I started watching the movie Nana yesterday afternoon, and finished it this morning. It's a Japanese film from 2005, based on 
the manga series by Ai Yazawa. Although I watch a fair amount of Japanese anime, it's pretty unusual for me to watch a live-action movie, but I guess I put this one on my Netflix queue ages ago and forgot all about it until it showed up randomly in my mailbox.
To borrow the plot summary from Netflix: This movie follows the adventures of two girls named Nana who depend on each other's help to realize their dreams: Nana Komatsu yearns for true love, while Nana Osaki wants to get her punk band off the ground. The two meet on a train to Tokyo, where Nana K. aims to reunite with her boyfriend and Nana O. hopes to make it big in the music business. Despite their differences, the pair hit it off and become roommates.
I was surprised by how much I liked the movie, but it's pretty easy to explain why: whoever was in charge of casting absolutely nailed the main characters. The two Nanas were perfect, each completely true to their manga counterpart. I mean, they looked right, dressed right, and when Nana O. sings her voice is great. It's a deeper voice, with a slight hoarseness, but with power in it. (I think that's more or less how it was described in the comic.) Ren and Yasu seemed to have stepped directly out of the comic's pages, too. Only one character struck me as a little off, and that was Nana O.'s new bass player , Shin. The actor looked too old for the role (Shin's supposed to be 16 or 17, I think? Can't quite remember) but he did a good job with it. He just didn't match, visually.
It's weird. I'm trying to think of any other anime-to-live action or manga-to-live action movies I've watched that I enjoyed. The only thing I can think of is the Sailor Moon TV series. I remember watching a few episodes on Youtube, but I never came close to finishing the series.
To borrow the plot summary from Netflix: This movie follows the adventures of two girls named Nana who depend on each other's help to realize their dreams: Nana Komatsu yearns for true love, while Nana Osaki wants to get her punk band off the ground. The two meet on a train to Tokyo, where Nana K. aims to reunite with her boyfriend and Nana O. hopes to make it big in the music business. Despite their differences, the pair hit it off and become roommates.
I was surprised by how much I liked the movie, but it's pretty easy to explain why: whoever was in charge of casting absolutely nailed the main characters. The two Nanas were perfect, each completely true to their manga counterpart. I mean, they looked right, dressed right, and when Nana O. sings her voice is great. It's a deeper voice, with a slight hoarseness, but with power in it. (I think that's more or less how it was described in the comic.) Ren and Yasu seemed to have stepped directly out of the comic's pages, too. Only one character struck me as a little off, and that was Nana O.'s new bass player , Shin. The actor looked too old for the role (Shin's supposed to be 16 or 17, I think? Can't quite remember) but he did a good job with it. He just didn't match, visually.
It's weird. I'm trying to think of any other anime-to-live action or manga-to-live action movies I've watched that I enjoyed. The only thing I can think of is the Sailor Moon TV series. I remember watching a few episodes on Youtube, but I never came close to finishing the series.
6 fine feathered finks | be a laughing jackass!
