Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Nana – episode 19

August 27, 2006 on 10:37 pm | In Nana | 3 Comments

Nana works because many of its revelations are not particularly surprising to the audience but they are to the characters, and that’s what matters: reaction. Well, reaction in something that’s not shounen, where it is nothing but a way to cover the lack of material on offer.

Episode end spoiler

Nana realises that her plans to finish it with Ren went entirely awry; they’re still together, more so than they have been for a couple of years. Nana decides that Hachi has done well and promises to pay her back in kind.
Due to a conversation with Junko, Hachi starts to think that maybe she likes Yasu. This leads to a fair bit of awkwardness and the realisation that not all of BLAST,

With the realisation that she didn’t spend any of her time looking at Takumi at the concert, so worried was she about Ren, it comes as little surprise that Hachi wants his autograph or something to make up for it.
The viewer can tell a few seconds in advance that what is supposed to be Yasu opening the door for Hachi is actually Takumi himself. You can tell because of his textured clothing, which I would normally hate but is pulled off well here.
“I made her cry,” says Takumi. “What do you want me to do now?”
It doesn’t really need to be said anymore, but Nana really is kind. To go above and beyond the call of friendship like that is just pure nicety. While I said up there that the revelations aren’t really that surprising, I lied: I wasn’t expecting Takumi to turn up at the apartment; in the previous episode he seemed to have a healthy distaste for the intellects of his band members. It’s nice to be proved incorrect sometimes.

So let’s throw all imaginations of Yasu love out of the window for superficial relationships with musicians we’ve never met! Yasu was never a good option for Hachi, though, because it was just a feeling brought about by the imagination that “I’ve got someone there; I’ve got to go for them.” I understand that feeling, and can’t blame someone as impulsive and romantic as Hachi for feeling that way, but I don’t buy the “reality” of the emotion. Nor does Hachi, and I’ll bet that she had forgotten the idea just as soon as Takumi walked through the door.

This was a good episode, and there were parts that I really liked. Chief among them was the recollection of Nana’s past, which goes to show that you can have a period in your life that you will always remember in a certain way, regardless of the reality of the situation: Nana’s time with Ren was always in the snow. It’s an emotional landscape rather than an actual landscape, and it works all the better for it and is worth comment.
Of course, and to use the first of many secret cliches that you will discover upon further reading, every rose has its thorns. In the case of this episode, there was one disturbingly bad cut: in one of the kitchen scenes, Hachi’s dialogue was cut off before she could finish saying “nai”. It’s not something that I see often, that level of sound engineering, so it’s worthy of note.

Overall, another fine episode of Nana. When you’re watching Nana, it’s like there’s nothing else in the world.

The continued complaints! Hirano Aya is somehow the true heroine of Nana now, popping up in the Nana’s Room section to hang around with Shizue Nana. Normally it’s not in my nature to be bitter about these sorts of things, but all I can think is “Yes, flavour of the month … make hay while the sun shines … have your moment in the spot light, your day in the sun, your fifteen minutes of fame, your drawn out cliche. I’ll be waiting.”
I like her, but … there’s just something about her. I was going to call it something, but I can’t come up with anything entertaining enough. I’ll call it “sour grapes”, on my side.