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Trending How: Nana
- Lauren Harris
- 16 hours ago
- 8 min read
"Hey Nana, I still think about you. Every day."
*may have spoilers*
*- trying rlly hard not to, but also it's 20/25 years old so, be potentially warned*
Hello again! The manga series Nana, by Ai Yazawa, is turning 25 years old this year! With the anime turning 20! I thought it would be fun to reflect on the series and discuss some of the fashion, of course!
For those unfamiliar with Nana, it is the story of two twenty-year-old girls who meet on a train to Tokyo, both named Nana. It is a beautiful story that has been on hiatus since 2009. This is not the most heart-wrenching aspect of the story, though.
To be honest, Nana can make you fear turning twenty a little bit. Seeing the craziness that happens in these girls' lives. It also makes a good point to show how dumb and, at times, cruel, twenty-year-olds are. I heard someone say once that you are the worst version of yourself when you are [around] twenty, and the series really agrees. As someone who semi-recently turned twenty-one, I can easily verify this. Although I guess— according to the DMV— I've been 21 so long now that my ID is the thing prohibiting me from getting a drink AGAIN (it's expired).
But anyway, I don't want to scare anyone off from the experience that Nana brings. It is truly a beautiful series, in terms of animation, fashion, and storytelling. Ai Yazawa does an incredible job of conveying this story. Besides the emotional and psychological torture that this series displays and puts its audience through, it is an incredibly charged series fashion-wise. Nana Osaka is the lead singer of a punk band and dresses accordingly. Nana [the series] put the designer label Vivienne Westwood on a pedestal. In a previous blog, I discussed the history behind the late Vivienne Westwood and how her brand came to be. With this context, it makes complete sense why the author chose to use Vivienne Westwood in this story.
In honor of the series's 25th anniversary, Vivienne Westwood and Nana are also coming out with a collaboration! While I am writing this, so far it has been announced that there will be a 25th anniversary edition of the first manga, as well as an edition in collaboration with Vivienne Westwood! This is honestly just so incredible, and I can't wait to see what else they come out with!
For some context, Vivienne Westwood owned a punk store named SEX with her first husband. He was also the manager of The Sex Pistols, a very influential punk band that helped to make way for the scene as we know it now. This is very relevant to the story as Nana Osaka (I'm just going to call her Nana from now on) says that her only celebrity crush is Sid Vicious from The Sex Pistols, and she is incredibly involved in the scene, even being a member of a band called 'Black Stones'.
Other members of this band are Shin, Yasu, and Nobu. She went to high school with Nobu. Yasu is also from her hometown. She met him with her (on-and-off) boyfriend, Ren.
Ren is a member of a famous pop-rock band called 'Trapnest'. He works with Rayra (technically, in English, it would be Layla, as she is canonically named after the song 'Layla' by Derek & The Dominos), Takumi, and Naoki.
Hatchi (Nana Komatsu, her nickname is "Hatchi" because "Nana" sounds like the word for seven, and Hatchi sounds like the word for eight) is also not a Tokyo native. She has friends from home who live in the city, whom she is joining. These friends are Junko, Kyosuke (Kunko's long-term boyfriend), and, for the first few episodes, her boyfriend Shoji.
Both Nana and Hatchi are on the train because they are moving to Tokyo. Hatchi is moving to join her friends who are already there, while Nana wants to move to the big city in order to have a better chance of making it with her music. They quite literally crash into each other's lives and end up sitting next to each other on this train. After arriving, they separate ways, only to somehow find each other again while hunting for apartments, and decide to move in together. In apartment 707.
Before we get into my melodramatic reflections, why don't we look into some of the beautiful fashion and art within this series?
First off, Something that I've seen that really frustrates me is when people describe Hatchi's style as "Coquette" and I'll tell you why:
(Art by Ai Yazawa found on Nana-nana.net)
While her style is considerably softer than Nana's, she is by no means coquette. Sometime in the future, I plan to write a blog about Coquette fashion and how it has, in some ways, been twisted and misinterpreted. However, in its original and true form, it is inspired by Regency and Rococo-era fashion, featuring delicate themes of lace, frills, and ruffles. It also takes a lot of inspiration from the Japanese Lolita style. Movies and books that are often associated with this aesthetic/fashion include Marie Antoinette (2006), Lolita (1955), and The Virgin Suicides (1999). The main colors associated with it are white and pink, with other pastels.
Personally, I love it, and have always seen it as the romanization of femininity, with a darker twist, as Vladimir Nabokov's book Lolita is often cited as an inspiration. But I'm getting off track-
Hatchi takes a lot of inspiration for her looks from the 60s and early 70s. With this series taking place in the 90s/early 2000s, it makes complete sense. She loves to look feminine and is known to have strong opinions when it comes to clothing.
She, of course, has also been seen in many Vivienne Westwood pieces.
Nana, on the other hand, is a glam 90s punk.
(Art by Ai Yazawa found on Nana-nana.net)
Honestly, I don't know how this girl has the money for the amount of Vivienne Westwood she wears. I don't think we see her have a single job throughout the series up until her band begins to take off... Maybe Yasu gave it to her.
(Art by Ai Yazawa found on Nana-nana.net)
I actually found out about Nana after falling in love with Vivienne Westwood, but I was introduced to Nana first by a friend I had in my senior year of high school. They kind of idolized it, and idolized Nana (Osaka). Looking back now, maybe that was not a good sign, but I didn't know then, and who's really to say what that means.
I started it for the first time in January of 2024, REALLY weird time to as I was going through a breakup that really reminded me of Hatchi's (Nana Komatsu) breakup with Shoji. Iykyk. I already related more strongly to Hatchi's character, because of the situation I was in when I first started the show, and just... her. Not going to lie, I hated her at first. She was so anxious and clingy and sort of incapable at some points. As the series goes on, she does grow stronger and is fleshed out very well as a character, but still very flawed. As all of the characters are. No one in this story is perfect; they are all very flawed and not always good people, some more obviously than others.
I took a long break from watching it until August/September 2024. Another very weird time in my life, another breakup, oops (not Shoji-esque though), but I suppose that is when I am most drawn to these types of shows. There was a day when my friend and I binged easily 6-10 hours of Nana, which I do NOT recommend, especially if the night before was mildly traumatic (story for another time). But honestly, it was still a great moment. The show was a very big influence on my life last fall, with my friends at the time being equally obsessed and influenced by it. Nana was inescapable. I even threw a Nana-themed birthday party for one of them, which was a huge hit. It felt like my life was consumed by it, and I was living my own version of the series, with the insane drama, highs, and lows. Even the mistakes that I and the other twenty-year-olds around me were making were too familiar. When I joked about my life being a movie/show, I definitely did not want to mean Nana.
I even got my very own Shoji and Nobu lmao. I am just so thankful there has been no Takumi, and truthfully, I don't think there will be. (Unlike Hatchi, I have access to therapy and have put a lot of effort into bettering myself.)
I put off finishing/catching up with Nana until this past September. I have since watched all that is available since the hiatus, but when I began writing this blog, I hadn't finished it yet.
I was going to delete what I wrote about not finishing it, but idk, I wrote it for a reason, and who am I to take back a reflection?
"Can I admit something? I haven't finished Nana. I still have about 5 episodes left in the anime that I haven't seen. Truthfully, I think I will always associate the series with these points in my life. And while I will, to an extent, cherish the memories I made during these times and the impact they have had on my life and myself, they were flawed, and I need to create more distance before I reopen that box. Or maybe it's about truly closing that chapter. And in a less deep way, I have heard that the final episodes of the anime are really, really sad, and omg I simply don't want to put myself through that because I already know what happens. But I do need to finish it, at some point."
I wrote this final bit in late September, right before finishing the anime. Weirdly, I think expressing that, even though it was not public yet, allowed me to watch those last few episodes. That is my only explanation for what could have made me suddenly able to, but I am so glad I did. Tbh it wasn't as sad as I thought.
I think the saddest thing was that it was such a cliffhanger.
I am not the same person I was when I felt as if my life was consumed by Nana, and definitely not the same person I was when I started the show. I mean, of course, in many ways I still am, but I have experienced so much since then. Grown so much since then. In some ways, I feel more like myself than I did then. I wasn't faking anything necessarily, but some of the things I did and said didn't align with my values.
And even with the amount of fun I was having, I wasn't happy. I knew it, but honestly, I don't think I knew how bad it was until it was too late.
Sorry, that was a lot lmao. But that flows back into Nana. A huge lesson that everyone in this series learns is that you can't take back actions and words; you can only go forward with your life as a result of the choices you made. Hatchi can't take back seeing Nobu and Takumi at the same time. She can't take back choosing to keep the baby. Nobu can't take back letting her go. Nana can't either. Nor can she take back choosing Ren and what she gave up in the process. Yasu can't take back giving up Nana for Ren. Shin... is a victim, straight up, and Rayra can't take that back (not like she would).
Do you know that feeling of watching a movie and wanting to yell at the characters don't do that, or don't go in the scary garage, and they do anyway? That is what watching Nana is like. But it is so beautiful and such a slap in the face that you can't look away. Or if you do, your eyes always drift back, even peaking out from between your fingers.
This series is truly special to me, and I hope you enjoyed reading my scattered blog. I can't recommend Nana enough or even Ai Yazawa's works in general. Paradise Kiss is another lovely piece if you have the time, the anime is around 12 short episodes!
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