NANA
The Unfinished Band Story of Nana

Date：13, Jun, 2022
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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Hello. Today I'm talking about NANA, the big hit of Japanese ladies' comics. It is the manga written and illustrated by Yazawa Ai (1967-). The series started in 2000 June, had been on Monthly Cookie (published by Shuei-sha) until 2009 June. They say Yazawa got sick, stopped the series on the way. We can find the comics to the volume 21 now. In 2019, it was said that the comics totally sold about 50 million copies! I heard the sales were almost close to the ones of Glass Mask.

In the middle of 00's, they also released the film versions (whose main actress was Nakashima Mika) and anime of NANA. So I suppose that some may know NANA overseas even if they have never read the original manga. There must be many who know nothing about it abroad, on the other hand. I'm mentioning about the plot, then.

Osaki Nana and Komatsu Nana, the two Japanese women around 20 years old act the main characters of NANA. Osaki is working as the vocalist of Black Stones (a fictional rock band). One day she meets Komatsu in train by chance. Destiny makes them live in a Tokyo room together, Komatsu becomes a fan of Black Stones. It looks both have loose morals, shows some sexual problems so soon. And the band Black Stones gets to make debut, but...

I feel they hardly have independence, the story has to go nowhere but a dead end. How do you feel after reading NANA? I don't know at all. No way to sum it up as long as unfinished.