Nana

http://www.otakunovideo.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/230px-NANA_vol1-193x300.jpg

Year: 2000 (Japan, manga), 2006-2007 (Japan, anime)

Artist/Writer: Ai Yazawa

More Info: ANN

Manga Review (Volumes 1-3)
"Young people making it on their own" stories have never appealed to me. Perhaps because such stories are so ordinary. Too many authors present that as a dramatic achievement, as though a slacker who gets to work late and is then yelled at by his boss is being so terribly mistreated.

So I approached Nana with some trepidation. I'd heard that Nana concentrates on two very different girls named Nana who stumble upon each other and end up renting an apartment together. It sounds like a bad sitcom. I fully expected to be unable to finish the first volume.

I read three, and left the final one with a desire to read more.

Fortunately, Ai Yazawa focuses on little moments in life, without over-dramatizing them. She celebrates the everyday without deifying it the way many slice-of-life authors do.

The characters feel like real people, too. They're colorful and occasionally inconsistent.

Make no mistake: this is a story for Millenials. It's all about a diverse cast getting along well and doing things together. The characters may suffer many things, but none of them are alienated or even particularly lonely (despite the stark cover of volume one pictured alongside this entry).

The artwork may be off-putting to some. The characters possess gangly bodies, though we don't see much of them. Most of the panels consist of close-ups with minimal backgrounds, which feels claustrophobic at times. I suspect that's intended, though.

I'm flat impressed by Nana, and I don't know why. But that's impressive in and of itself, no?