NANA – 11

Summary:
Hachi is close to being broke, mainly because she’s been spending so much on clothes and furnishings. Nana takes a hard line on the money issue, saying that if Hachi can’t pay her half of the rent, then she’ll have to leave. Nana then leaves for her own job in the middle of the night, leaving Hachi behind to worry about her money problems. The next day, Hachi cries to Junko and Kyousuke about her situation. Kyousuke tries to lend her some money, but Junko stops him and gives Hachi a bag of rice instead. When she gets to work, Hachi tries to plan out her expenses for the rest of the money until payday. Luckily for her, Mizukoshi invites her out to dinner after she lies about not eating lunch because she’s on a diet.
At school, Kyousuke spots Shouji walking along happily with a girl he doesn’t recognize. Shouji introduces Sachiko, who happens to work at the same place, go to the same school, and is in the same department at school as him. Kyousuke confides in Junko later that Sachiko is cute, making this a dangerous situation for Shouji. Meanwhile, Shin catches Nana at the studio playing the drums. From what she says, he figures out what Yasu was the one who taught her. Shin knows about Yasu because Shin is staying with Nobu and Nobu keeps talking about Yasu. Nana asks Shin if his parents will worry if he doesn’t go home, but Shin doesn’t think they will be. Nana does not pursue the topic because she knows that there are parents who would abandon their children.
Over dinner, Hachi tells Mizukoshi about how Shin is actually a junior high school student and probably doesn’t want to go to high school. And Nana’s band is still missing a drummer because Nana didn’t like the one applicant they’ve had so far. Hachi’s theory is that Nana is in love with Yasu and that’s why she doesn’t want another drummer. After eating, Mizukoshi holds Nana arm as if he’s about to confess. Actually he is indeed about to confess, but not his love – Mizukoshi confesses that he’s thinking about closing the store. That puts Nana in a really bad situation because now she has no money and no job.
During this time, Shouji and Sachiko are running in the subway trying to catch the train. Sachiko loses her shoe on the stairs, so she goes back to get it after telling Shouji to go on ahead. However, after retrieving it, she looks up and finds Shouji waiting for her, with the train gone. Shouji wonders why she wore those shoes if she knows that they’d have to run for the last train. Sachiko suggests that she did it on purpose, which causes Shouji to blush. A phone call from a crying Hachi interrupts their moment. Via taxi, Shouji takes Sachiko home. Sachiko confirms that the person who called earlier was Shouji’s girlfriend, and then offers him money for the ride, saying that her rule is to not to take treats from men who have girlfriends. Shouji takes the money and the taxi drives off, leaving a crying Sachiko.
Hachi meets Shouji at his apartment and discovers that even he doesn’t have much money. It seems he recently bought a computer because he’s studying computer graphics design. Without Shouji to help her, Hachi visits the bank to check her balance. She is surprised to see that she has over 300,000 yen in the account. Hachi thinks it’s from Mizukoshi as severance pay, but Nana notices that the entry beside the money lists “Komatsu Natsuko” – in other words, Hachi’s mother. Since Hachi never told her family about her problems, she assumes that it must have come from her mother’s intuition. A happy Hachi wants to have sukiyaki for dinner, but Nana says no and wants her to reflect on wasting money. Instead, they’ll have the natto that Nana bought.
Walking up the stairs to their apartment, Nana asks if Hachi is going to call and thank her mother. Hachi says she’ll do it afterwards, which causes Nana to tease her about crying after her mother’s voice. Hachi thinks that Nana should also have times when she’s homesick, but Nana denies it because she has no home. At the top of the stairs, Nana freezes after seeing someone at the other end of the hallway. Hachi sees who it is and decides to run off to get sukiyaki ingredients. The person is of course Yasu. Nana cries in his arms, saying that Blast was the band he created. Yasu admits that he was so worried he couldn’t sleep at night and says that there are also law firms in Tokyo. Nana puts her arms around him and Yasu holds her head, with drumsticks in his hands. In the retrospective tone, Hachi asks if Nana even now feels that she has no home. Hachi thinks that Nana’s home is with the dining room and chairs by the window. Her home is in that place.

This episode really shows how much Hachi depends on other people as she looked to Nana, Junko, and Shouji for help. If she really wanted to be independent, she could have tried getting a second job to support herself. But it’s not really in Hachi’s character to be thrifty. If only she had a richer boyfriend… Actually Shouji is already pretty close to falling for Sachiko. I find it hard to blame Sachiko though, since she’s portrayed rather sympathetically.
The big event at the end of this episode is Yasu’s return. If I didn’t know better, I’d agree with Hachi in saying that Nana is in love with Yasu. I technically do know better since it’s supposed to be NanaXRen, but the NanaXYasu angle is very open to discussion since Yasu is one of the few people Nana depends on.
This image was at the end of the episode after the credits. From that, next week looks like it will include “Junko’s Room” omake material. But according to the episode title, it won’t be counted as episode 12 and it will have some recap.