I leave the anime internet for the weekend, and it explodes with the K-ON fapping? *puts snooze button on google reader*
How about we check up on another (better?) fictionalized band? Or at least one where there’s more sex and shoujo drama, courtesy of two girls named Nana.
Spoilers to follow.
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This volume of Nana finally touches on the issue of Hachi’s accidental pregnancy. As I figured from watching the second movie, the manga includes a lot of internal monologue and emotion that didn’t translate well to the screen. Heck, even Takumi’s douchebaggery is a lot more obvious in the book than in the movie.
Before I get too far in this write-up, let me just say that I really have not felt as much revulsion for any shoujo manga character as I have for Takumi. He’s openly selfish, really to the point of Machiavellian. Whereas the rest of Blast and Trapnest are a generally easygoing (albeit emo) bunch, Takumi acts like a puppet-master, moving them along his whims and ambitions. He did that with Reira, Ren, and in this volume, he’s doing the same thing with Hachi.
Though at the same time, it’s also hard to condemn Takumi too much, because, hey it takes two to tango. Hachi is just as responsible for her pregnancy as he is.
Yet another thing that I love about this series is how gritty it can get sometimes. Each time Nana O. is shown taking her birth-control pill, it brings home the idea that yes, having sex involves being conscious and responsible of one’s future. Nana O. takes pills because her dream is to be a famous singer, not to be a mother. While she’s aware that being one doesn’t necessarily prevent her from being another, it’s the consciousness that achieving her dream will be much more difficult if she has a child. Granted, this is obviously done to contrast how one Nana thinks and acts as compared to the other Nana, but that doesn’t stop it from being an effective story device.
I know this series will break my heart; now, I can’t care about that, I still love it so.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under manga & manhwa, viz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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April 13th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I always thought well of Takumi. He’s the kind of character written so people can (love to) hate him, but in the story they tried to make him someone who can complement the whole shoujo-y dream/aspiration nonsense. I don’t really think Nana appeals to the realist in me but Takumi is as close as it gets.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
@omo: yeah, i get how takumi has to be the ‘bad guy’ in the whole cast of goody-two-shoes that’s nana, but the one time where he forces nana to have sex with him (maybe that’s in volume 9, i don’t remember ’cause i’m just going through them quickly) squicked me out something major.
so maybe that’s why i have fallen into yazawa’s trap of thinking of him as the bad one since he’s capable of doing things that would freak a regular girl out.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:16 am
[...] Carlo Santos on vol. 10 of Lovely Complex (ANN) Casey Brienza on vols. 1-3 of Menkui! (ANN) Anna on vol. 8 of Nana (spoilers) (2 screenshot limit) Connie on vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Slightly [...]
April 17th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
[...] Carlo Santos on vol. 10 of Lovely Complex (ANN) Casey Brienza on vols. 1-3 of Menkui! (ANN) Anna on vol. 8 of Nana (spoilers) (2 screenshot limit) Connie on vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Slightly [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 1:48 am
I’m with omo. Takumi is a very interesting character. I actually can’t get enough of him in the narrative [->] (spoiler warning for the link, just check it out when you’ve finished the anime and/or have caught up with 81 chapters of the Manga ^_~).