VIZ's 25th Anniversary Edition puts two of the original volumes into each book, which is why volume 5, out on 1 September, runs to 472 pages. Its blurb opens with Takumi and Hachi getting married and warns that the announcement is far from a happy one. Hachi is Nana Komatsu's nickname. Volume 6 is already up for pre-order.
The story starts on a train to Tokyo. Nana Komatsu, twenty, wants a fresh start in the city after one boyfriend problem too many. Nana Osaki, also twenty, heads for Tokyo's underground punk scene intending to become Japan's number one rock star. They share a name and very little else, and after a chance meeting they become best friends.
Ai Yazawa debuted in 1985 with a short story in Ribon Original. Nana first appeared as a one-shot in the first volume of Shueisha's Cookie in 1999, and turned into a serial the following year when Cookie became a regular magazine. In 2002 it won the shojo category of the 48th Shogakukan Manga Award.
Live-action films starring Mika Nakashima opened in 2005 and 2006. The year 2006 also brought a TV anime from Madhouse, directed by Morio Asaka.
The serial stopped in June 2009. ORICON NEWS reported on 29 June that Yazawa had fallen suddenly ill and that Nana was absent from the issue of Cookie released on the 26th. The editors said she needed several months of treatment and rest, and that the series would stay off the pages from the September issue onward as well. Volume 21, published that year, is still the latest in Japan.
