Nana 20

Ai Yazawa – Viz – 2010 – 21+ volumes

This volume ends… badly.  Very badly.  I suspect it’s not nearly as bad as it looks, cause this is a manga, but I’m guessing since the manga is Nana, it will be devastating/debilitating all the same.

That last scene wiped pretty much everything else that happened from my memory.  Lots of see-sawing back and forth between Nana and Ren about getting back together without either speaking to one another.  There was also talk about the lineup of Trapnest, and Reira took a bold, unadvisable action to cover for Ren while he got his stuff sorted out.  I liked where everything was going finally, but then that last scene.  I nearly cried because of the implications, but again, things don’t usually work out that badly.

I still like Takumi an awful lot.  I like his devotion to both women in his life, in both the wife capacity and the younger sister capacity, though it’s disturbing to label Reira as such considering what is going on.  He finally has the talk he needed to have with Ren, but that confirmed my suspicions that he’s just giving Reira what she wants, rather than… actually cheating on Nana, though most would probably still call it that.  I still say he’s the best character in the series.  Even the “present” story segments paint him as fairly devoted to his family, but a workaholic.  Hachi and he are separated, but it sounds like it’s half that he’s never home and half that Hachi wants Nana to come back to Japan and won’t leave for wherever Takumi is.

There’s only one volume of the series left before it went on hiatus at the beginning of last summer. I suspect that there aren’t too many volumes left in it anyway, because it feels like the “present” pieces of the story are slowly starting to fall into place.  It just occurred to me that something at the beginning of this volume hints at the worst, but I’ll hold onto my hopes.

Needless to say, Nana is still fantastic.  It really is made out of the best stuff.  The plot, art, characters, setting, emotions, situations, music, and everything about it is just superior.  I don’t think there will ever be anything quite like Nana, which is another reason I think it will probably end soon.  I’d hate for it to drag out too long.

But at present, it is on hiatus.  I sincerely hope Ai Yazawa will be well enough to finish it soon.  Perhaps she and Moyoco Anno will return to being professional mangaka simultaneously, in a fit of wellness, unleashing all sorts of girly awesomeness onto the world once again.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.