A genre often overlooked by the masses for a number of reasons. Girly shows. Yeah, that's what most audiences think shoujo anime are. Most shoujo stories often feature an innocent love story (might be too innocent for heaven’s sake). So it’s not a very relatable story (or so people think). On top of that there’s always the problem of the anime adaptation being unsatisfactory. Perfect reason not to watch a shoujo, right?

Wrong.

While I do agree that most shoujo anime tend to be a bit cutesy and often cheesy, not all are like that. Take ‘Nana’ for example (took a while to get to the point). While most romance animes deal with adolescents and their newly found feelings, ‘Nana’ dives right into the adult world and rather than focusing on the cuter side of a relationship, this anime draws out some of the darker aspects and the harsh realities behind them.Nana isn’t a story about couples paired up by the heavens. No. It’s more than that.

The word ‘Nana’ means ‘Seven’ in japanese. The apartment 707 is where everything started for our main characters - Nana Komatsu and Nana Osaki. Both of them meet unexpectedly one day and thus their journey through life begins. Nana Osaki aspires to establish her band in Japan while Nana Komatsu just wants to live her life happily with her boyfriend. But everything doesn’t go as planned in life and they find themselves in difficult situations where they rely on each other for support. Symbiosis.

The story that ‘Nana’ tells us is realistic in every sense of the world. It’s not a tale of true love that developed in high school. It’s about the mistakes one makes and hardships one goes through in the first stage of adulthood. It paints the picture of a regular life of a person rather than the one that person dreams about. You will be able to relate to those characters (especially if you are a girl). So Nana is different from the usual shoujo anime you are used to watching. It’s completely different. The darker yet natural themes of this anime might just feel like a fresh breather, a change of pace.

The characters here are a reflection of ourselves. They were written based on the public like us. The naive Nana Komatsu who falls for everything and anything is easy to find. Aside from adding humor to the story, this naivety of Nana Komatsu depicts the naivety of us in general. In contrast to Nana Komatsu’s cheerful and innocent personality, the mature side of Nana Osaki adds a totally different vibe to the plot. She is hard working, passionate about her dreams. A woman with a very intense personality. She may not look it but she is actually really caring about her friends. The relationships shown here are not too hard to find if you carefully look around. The characters portray not only love and kinship but also despair that might often lead to some unwanted developments. The other characters of this story are also loveable and unique in their own way. Every major character in this story represents one part of ourselves. Combine them and you get the whole picture. Long story short, the characters are superb.

‘Nana’ is also amazing in the music department. I mean it’s a music anime where one of the main characters forms a band and her boyfriend belongs to a band over which everyone in Japan goes nuts. So naturally the directors thought hard about this section. The soundtracks here are captivating to say the least. I wished for that fictional band Trapnest to be real. Their songs like ‘A Little Pain’, ‘Starless Night’, ‘Shadow of Love’, ‘Recorded Butterfly’ etc. in the voice of Olivia Lufkin were just perfect.

Travel to the moon
The dream where you first appeared fades out
The light of the star,
I longed for is taken away

The smile I had to forget
in order to be strong,
For sure if we're together, we can take it back.

A Little Pain:

▶ Starless Night: ▶ Recorded Butterfly: ▶ Shadow of Love: ▶ Kuroi Namida: ▶

I put the links for you. Enjoy.

Even after all these years, these songs hit differently.

So after all of this, is 'Nana' perfect?

No. It certainly is not.

Like every other anime, this anime also has its share of drawbacks. The Art for starters might be one of them. The animation, I’d say, might not be up to mark. But it definitely is not bad enough to sleep on the whole show. The quality of art might be a bit frustrating but the cinematography delivered by Madhouse will make up for it. It's that good.
One more thing might be the ending of the anime. It was quite abrupt. The manga was still ongoing at the time the anime ended so it felt a bit rushed. Just for the record, the manga is on hiatus for the past 12 years. Still waiting for Ai Yazawa to come back to her masterpiece.

In the end, ‘Nana’ is very much different from the shoujo you love (or maybe hate) so much. Definitely worth watching in my opinion. If you feel a slight bit interested, do check it out. This anime might change the opinion you have on the Shoujo Demography. Now then, have fun watching!!

PS:
Nana Osaki turned out to be a famous character. There is one character in 'Golden Time' who identifies herself as Nana, talks like Nana, dresses like Nana and aspires to be an intense singer just like Nana.````