Nana 17

Ooh, in the “present day” storyline, something major happens.  Even though that story only gets a few pages or less per volume, I like how details have slowly been revealed and things are still happening.  I guess a few pages per volume over 17 volumes is still a lot of time for story, but still.

Also, an ad in the back of the volume advertised a special Takumi story in Cookie Magazine.  Hooray for Takumi’s childhood next volume!  I’m still most fond of the story focusing on Naoki, but I bet the Takumi story will be really fun.

Anyway.  One of the things I like about this series so much is how all the characters have their own lives, and some parts of them are unrelated to things the main characters do.  I have a hard time remembering who some of these really minor characters are, but the best example in this volume is where Misato’s brother is talking with a friend that is begging an introduction to Misato.  I didn’t remember who either of the boys were, but their connection to the story is through Misato, whose connection to the story is as Nana’s unknown sister, though really she’s just a fan of Nana’s that recently got to meet her at a party.  The fact that there are these scenes between characters that are three and four times removed from the plot is pretty cool.  Sometimes I worry about the cast growing to an unmanageable size, but I don’t think I’d ever sacrifice scenes like this.

There’s a lot of hoopla around the tabloids digging up dirt on Nana’s mother and what it means to that family.  It doesn’t really seem to bother Nana or her mother, though her mother actually does something pretty lousy at the end of the book.  I hope that something good will come of it and that everyone has just misinterpreted her actions, but then again, perhaps this is just how she is.  I do feel bad for Misato, though, who we don’t get to hear from after all this goes down.

Elsewhere, there’s the usual emotional turmoil.  Things are still on the rocks between Shin and Reira, Ren and Reira are still getting along, Takumi and Reira have their thing going, Takumi makes Hachi feel a bit lonely since he doesn’t call while he’s away… but it still makes me happy that he always seems to answer his phone and talk to her like a friend.  Takumi is a bit of a jerk, but at least he’s nice to Hachi in his way.

Better, though, is the fact that Nana and Hachi meet up and live together for the New Year’s holidays since Ren and Takumi are away recording.  Being together seems to make the two of them happier than anything else, and I’m still extremely puzzled as to why they always find excuses to not talk to one another.  Their friendship is more or less the best part of this series.

So what’s left for next time?  Well, we will probably get the bonus Takumi chapter, but there’s also Misato’s reaction to look forward to, and… maybe Takumi and Ren getting back into town?  Or, barring that, more of Nana and Hachi together, which would be fine by me.  Quiet volumes like this one (well, quiet aside from the mess with Nana’s mother, which doesn’t seem to stress anyone out that much) are really nice to have occasionally.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.