NANA is a series I vow never to spoil.
From the back cover:
Being engaged isn’t as wonderful as Hachi thought it would be. She has a trendy new apartment, but she’s isolated from all her friends and Takumi is hardly ever home. When scandal hits hard, Trapnest (and her fiancé) flee to Europe, and Hachi is left to watch Blast suffer in the scandal rags and tabloid shows.
Review:
So much happens in a volume of NANA that I feel like I should keep a scorecard or something! There are important revelations (Nobu still seems to have feelings for Hachi, Yasu’s feelings for Nana become known both to her and Ren), realizations (Blast must sacrifice some of their ideals about how they want to become successful in order to seize the chance they’ve been given), and reconciliations (even though Nana and Hachi have not met face to face due to the paparazzi frenzy surrounding Blast and Trapnest, Nana takes advantage of a microphone thrust in her face to declare that she’s still working to make Hachi’s dreams come true).
The most fascinating part of the story for me right now is the Nana-Yasu-Ren triangle. Although Nana and Ren both have moments where they think that their love for the other hasn’t diminished, things still aren’t the same as they used to be. Nana feels that her bond with Yasu may be even stronger than hers with Ren, and Ren’s commitment to Trapnest leads him to decide not to defend Nana from reporters. Instead, that role falls to Yasu who does it without a second thought. It also becomes clear that Yasu has completely abandoned his ambitions to practice law in order to pursue a musical career, something he had told Reira long ago that he wasn’t willing to do. I personally am really rooting for Nana and Yasu to get together.
Less successful to me is the Hachi plotline: I’m confused, though I think that may be because Hachi is confused. She tells Jun that she “really, really” loves Takumi, and laments that she can’t seem to fall in love with nice guys like Shoji or Nobu. Later on, though, it seems like she’s talking about Nobu when she says, “I’ll never be fulfilled by happiness like that again, the kind with no shadows.” Were her earlier comments just an attempt to make the best of an imperfect situation? She likes him enough to derive some happiness from their life together, even while mourning what might’ve been?
On the whole, I love how complex all of these characters and their circumstances are. I still profess a desire for some big, unambiguously positive event for these beloved characters—something like that would surely merit an A+ from me—even while I recognize that such untainted triumph rarely happens in life, and appreciate that Ai Yazawa recognizes it, too.
From the back cover:
From the back cover:
From the back cover:
Black Cat is the story of Train Heartnet, who used to work as an assassin for a powerful organization called Chronos. After an encounter with a female bounty hunter (a.k.a. sweeper) named Saya (whom we only glimpse near the end of volume two), his outlook changed and he gave up that life. Now it’s two years later and Train has become a sweeper himself, collecting bounties on criminals with his partner, Sven. Train’s motto is “more money, more danger… more fun!” and his pursuit of the latter two usually means the duo doesn’t get much of the former. 
Volume six of Monkey High! builds on issues between reserved Haruna and her cheerful boyfriend, Macharu, that began to develop in the previous volume. Macharu, in his optimism, keeps trying to help bring about reconciliation between Haruna and her distant politician father while the mere thought of her family woes is sufficient to ruin any fun Haruna might be having. Macharu’s friend Atsu, who also has feelings for Haruna, tries to take advantage of the situation to convince her that he’s a better choice, but in the end Haruna decides that it’s time to stop running from her family problems and face them head-on.
Choco and Mimi are in the eighth grade and they are best friends, despite the fact that Choco is serious, mature, and tolerable and Mimi is spoiled, ridiculous, and irksome. The cast also includes their stern teacher, Mr. Take; Ando and Mumu, a couple of boys in their class; and several pets, who are easily the best thing about ChocoMimi.
Kurohime is a witch-gunslinger, which essentially means that she can shoot magic out of a gun to heal injuries, beef up her own physical defenses, or conjure “witch-beasts” to fight opponents. As the volume begins, she is fighting the Kurohime Punishment Squad, a band of scantily-clad women with a grudge against her. A common enemy forces the women to work together and the previously-stoic Kurohime exhibits compassion for her reluctant allies and even helps to rescue the lover of one of them.
From the back cover:
From the back cover:
Recent Comments