Yazawa, A. (2005). Nana volume 1. (A. Wolfe, trans.). San Francisco, CA: VIZ Media, 2005.

ISBN:        1421501082

In an attempt to change her life, Nana Komatsu moves to a new city and ends up rooming with another girl named Nana, who is everything that Nana is not. 

 Theme:  Nana volume one deals exclusively with the topic of relationships and independence.  Both Nanas are faced with different relationship issues, and each one must decide what she wants for herself.  The story opens with high school Nana Komatsu getting dumped by the older married man that she is seeing.  While her friend tells her that it was doomed from the start and that she shouldn’t have been in the relationship at all, Nana continues to look back on the relationship fondly.  Her idea to get over the relationship is to fall in love again, and it becomes apparent that Nana exists only for romantic relationships; for every guy that she “falls in love” with, she changes everything about herself in order to attract him.  When all of her friends decide to move to Tokyo without her, Nana finally realizes that she has to stop trying to please others and make decisions for herself.  She ends up in a relationship with a guy that she respects and truly loves, but stays behind in her home town while he goes off to Tokyo in order to make it there on her own.

        Nana Osaki on the other hand, is in the perfect relationship with her true love.  They live together as a happy couple and for the first time in her life she feels truly loved and accepted.  The couple is faced with an unhappy decision, however; her boyfriend has accepted a place in one of Japan’s top rock bands and must move to Tokyo.  Although he offers to take Nana with him and make her his wife, Nana cannot accept it.  She has dreams of her own to become a famous singer, and she wants to make it completely on her own without the help or spotlight from her celebrity boyfriend.  In the end, Nana breaks up the relationship even though it breaks her heart and starts pursuing her own goals completely on her own.