Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Nana – episode 13

July 24, 2006 on 7:09 pm | In Nana | 5 Comments

A lot of ground is covered in one episode of Nana.

Same spoilers as previous episode

Shouji meets up with Kyosuke and essentially admits that he has slept with Sachiko. Despite the sickening nature of the justifications offered, Kyosuke and Junko decide not to tell Hachi on the grounds that she may just take drastic measures.

Now I think I can understand why people came to hate Shouji: he is a spineless bastard who thinks he can just go around hurting all of the women he knows. You can understand why he is hesitant to break up with Hachi (someone of her usual cheeriness can be primed for suicide), but as it is he isn’t being fair to either of them.
Shouji is looking for excuses all over the place,suggesting to Kyosuke that the reason that he does not cheat is because he is “scared of Junko”. This could not be further than the truth, and is proof that Shouji has lost sight of relationships.

The scene with Shouji and Kyosuke in the restaurant repeats in the form of Hachi and Shouji at Jackson Hole. There, Hachi complains about her problems with work. Shouji’s reaction indicates to Hachi that she is not allowed even one bad night. To him it’s another nail in the coffin of their relationship, and she blames herself entirely for his strange behaviour. This is one case where Hachi’s paranoia about the state of her relationship can be justified, yet I don’t believe it is her fault.

I think it’s important that directly after Hachi comes off this horrible dinner (her attitude to work, by the way, isentirely natural), she goes home to Nana and BLAST to find that they’ve ooked their first live. Her terrible day is capped by sharing euphoria with her friends, and once again Nana shows that the divide of its two sides is effective. One would think Nana would have the drama, but Hachi has been dealt that card and cannot get the support of her Shouji-tachi friends because the situation is too complex.
I would think that Shouji should have been able to calm Hachi and take her mind off work, but it’s clear that he simply isn’t trying any more.

I was surprised that Sachiko agreed to be “the other woman”, carefully ignoring every phone call Hachi made to Shouji to save her own feelings. That changes with a visit to Jolie Mamma from Hachi: to see the woman that you’re “stealing” from changes the situation. Shouji probably didn’t make any excuses like “My girlfriend is a fire breathing dragon bitch who wants to castrate me”, so seeing Hachi as a kind, considerate person makes it all the harder for Sachiko.
I kind of hope that Shouji ends up with no one, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

The balance of this episode was very delicate, with weird attempts to make Shouji’s problems comedic that mainly showed him up as pathetic, but all of the Nana comedy was hilarity animatified. I was really grateful for that ending up in the episode. I’m all for drama, but levity frequently helps gravity.

Hooray for shoujo drama!