Merry Month of Manga Review: NANA

Five years.

Can you believe it?  It's been five years since I first put together this humble little BlogSpot to start putting up reviews.  It was meant to just be a hobby, a way to pass the time on my own in my quiet little rental room during a period of extended unemployment. 

Five years later I'm now a married woman with shelves full of manga, and what started as a hobby is growing into something more.  Writing here has given me the confidence to try writing on other topics at other places.  Not only do I now have some regular features on Infinite Rainy Day, but also recently made my debut as a contributing writer for Anime Feminist.  I've dabbled in podcasting, and I hope to someday return to it. I've even started to make a little income off of this humble little hobby of mine.  It's been a hell of a ride, even if I admit that I'm not always the most consistent about it.

As we do every May, I plan on reviewing an entire month's worth of manga.  This year, I'm shaking things up yet again with a new theme: shoujo manga.  I'll be doing 31 days' worth of shoujo manga reviews, as I try to cover books old and new, good and bad, and all points in between.  Of course, we have to kick off such a momentous anniversary with a review of an equally momentous series.

NANA, by Ai Yazawa.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:  

This is the story of two young women, both named Nana.

Nana Komatsu is a frantic young woman who is always unlucky in love (mostly because she tends to choose bad, douchey partners).  Her latest relationship with a married, older businessman is no exception to this.  She decides to follow her best friend Jun to art college in hopes of turning her life around…and she pretty much fails at that.  Instead, she ends up latching onto and falling for a mutual friend, Shoji, and decides to follow him to Tokyo.

Nana Osaki is cool and confident, a troubled kid who grew up to be the lead singer for her boyfriend’s punk band, Blast.  Unfortunately, he’s decided to move on to a new up-and-coming band and now she has to decide whether to try and make things work with Ren or to head to Tokyo with her remaining bandmates to try and break out.