Nana

You can rest assured that this is one of the best media adaptations I've seen, and it's the best Manga <> Live Action Movie conversion i have ever witnessed.

All of the main cast looks as if they have come to life direct from the manga, and they feel real and vibrantly true. About the only negative i could say is that Shin doesn't look young enough (mainly because he's too tall, his style however is perfect and natural). About the only character that didn't jive with me was Nobu, but apart from that everything is perfect - from Yasu to the members of Trapnest, to Sachiko to Juu-chan, all perfect, living as naturally as real life.

Full credit has to go to the stylists and costume designers, who took NANA's unique and wild style of clothing and made it a living breathing stunning showcase you want to reach out and touch.

With regard to the story, i have nothing but praise for the authentic adaptation and brilliant pacing of the story. The movie basically covers from where Nana (Hachi) got on the train to go to Tokyo and it ends just after the concert, when Trapnest came over to Nanaes's (plural possessive of Nana) apartment. The ending is one that feels right, and wraps up nicely the threads throughout the movie. It leaves open the possibility of a sequel and most importantly, doesn't change the source material.

For all of you out there who have never read Nana you'll be pleased that for the movie, NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF NANA IS NECESSARY. So you can go and watch it right now.

I've already mentioned how closely the movie follows the source material, and it is a joy to behold the manga come to life and acted out for this 2 hour movie. I have a very short attention span but for NANA i was on the edge of my seat.

With the NANA manga featuring detailed themes of music and bands, a question is how well real life was able to bring to life the exultation of the songs. I wasn't that wowed by the first BLAST track, but the ending was definitely nice to listen too. In particular Trapnest sounded awesome.

I could write on and on singing my praises for this movie,So what are you waiting for, watch it!!!!!!

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.

An IMDbian recommended this and underlined that it is an adaptation of a popular "shoujo manga" (girlie/chick comics). The NANA sensation can be compared with the craze caused by Densha otoko (Train Man) in Japan. Even the American girls find time to flip through it. Well, as the last page of chick comics said goodbye to me some twenty years ago, and my old bones cannot hold much dross energy for punk or rock n' roll music after work, sorry, not much interest shed in the first place. Besides, Nana was never heard to me. Just that the very last rental ticket was idling so I grabbed the VCD without much expectation... but it turned out to be a delightful surprise.

The names of the two Nanas and their room 707 are very interesting. "Seven" in Japanese is pronounced as "na-na", a universal lucky number. Two Nanas live together in a "na-na-tse-row(zero)-na-na" room, they rob all the luck of the world! The family names of the Nanas exhibit tellingly their characters. Nana KOMATSU, the traditional Nana who only longs for getting married was born with a last name means "a small (ko) pine tree (matsu)". Imagine a tiny pine tree in a traditional Japanese still and quiet landscape painting, not a grand view, right? And the modern Nana, Nana OZAKI who is independent and strong enough to brave any storms in her life, is given by Heaven a grandiose label, "a huge (o) mountain summit (zaki)". Comically, Mount Everest sprang from my head when I made the analogy. Their names are so self-explanatory, so graphic, so vivid.

Two namesakes of paradoxical personalities live under the same lucky-lucky roof in harmony, both traditional and modern qualities exist, fuse inside one body (Room 707) without causing any conflict. On the contrary, they are helping and inspiring each other. They happily found each other. That is the ideal of the original author Ai Yazawa: the attitude, the attribute, the bearing, the idiosyncrasy of 21st century Japanese feminism (woman figure).

While watching it and laughing at the lousy English lyrics of the loud songs, I remembered two other movies: "La double vie de Véronique", which is right now stirring a little hot talk in town intriguingly. (It really beats me a lot why it suddenly becomes so popular in its second coming after its first screening in 1991???) Two identical Weronika/Véronique live their separate lives in France and Poland. She came across/found her so accidentally in a commotion and they got connected in a mystic way. They are actually searching for each other and found though a little late.

Another is Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Destruction, selfishness, atrocity, tragedy... are fitting negative words to depict this one, though. Elisabeth Vogler ("Vogler" -- Old German "Bird-catcher") a self-made-mute actress (Liv Ullmann) who so determinedly and cruelly wills to divorce herself from the pain of her own existence/façade which she has been playing for a long time and is now fed up with. She transfers absolutely her "self" (identity) on to Alma ("Alma" -- Spanish "Soul") a nurse (Bibi Andersson), who somehow envies her, and causes her collapse. The actress tries so hard to dump forcefully the pain she dislikes onto a weaker partner to make her like herself. A stronger "her" tortures the weaker "her" inside a dead quiet remote country house.

And how wonderful it is to see the 22-year-old Ryuhei Matsuda (bass guitarist Ren) has grown into fuller manhood and has shrugged off the enigmatic androgynous air he displayed in Gohatto (1999). (Gosh! He looks like neither boy nor girl... though with an enticing face.) Another good discovery.

The present day Japanese women are struggling with the pulling forces of the traditional and the modern feminist values, some may have found it, some still groping, some in the mid-way of a tunnel, some in a cul-de-sac. May every Japanese woman's identity be successfully located so as to achieve an inner "harmony", a pillar idea of the Japanese society and culture.

I saw this on an AA flight back from Japan and have to say it was a pretty enjoyable flick, so much so that I'll request netflix to carry it if/when it comes out on DVD so I can watch it with my wife.

It behooves me to add a bit of context, unlike quite a few of the people here, I've never read the manga, so for me this was a standalone movie with no preconceptions of what the characters should look/act like. I thought they were reasonably developed, interesting characters with good amount of depth.

My only real issue (as is frequently the case) is the manner in which they subtitled this movie. It's hard for me to ignore the subtitles if they're there, and worse, when they are poorly done then I spend an irritating amount of time interrupting myself mentally, thinking "Wait a second, that is not at all what (s)he said". This may just be my problem but it's definitely irritating. At the same time, they were not so drastically different that they significantly changed the feeling of the whole movie, which is frequently a complaint heard about English language movies with Japanese subtitles.

My curiosity was piqued when I saw many of the DVDs on sale at various shops recently, so was actually wondering what the movie's all about, until I chanced upon a copy (Special Edition too) at the Esplanade Library. In giving it a shot, I'm pleasantly surprised, at the story it told, as well as the eye-candy available of course.

It contains an extremely strong story of friendship, of love and the falling out of, adapted from a popular Japanese manga of the same name, by Ai Yazawa. You might liken it to Feel 100%, as it touches on life, romantic love, and friends. This is the story with a theme primarily centered on Fate, of how two strangers sharing the same name Nana, be the same age, come to meet one night on a train to Tokyo for their own personal reasons, and how they grow to be best friends. The two girls can be so different from each other, one being a kawaii (cute) bimbo, while the other is a rock chick (which I thought was in the mould of Garbage's Shirley Manson) with her own rock band called Black Stones.

While the narrative is forward moving for Nana Komatsu (Aoi Miyazaki), in following her objective to be in Tokyo with her boyfriend Shoji (Yuuta Hiraoka), Nana Osaki (Mika Nakashima, a real life singer) is in the city to try and achieve her big break for the band. However, flashbacks and the slow revelation of Osaki's backstory too revealed a romantic tangle she had with an ex-band member Ren Honjou (Ryuhei Matsuda), who now plays for a successful outfit called TRAPNEST.

It's an account of the two Nana's romantic relationships with the guys in their lives, and how they encourage and support each other through turbulent times during the relationships. While Nana Osaki may be kawaii, her clingy puppy dog attitude may put some guys off, who might prefer the more confident Nana Osaki. But pride too is an obstacle, as I know from personal experience how two very ambitious persons can stumble unwittingly, and perhaps reluctantly sacrifice love for personal career.

Before you dismiss this as a chick flick, I'd like to say I would think otherwise. It may look like one, but it's tremendously well made, with a well paced narrative. Perhaps having the manga serve as a source provided for richer characterization of the leads. The two actresses who play both Nanas too couldn't contrast each other perfectly, and all in all, it's a very pleasing, despite the down moments in the story, movie to watch.

By the way, the sequel has already been filmed, and is pending a year end release. I don't suppose we'll get the opportunity to see it in the theatres here, so will have to cross my fingers for a quick DVD release.

This Code 3 DVD Special Edition by Panorama Entertainment comes with 2 discs. The first contains the movie and a full length commentary by director Kentaro Otami as well as the two lead actresses Mika Nakashima and Aio Miyazaki. Listening to them during the commentary, they revealed which shots were kept close to the manga source, and which had to be changed for reasons ranging from aesthetics to form. No worries though, as the commentary comes with subtitles as well, in both English (though there were some grammar/tense issues with "shotted") and Chinese. Audio comes in a Dolby Digital 5.1, which allows for a truly rock-concert like atmosphere during scenes when the bands perform.

The second disc is the feature disc, consisting of

• Making of NANA,(33mins 25s), follows the production from the 15-16 Jan 05 when filming began, including the director and cast interviews, as well as deleted scenes (filmed but not used in the movie) - Premiere Screening in Japan, 7 July (for obvious reasons) 2005 (3mins 10s), in Rippongi, with the director and major casts sharing their thoughts on the movie and of the characters they play. - Stage Appearance in Japan, 3 Sep 2005, (3mins 55s) with the director and major casts sharing their thoughts of the movie again. - Asia Premiere in Hong Kong, on 2 Oct 2005 (4mins), with a press conference attended by director Kentaro Otani, Mika Nakashima and Ryuhei Matsuda, and the attendance at the premiere screening complete with a cosplay contest. - Four theatrical trailers, without subtitles (Runtimes of 1min 48s, 30s, 20s, 34s) - Four TV Spots, without subtitles (Runtimes of 17s, 17s, 30s, 17s)