So why am I stopping after book one? Honestly, it's the content. Yes, I knew it was rated older teen, and that's on the back of the book for a reason, but personally, I found a lot of the content unnecessary, and while it added nothing, it detracted from the story for me.

I know there are loads of people who do/will absolutely love this series. I'm just not one of them.

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The story itself focuses on two young ladies named Nana and how they came to know each other and connected through the similar experiences they share in life. The first couple episodes introduces the main characters involved and spends an equal amount of time giving us some background on each Nana, then showing how they became acquainted. Then the main story kicks in, which actually feels more like 2 separate stories connected only through the strong bond of friendship between the both of them. Nana Komatsu’s (Hachi) story is about her living her life to attain true love, whereas Nana Osaki’s story is more about her dream to become a professional vocalist in a band. Even with all the heavy drama and real life dilemmas, there’s still plenty of light humour to take your mind of things. Yet with this being a shoujo romance, it may be hard to determine whether this will have a happy ending or not.

This series is full of some very appealing characters that pretty much orbit around the two Nanas. Nana Komatsu (Hachiko) is an energetic, love struck young lady who’s at the receiving end of many jokes and also many romantic hardships. Nana Osaki is more of a mysteriously dark and serious young lady who tries her best to support her friends through their hardships whilst dealing with her own. They each have their own circle of friends that do well as supporting characters, but still have some perplexing issues of their own and what makes it more interesting is seeing how these diverse people interact with each other, be it friends, lovers or rivals.

The animation for this series is near-perfect and that is thanks to the expertise of Madhouse, as the art style matches Ai Yazawa’s vision perfectly. The character designs are elegant and very attractive (both guys & girls), with stylish outfits to suit their varying personalities. Shame there was a fair bit of scene recycling going on.

If I had to choose my least favourite aspect of this series then it would have to be the music but that may have been because I had high expectations of it. Personally I found the BGM to be pretty bland, which was compiled of a bunch of uninspiring melodies. The main redeeming factor came in the form of the invoking OP and ED themes, which were also used as insert songs throughout.

Overall NANA is an incredible shoujo anime series that I will always remember for its realistic portrayal of different forms of romance and the emotional baggage that comes with it. The music subplot was incorporated well, as it gave me some insight into how things go on however it would have been better if it had more songs by Olivia. Surprisingly this series constantly gave the urge to see the next episode, due to all the major developments and cliff-hanger endings and it’s a shame things had to come to an end, but at least I was left feeling satisfied.

^_^

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The best manga series (in my opinion).

Ai Yazawa's art is sooo amazingly beautiful and the characters are believable.

I mean it's basically a punk soap-opera manga. What's not to like?

A must read for anyone who is into music, punk, fashion and engadging storylines.

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One of the best series that I have ever read, 5 Star! ^o^

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