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Amazon.com: Nana, Volume 1: Books: Ai Yazawa|
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Amazon.com: Nana, Volume 2 (Nana): Books: Ai Yazawa|
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Amazon.com: Nana, Volume 3 (Nana): Books: Ai Yazawa|
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Amazon.com: Nana, Volume 4 (Nana): Books: Ai YazawaDay four of my manga a day I decided to talk about the first four volumes of Nana, which I finally sat down to read. This is my second favorite way to read manga, in large chunks. The best way being a chapter at a time as it's being released, because then you can get fully involved in the fandom and talk with friends about it and get fully involved. But I missed that boat with Nana, mostly on purpose because I could tell it was a story that was going to annoy me. (oh, and I have no idea what happened with the formatting on my last enty, one of the paragraphs decided to completely re-arranged itself, it should be fixed now.)
I don't know why I keep reading Ai Yazawa works. I always want to knock the main characters over the head. I am just not the kind of person who likes stories that are just about heartbreak and personal angst. But then I look at the artwork and I remember why. I love artists with a distinctive style and "distinctive" describes Yazawa to a T.
Besides the immediately recognizable "Yazawa" character designs, she's got rich photographic backgrounds and really wonderful sense of dramatic layout. Plus, her characters have lips. Expressive lips. I love Yazawa's lips. Not just the girls, look at Shoji or Yasu's mouth it tells you exactly how they're feeling... even if their eyebrows are hidden. (Most Manga-ka depend on eyebrows to "make" the expression.)
And of course you can't discuss Yazawa art without mentioning the fashion. I love that the two Nanas are to distinctive. I love Hachi's retro style, and you can tell Yazawa really understands the style even down to the construction of the garments. I could reverse engineer most of the clothes in Nana just from the pictures. (I'm often tempted too, at least as dolls and doll clothes. Little Nana dolls would be so cute.) Nana O's style is cool too, something I can picture my heavily tattooed punk sister wearing. And I love the little touches like the sequential covers on 1-4. Does this continue through the whole series?
But then I come to the story. (-_-) Just about everyone knows the story behind Nana (two girls, two lives intertwined both starting off with broken relationships) so I'm not going to bother elaborating. So far I've only seen one character I respect, and that's Yasu and I think that's probably because he doesn't speak much. Hachi needs a spine. Nana needs a clue, but at least she's working towards something. Junko isn't much of a friend if she blames Hachi for Shoji's cheating and Shoji is an ass. Ren I don't know yet, but I already find him smug. Of course, now that I've started the series I have to finish it but it's definitely not a series that I'll ever be able to read volume by volume, I'll get too frustrated. I'll wait till volume 8 comes out, then I'll get 5-8 and sigh over the pretty art while wanting to strike 90% of the cast with a clue-by-four.
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