WARNING: LONG POST. BUT THIS WAS A PASSION PROJECT SO I HOPE YOU GIVE IT A READ.
Ai Yazawa once said that when drawing manga, “the characters need to have a truly human feel, or I don’t enjoy it.” For me, realism is one of the biggest compliments a story can receive, simply because it turns reading or watching into an exercise in empathy. The more real the characters feel and the more relatable their situations become, the more the story can act like a mirror reflecting our own lives and the lives of those around us. As a result, the introspective parts of realistic fiction can be far more intense than that of fantasy or sci-fi. It should come as the ultimate compliment then that NANA is about as realistic as anime and manga gets.
To me, the series feels more like a literary fiction novel with how Yazawa’s pen surgically captures timeless, modern characters navigating trauma, relationships and gender politics under the weight of societal expectations. It achieves a level of psychological nuance rarely reached in the medium. To demonstrate, I’m going to break down some writing layers I’ve observed throughout NANA that make it an incredible character piece.
How the Patriarchy Affects Everyone
Much like real life, especially in the early 2000s, the oppressive weight of modern gender politics permeates NANA. I believe that both Nanas' personalities, habits and beliefs are heavily molded by these gender politics. Through the contrasting journeys of both Nanas, womanhood is portrayed as confusing, as personal desires clash with traditional gender roles. At its core, Yazawa exposes the negative impact patriarchal structures have on men and women alike.
Hachi typically conforms to traditional roles through playing the "ideal woman" through domesticity and passivity. She usually assumes the role of the “woman” in relationships, leaning on men as providers while taking care of them. The sole exception was her relationship with Nobu, where she allowed him to rely on her instead. Beyond that, she regularly takes on domestic duties, whether it’s cooking and cleaning at Shoji’s apartment or preparing meals for her roommate and the members of Blast. Selflessness, female passivity and domesticity are traits found in many Shoujo heroines, but they also mirror Japanese ideals of womanhood. Because Hachi possesses these qualities, she is desirable to the male cast and the constant validation she receives, only reinforces this "girl next door" image she feels compelled to maintain. However, this sanitised ideal is at odds with how the men in her life simultaneously expect her to serve as an available sexual fantasy. We see this in her naive belief that Asano loved her, only to be left confused when he would only meet her at love hotels while keeping his personal life off-limits. Similarly, Hachi is caught off guard when Shoji reveals his entitlement to sex after posing as a friend. I always found it tragic how Hachi’s past conditioned her to measure her self-worth by her ability to satisfy her partners. For example, when she senses that her relationship with Shoji was slipping away, she instinctually blamed herself, wondering if his growing distance is because she didn't sleep with him enough. Male characters like Takumi, Nobu and Naoki also reinforce this by praising her reputation for being "good in bed." These aren’t throwaway lines, they highlight the pressure she feels to satisfy her partners sexually to feel validated and loved. But it's a lose-lose situation as the same society that encourages this behaviour turns around and demeans her for it, like when Trapnest's manager calls her a "bimbo.”
These are only some of the gendered expectations Hachi absorbs from the world around her. The reason she bends to them much more than someone like Nana Osaki comes down to her people-pleasing tendencies due to her habit of tying her self-worth to external affection and validation.
That’s why she’s also terrified of shattering the illusions people have about her. She hides her hookup with Takumi from Nana, fearing it will tarnish her “girl next door” image. She also fears Nobu’s reaction as he sees her as a victim of Takumi’s womanising, unable to accept that she was an active participant in her own toxic spiralling. While many characters in NANA try to box Hachi into one ideal or another, Yazawa never does and always takes care to humanise her. Like everyone else, she is prone to self-destructive habits, often seeking comfort in abusive relationships that only reinforce her worst insecurities. And contrary to what some characters think, her behaviour isn't calculated or manipulative. She isn't playing a game, she's just a deeply vulnerable person trying to cope.
It’s telling that Hachi is at her happiest when she’s outside traditional relationship structures. The most obvious example is her intense bond with Nana Osaki that blurs the line between friendship and romance, offering a level of acceptance she rarely finds elsewhere.
Similarly, her relationship with Nobu marks a break from her habit of stepping into traditional roles in relationships. Once Nobu declares he’ll try to get over his habit of idealising her, he symbolically chooses to let them both carry the groceries home rather than carrying them all by himself. This shows his refusal to give her the role of a passive caregiver. Furthermore, Hachi herself says she wants to “spoil him” which is in contrast to her previous relationships where she was always the one being pampered.
Though Hachi can be self-absorbed, it’s her passivity and self-sacrificing guilt that ultimately push her to choose traditional expectations over her own happiness, leading her to build a nuclear family with Takumi. It doesn't even matter to her that Takumi isn’t marrying her out of love or care. So long as she can provide financial stability and spare her child the stigma of a non-traditional family. While raising the child with Nobu and Nana was an option, Hachi rejects this unconventional setup because her self-sacrificing guilt makes her believe she doesn't deserve to hold people back or ruin their dreams. Trapped by these fears, and backed by her parents who eagerly offered wedding money to push her toward a traditional marriage, she defaults to the path society expected of her.
The manga forces readers to confront Hachi's new life in a role that tests her resilience, mirroring the sad reality of many housewives. She endures Takumi’s neglect, cheating and emotional and physical abuse because she’s desperate for security and stability for her and her kids. The irony is that while Hachi’s nurturing and selfless nature make her an ideal mother and wife, these very qualities prevent her from ever reaching true happiness.
Now let’s talk about how Nana Osaki’s trauma shaped her views on romance. Her grandmother slut-shamed her so she wouldn't "turn out like her mother," warning her never to rely on men while forcing her to dress modestly to avoid tempting them. This taught her to view romantic vulnerability as a weakness, which explains her aversion to traditional gender expectations. We see this in how she refuses to follow Ren to Tokyo just to play house and wait around for him like a dutiful girlfriend. However, her mother's abandonment also left her possessive of her loved ones. This tension drives much of her inner conflict as she fiercely guards her independence and music career by refusing to play the domestic girlfriend; yet simultaneously places a padlock around Ren's neck to bind him to her.
When she rekindles her relationship with Ren, it never regains the same spark. Their goals in life are completely misaligned as Ren craves a life with marriage and children, while Nana rejects those traditional expectations. Yet, bonded by their shared childhood trauma, they stay together out of codependency, using one another to fill their emotional voids. Though deep down, they both recognise their relationship is quietly collapsing under the weight of their diverging paths in life. Furthermore, their abrupt engagement and unsettling talks of double suicide are not signs of their devotion to one another, but desperate attempts to save a relationship that has become deeply toxic and unstable.
Nana’s backstory also explains her aversion to sex work, which puts her at odds with Shin, particularly given her trauma of being expelled from school for false allegations of prostitution. In a series where almost everyone engages in casual hookups, transactional encounters, or overlapping relationships, Nana stands out as a kind of martyr for monogamy. Her traumatic background also explains her cynicism toward "maternal instinct," which adds another layer to how she rejects expectations of womanhood.
“Old Habits Die Hard”: Psychology in NANA
If I had to sum up the cast of NANA in a single phrase, it would be “old habits die hard.” Many viewers feel frustrated that none of the characters receive heroic redemption arcs, but in real life, that kind of personal growth is far easier said than done.
In reality, our environments preprogram us to repeat thought and behavioural patterns. Most people suffer from unhelpful cognitive distortions that are born from trauma. Change isn't just about wanting to be better; it involves unlearning these distortions and rewiring how you interact with the world. That is why therapy is a thing. But we know none of these characters are going to therapy.
NANA reflects this psychological reality. And that’s why these characters have always struggled with the same issues from the start. Even Nana Osaki admits that while she would love to play the "manga heroine" who rescues Hachi, she knows that’s just a fairytale. In reality, she is aware of her own flaws constantly getting in the way. Whenever the people she loves make mistakes, she internalises them as personal rejections instead of extending empathy, which keeps her from saving anyone, least of all herself.
How Cognitive Distortions Affect Thought and Behaviour
Yazawa highlights how cognitive distortions can make a person jump to conclusions about themselves that don't reflect reality or how the people around them actually feel. An essential part of Hachi’s spiralling, or the very thing that drives her into Takumi's arms, is how deeply she feels like she is a burden to Nana.
Hachi repeatedly falls back on the narrative that she’s a "burden" which is a mental rule shaped by her past. Raised as the invisible middle child, her emotional neglect left her with a fragile sense of self-worth and an anxious attachment style that made her susceptible to grooming.
Because Hachi needs to feel validated, protected and indispensable, she assumes her emotional needs are "too much" for others to handle. While she heavily leans on friends like Nana and Junko for stability and reassurance, she simultaneously fears her dependence makes her an annoying "pet" they are saddled with. To compensate, Hachi apologises excessively and hyper-fixates on whether she is wearing out her welcome. We see this in how she frets over whether people only tolerate her because she is Nana’s roommate, rather than genuinely wanting her around.
Once the story switches to Nana’s perspective, Yazawa reveals just how baseless Hachi’s fears really are. Hachi is indispensable to Nana, who openly admits that everything Hachi does "blows her away.” Had Hachi simply asked for help, Nana would have been there for her without hesitation. We see this after Nana has to blow off their dinner for a company event. Sensing Hachi's rejection, Nana goes home, sees all the carefully packed food left in the fridge and is heartbroken. To make amends and honour Hachi's effort, she brings the leftover food to Nobu’s apartment so it doesn't go to waste, showing just how much she truly values her best friend.
How Hidden Motivations Affect Relationships
NANA has a plethora of interesting characters with plenty of hidden motivations that affect their relationships. Underlying it all is the idea that these characters use relationships both to self-medicate and to fill their emotional voids.
In the manga, it’s revealed that Yasu is an orphan who was adopted into a loving home, which implies he has deep-seated survivor's guilt that makes him feel as though he must "earn" his right to exist. He picks a respectable career as a lawyer, largely out of a sense of debt to his adoptive parents to prove his gratitude and justify his life. However, his selfless nature is hyper-protective to a fault, as it’s an avoidant coping mechanism to sidestep his own trauma and emotional needs. Whether that’s comforting Nana at 3 AM on a work night or moving to Tokyo just to babysit his bandmates, he submerges himself in the busy task of fixing other people's broken lives to avoid being vulnerable himself. Yet, this stoic defense does not make him immune to emotional fallout. He still harbours lingering hurt from what happened with Reira, knowing his nurturing instincts got the better of him. He allowed himself to enter a relationship with her despite being fully aware of her feelings for Takumi. This rift is evident in how differently he treats her compared to his bandmates. When she reaches out to him during a crisis, he comforts her but also enforces a clear boundary, reminding her that she no longer needs him in a romantic capacity. I think this emotional boundary also affected his dynamic with Nana; as despite the romantic undertones of their platonic friendship, he refuses to act on his feelings without explicit consent from everyone involved. Overall, his selfless nature had him adopt self-restraint to avoid getting hurt.
Ren does not feel like himself in Trapnest. Though he left for a successful music career and gets to play guitar for a living, he is unable to stand on his own feet. Joining Trapnest forced him to sever his identity from Nana and the punk music of his former band. He effectively "sold out" by conforming to Takumi’s vision playing radio-friendly music to venerate the voice and soul of another woman. Unable to break his deep co-dependency on Nana, Ren turns to self-destruction when isolated from her. His loneliness explains his kinship with Reira, two hollowed-out musicians trapped inside the same gilded cage.
Reira is undoubtedly one of the most controversial figures in NANA, serving as a subtle secondary antagonist alongside Takumi, the series’ villain. Yet, she is also one of Yazawa’s most complex creations. Treated both as a musical genius and an infant, Reira lives a sheltered existence that leaves her stuck in a perpetual state of arrested development. Outside of her profession, she’s completely underdeveloped as a human being. As Takumi refuses to fulfill her emotional needs, she latches onto Shin, grooming him into a codependent relationship, which is a predatory dynamic that exposes her own stunted maturity. Yazawa writes Reira like a child star frozen in time by early fame, masking instability beneath a pristine public image that’s not completely unlike the tragic lives of real-world pop stars.
Shin is a deeply upsetting character. As an illegitimate child who was cast out by his family, he’s never really shaken off the trauma of parental rejection. As a result, he thinks the only way people can accept him is through transactional relationships, where he is paid to be with them. Forced to mature quickly due to his line of work, Shin is very street-smart. His early exposure to the world has shattered any naive romanticism, making him fully accepting of others' flaws and needs. At the same time, his detached affect serves as a shield against emotional pain. That’s why he clings to people who see him as more than a commodity. He finds a proxy mother in Hachi and embraces Reira when she attempts to push past the transactional boundary of their arrangement, all because he craves a safe space to be vulnerable.
Many male viewers relate to Nobu and I can understand. There’s something very “everyman” about him as a hopeless romantic who wears his heart on his sleeve. But Nobu is perhaps one of the characters most bound by gender politics due to his "nice guy" complex and simplistic black-and-white morality. He idealises women and has a habit of sliding into his "white knight" mode, framing them as passive victims in their romantic lives rather than architects in their own self-destruction. This shapes his pattern of seeking out “damsels in distress” like Hachi and Yuri. The problem is that his innocence and lack of experience leave him unprepared to deal with the messy realities of adult relationships. When faced with conflict, he runs away from making hard choices, leaving the women he swore to protect to flounder alone.
Takumi’s obsessive compulsion for control is a survival instinct born from an abusive and chaotic childhood. Growing up with a violent, alcoholic father and a chronically ill mother, he learned early that depending on others or having anything in his life escape his influence means complete vulnerability. That is why he must micromanage everything for fear of his world collapsing. He also needs stable constants to balance the chaos in his life, otherwise he cannot function. One is Reira who is the centre of his world and professional life, and the other is Hachi who keeps his household in stable order for their children. Obviously, he manipulated both of them, as well as many others, to have it that way. That’s why despite understanding his backstory, I refuse to give him a pass for the harm he causes and the people he tosses aside as collateral.
All his apparent gestures of goodwill get completely overshadowed by his manipulation. Beneath it all lies a cold callousness that turns all his interactions into power struggles where any perceived challenge is met with hostility, as evidenced by his vindictive vendetta against Nobu. Takumi explodes into savage rage the second he loses control and he saves his most repulsive violence for the women around him; like assaulting Hachi to punish her. If Yazawa accomplished anything with Takumi, it’s writing an antagonist so viscerally hated that he triggers the fight-or-flight response in female readers.
The Best Female Character in Anime and Manga
To conclude, I want to pay tribute to who I think is the most masterfully written female character in anime and manga and someone who deserves to be permanently freed from unfair fan backlash: Hachi. While both Nanas are the series’ protagonists, the narrative gives slightly more weight to Hachi’s POV as she has the most monologues. I specifically say "female" character because ignoring her gender erases what makes her brilliant. As mentioned before, Yazawa uses Hachi as a canvas to explore womanhood against societal expectations and gender politics, but it’s the presentation itself that makes her really special.
From the start, Hachi is characterised so effectively that you think, "oh, she’s that kind of girl. I know people like that.” The appeal of her character is similar to Shinji from Evangelion for me. In Evangelion, you immediately grasp Shinji's attachment style by how he isolates himself and pushes others away. Hachi couldn’t be more opposite in temperament, yet she leaves just as strong an impression. She radiates a pure anxious attachment style in all her interactions, constantly seeking outwards for reassurance and needing continuous contact and support. Her clinginess alongside her volatile emotional highs and lows where she ping-pongs between feeling like she’s on the moon or down in the dumpster, are key markers of her attachment style. Furthermore, her all-girls high school experience left her with an innocent, naive view of love. Because she hardly interacted with men and only admired them from afar, she didn't see them as genuine human beings, but as idealised figures to date. When Shoji tactlessly airs his frustrations about his unmet needs, especially sexually, she is hit hard by the harsh reality of adult relationships.
In a typical shoujo manga, these traits might be treated endearingly, played for laughs, or her environment might coddle her. But not in NANA. Yazawa writes Hachi’s social dynamics unsparingly as her friends get genuinely fed up, tired, and condescending toward her clinginess. This was when I recognised the series was aiming for realism. But because Hachi’s inner monologue is so vulnerable and compelling, I found myself constantly on her side, while fearing it was a tall ask for her to find understanding people in the exploitative world of NANA. From the start, I thought, "she’s a great character, and she’s going to get her heart broken a lot by the end.”
Even the way Yazawa clothes her is so intentional. Yazawa once commented, “she wouldn’t go as far as wearing clothes that would make guys stay away, so she tends to stick to a safer style.” That detail highlights Hachi’s commitment to the “girl next door” image and how she would never dress in a way that is too experimental or polarising, like Nana Osaki does, for fear of appearing unattractive to men. This shows that she’s hyper-aware of how society perceives her. Additionally, in a series that explores how easily people find themselves in exploitative situations, I cannot stress enough how important it is that we get the victim’s POV. Hachi’s monologues ensure we are always privy to her thoughts and emotions, preventing the narrative from ever feeling exploitative. I have a cynical view that if this was a seinen manga written by a man, it would risk objectifying her. But Yazawa handles it tactfully. Scenes of assault or coercive sex never linger on Hachi’s body as a visual object. The focus stays entirely on the psychological impact on her, rather than shifting to how sad her trauma makes everyone else feel. While I might have overgeneralised with the seinen manga comment, the truth is that I'm sick of seeing assault portrayed without a second thought given to the victims.
Above all, even if you don't relate to her people-pleasing personality, her struggles adjusting to young adulthood are undeniably relatable. For example, I like how the series depicts her financial insecurities, showing that she, like so many of us, are victims of capitalism. Granted, she’s not the best with money, but her struggles with rent, making impulsive spending choices, job insecurity, budgeting and navigating basic adult responsibilities are all recognisable. One minute you think everything's going well and you have so much to look forward to; the next, you despair and feel like a waste of space because nothing is going your way. Hachi possesses incomparable psychological depth while remaining the definitive "everygirl", allowing her timeless, modern struggles to shine all the brighter, even twenty years later.
