Nana Review

Yazawa writes adults, which is rarer in manga than it should be. Her two Nanas are a hard edged vocalist chasing a record deal and a soft, needy girl chasing whoever will hold her, and the series treats their friendship as the great love story while the boyfriends, bands and betrayals move around it. The fashion is famous for good reason, because Yazawa draws clothes as characterization rather than decoration, and her faces carry more feeling per panel than almost anyone working.

What critics single out is the honesty. The relationships fail in the specific, embarrassing ways real ones do, addiction and fame and pregnancy arrive without a lecture attached, and nobody is written as a villain. The flash forwards promise a future the reader learns to dread. That is also the tragedy of the book, because Yazawa fell ill in 2009 and the story stops at volume twenty one with every one of those promises unpaid. What exists is superb and unfinished, and anyone starting it deserves to know that going in.