NANA – 06

Summary:
Komatsu Nana is jumping for joy when she finally gets a message from her boyfriend Shouji saying that he got accepted into a university. She immediately quits her current job at a video rental store and rushes home. In Tokyo, Junko and Kyousuke are celebrating Shouji’s acceptance into university with him. Shouji gets a call from Nana telling him that she’s packing her things and coming to Tokyo. At the train station, she buys a one-way ticket to Tokyo. The train is packed, and Nana finds the only empty spot occupied by another girl’s guitar. She tries to say something to the girl, but then the train lurches to a stop. The other girl removes the case and gives her the seat. Nana notices how pretty this dark and short-haired girl is and even spots the Vivian ring that she’s wearing. The two start talking, with the other girl comparing Nana to a high-schooler because of her fast phone typing skills (Nana is actually 20 years old). A voice on the intercom then announces that the train will be delayed because of the snow. Nana reveals that she’s going to Tokyo and hoping to get a job. She starts to ask the other girl questions about being a musician when her own phone goes off. It’s Shouji checking up on her, and because of the call, the other girl finds out what Nana’s name is. Nana reveals to her companion that Shouji didn’t want her to originally go to Tokyo with him because she had no objective and no money. She had promised that she’d go to Tokyo when he got accepted into Tokyo. Their conversation really takes off, and they even make a toast. It’s then that the other girl reveals her name: it’s also Nana.
The two spend the rest of the train ride talking, though Komatsu Nana feels that she only talked about herself and didn’t learn much about the other Nana. When they arrive in Tokyo after the five hour ride, Nana gets reunited with Shouji, whereas the other Nana simply walks off and disappears. Nana also gets to see her good friends Junko and Kyousuke, who have also come to pick her up. They decide against going out for food and drink and instead opt to take her home. While thinking about how nice it is to be with her friends – her second family – Nana falls asleep in the car and doesn’t wake up until after Junko and Kyousuke have dropped her off. Nana is surprised when her “home” in Tokyo turns out to be Shouji’s apartment since she had originally thought that she’d be living with Junko. It turns out that Kyousuke and Junko are already living together; Nana thinks that they’ve become like a middle-aged couple. So, Nana sleeps with Shouji for the night, but when she wakes up in the morning, he’s already gone. Nana spends the day cleaning up the house and cooking for him. Shouji enjoys the food when he gets home, but he also makes Nana realize that she didn’t accomplish anything about finding work or getting her own place. He reminds her of her promise to find a job, which causes Nana to blurt out that she came to Tokyo for his sake. Shouji isn’t too happy about this and emphasizes his own self-sufficiency. Deciding to take a bath after dinner, Shouji enters the bathroom and notices that it’s sparkly clean. He realizes how much work Nana must have put into cleaning the place and goes back out to comfort the crying Nana. He suggests that they bathe together, but Nana refuses.
The next day, Nana pays a visit to Junko’s apartment and Junko laughs at what happened between her and Shouji. Nana knows that she can’t live together with her boyfriend and asks Junko to go with her to find an apartment. Junko turns down her offer, so Nana goes by herself to her real estate agent’s office. There happens to be a 2DK (2 bedrooms, and a combo dining room/kitchen) for only 70,000 yen a month, but that’s still above Nana’s price range. The apartment is on the seventh floor of a building with no elevator that Nana thinks was built long before she was born. However, apartment 707 is already being looked at by another woman – the other Nana. In a retrospective tone, Komatsu Nana talks to Oosaki Nana about when they stood together on the riverbank, looking at the surface of the water colored with light. Nana asks to hear once more the melody that the other Nana had hummed on that day.

Well if you think you’ve read this summary before, you have. Episode six turned out to be a recap episode – well, not quite. Probably about 80% of it is recap while the other 20% is comprised of scenes they skipped during the first episode (most of them with Junko). Also, this episode ends exactly where the first chapter in volume two ends, instead of going further like the first episode does. For the summary, I’ve taken what I wrote back in episode one and added to it all of the new stuff (which is in italics). Aside from the additional stuff, most of the scenes followed the exact same script, but had different shots, different angles. I think some of the lines were even re-recorded.
Now that I think about it, I suspect that this has something to do with what ANS reported last week:

Following the run of the smash hit live action film adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s NANA manga last summer, the TV anime version debuted April 5th at 11:55PM on Nippon Television Network. Ratings for the first episode were announced as a 6.2% share. However, a story has come to light of a reported snafu immediately before the broadcast premiere of NANA. It seems the scripts of 2 episodes of the series were rewritten by the producers to the author’s disaproval. Yazawa-san was reportedly very angry and the start of the TV anime was temporarily in doubt. The settlement to the situation is currently uncertain though there there have been fan complaints sent to the voice actors and staff.

Many of us who have read the manga found it strange that they skipped over the introduction stuff and then went back to it. Perhaps the “snafu” reported above had something to do with that and this semi-recap episode. It might be good just to advise people to start watching this series from the second episode lol…
Next week, they’ll probably repeat five more minutes from episode one where Nana meets Nana and the two decide to live together. Then the story should move on to new stuff 🙂