Nana

I liked the freshness in the first half of 'Nana'. The two girls Nana (Nakashima) and Nana (Miyazaki) meet and are reunited by 'coincidence'. Then they decide to move in together and we are shown glimpses of their worklife and lovelife. However, in the second half, as the film shifts to Nakashima's Nana's lovelife, it gets painfully slow and boring. The film was slow to begin with but the first half managed to stay enjoyable. The 'reunion' in the end looks rushed.

The instrumental pieces in the background score add to the freshness and winter season. However the songs are quite bad. Cinematography's quite adequate. From the two Nana's, Miyazaki is the better actress. Even though she frequently shows her toothy smile, she brings out Nana's naivety, vulnerability and cheerfulness with tremendous ease and makes her character very likable. Conversely, Nakashima is mostly wooden. She pretty much has one expression on her face throughout the whole film. The supporting cast ranges from adequate to wooden.

So to speak, 'Nana' could have been very enjoyable had the second part received more consideration. This film may appeal more to the younger generation.

Nana may suffer from being a condensed version of an expansive Manga universe, but it also knows exactly how much time to spend on individual plots strands. Nana is a coming of age, female friendship film that handles immature and young emotions with absolute maturity. The most impressive aspect was creating a relationship between one of the protagonists boyfriends and another girl. It easily could have made him a villain, but instead took an unbiased look at how the relationship came to be. Luckily, for a film focused on bands, the music is relatively good. Nakashima and Miyazaki both inhabit their roles well and build up a believable friendship. Highly enjoyable, even if it doesn't quite feel complete.

Two very different 20 year old women meet on a train to Tokyo. Other than the fact they're both named Nana, they have very different pasts and personalities. Despite this, they're destined to become very big parts of each other's lives. 

Based on the very popular anime and manga of the same name, this is a fun adaption. The musical aspects of the story are kept, and are as nearly as important to the story as the relationship between the two Nana's. Speaking of, the actresses chosen to play the two title characters are great, and the story is as interesting for guys as it is the girls who are the original audience.

NANA was a good movie, I liked it. Obviously it's more recommended for people who are already familiar with the source material, but even NANA newbies should enjoy this.

I wonder if people that weren't already fans of the Nana manga would really understand the movie. I think that unless you had read the manga, a lot of the movie might be lost for viewers. The movie script was almost word for word from the manga, it was pretty fun to see it all on the big screen though.

As for the characters, both of the Nana's were perfect for their roles. Yasu was good, Nobu was not what I expected (but it worked), but Shin...poor Shin. He looked like he was in his 30's...they kind of killed his character, which is a shame since he is my favorite! Shoji, Jun and Kyosuke were all eerily perfect for their roles. I think they were the funniest part of the whole movie.

So after hearing about the Nana mangas for a while, I finally broke down and started reading them and became immediately obsessed. Therefore, within a week of reading the mangas, I had to watch the movie.

As far as adaptation screenplays go, I thought this movie was very solid. They chose their material well, and cut out appropriately. But of course, it is difficult to be 100% satisfied with a film when you're so in love with the source material. I was disappointed with the actual story arch of the film because I felt like it barely tapped into the intensity of the Nana's relationship because they failed to really, really show the progression of the friendship, in my opinion.

I was also slightly disappointed by the music, not because the music was bad, but because it wasn't what I was expecting. Perhaps because I am an American with very little exposure to Japanese music, I was expecting Trapnest to be a lot less pop (well, I thought they might be pop in the way that Evanescence is pop) and I definitely expected Blast to be more traditional Sex Pistol, Clash, etc. style punk rock.

But regardless, I enjoyed the movie very much and would indeed recommend it to fans of the manga.