Starring actress Aoi Miyazaki and pop star Mika Nakashima, Kentaro Otani’s 2005 film adaption of Ai Yazawa’s manga ‘Nana’ endures because it captured something rare and radical within Japanese pop culture: female friendship that is messy, intimate and life-changing. Shoujo manga (‘girl comics’) took my peers and I by storm in our formative years. Usually, these were sugary stories about high school girls falling for impossibly perfect men. But Nana was different. Yazawa’s series felt more mature, more honest, and far more emotionally raw than its counterparts.
Yes, it had romance, but its core appeal – both then and now – lies in the bond between its two protagonists: Nana Osaki, a punk rock singer chasing fame on her own terms, and Nana Komatsu (affectionately nicknamed Hachi), who is constantly seeking love, often at her own expense. They become each other’s emotional anchor as they try to define themselves through fashion, work, and one another. This is where Nana finds its real love story.
Their journey in Otani’s film begins with a chance meeting on a snowbound train to Tokyo, where they bond over their shared name and cheap beer. When Hachi naively proposes a toast to her boyfriend’s art school acceptance, Nana refuses, choosing instead to cheers to their serendipitous meeting. This subtle declaration that men shall not be the focal point of their relationship sets the tone for everything that follows.
Hachi’s soft narration weaves through the story with the air of someone recalling their first love: “Hey Nana, do you remember the first time we met? I believe in things like fate. So, I think it was fate.” The film lingers in the quiet, wordless acts of care, scenes where the women watch over each other with affection or concern: a silent embrace late in the night; the intimate ritual of applying makeup together; a warm body to lean on in the cold. At one point, Hachi jokes that Nana is more like a boyfriend than a girlfriend, yet Otani never masculinises her to justify the depth of their bond. Instead, Hachi is discovering the well of love that can be found in platonic companionships. The camera often catches them in reflection – mirrors, train windows, glass – as if each woman is both the other’s echo and escape.
As the story unfolds, their personalities bleed into each other drip by drip. Nana’s anger softens; Hachi’s optimism hardens. Nana is a prickly, lonely figure, carrying the residue of a fractured childhood and deferred dreams. Played by Nakashima with an arresting stillness, she moves to Tokyo out of spite, determined to succeed as a singer. In contrast, Hachi is a self-described airhead, yet Miyazaki’s earnest performance imbues the character with warmth, making her insecurities feel painfully relatable. Before meeting Nana, her life orbits around her boyfriend, Shoji. Her only ambition is to be a housewife, and she tries to play the part: apron on, smile fixed, desperate for his validation. But every interaction between the two of them leaves us with the realisation that he only tolerates her presence and is undeserving of her devotion.
After catching Shoji embracing another woman, Hachi’s naivety finally breaks. The neediness that once defined her dissolves and is replaced by a flicker of Nana’s defiance. The man at the centre of her world becomes someone she no longer wants in her sight. Led by Nana through Tokyo’s dark, wintry streets, she stumbles into independence like a deer taking its first uncertain steps.
