Chatty AF 237: NANA Watchalong – Episodes 1-7 (WITH TRANSCRIPT)

TONY: And she says, “A woman’s lot in life… can be pretty good.” You know? Or something like that. And I was just like, there’s so much happening in that one quote and one image, right? So much about compulsory heterosexuality, right?

VRAI: Ooh, because Hachi’s a lesbian! We’ll get to that.

TONY: [Laughs]

[Introductory musical theme]

VRAI: Hello and welcome to Chatty AF: The Anime Feminist Podcast and our introduction to our Nana watchalong. I’m Vrai, the daily operations manager at Anime Feminist. You can find me being sad about vampires and gay things on Bluesky @writervrai. Today I am joined by Tony and our very special guest, Destiny. If y’all would like to introduce yourselves…

DESTINY: Yeah, sure. My name is Destiny Senpai. I’m the host of the Getting Animated podcast. That is basically an anime podcast where I rave about the things that I love, which is usually just shoujo and romance of all sorts. [Chuckles]

VRAI: [Chuckles]

TONY: Well, great. I’m Tony. I’m a contributing editor here at Anime Feminist. You can find me on Bluesky @empty-visions, where I write about politics and anime and sometimes DJing, because that’s the other thing I do.

VRAI: Which is very cool.

DESTINY: That is very cool, yeah.

TONY: Thank you. And weirdly relevant for the show, actually.

VRAI: Oh, yeah, trust me, I’m hype about that. Did you have any socials or any links you wanted to plug for your podcast?

DESTINY: Oh, yeah! You can follow me @gettinganimated on all social platforms. I have way too many to count. So, literally anywhere you can think of, Bluesky, Instagram, I think Facebook, even. I’m everywhere, so feel free to follow me wherever you see me.

VRAI: Alright. So, as I mentioned up top, we are doing a watchalong for Nana. If this is your first time joining one of these, how it works is we go through the show, we watch a chunk of episodes every time, we try not to talk about spoilers beyond what we have watched for the episode discussion. 

We probably will allude to the manga, but Tony and I are anime-only watchers. The point is that this is our first time seeing the show, but Destiny is a huge fan, and so she’s going to kind of keep us up to date on anything, maybe foreshadowing, we should be paying attention to. But we won’t be discussing out-and-out spoilers on this podcast, so if you want to watch along at home with us, we would love that. And then, you know, you can discuss in the comments.

Alright. So, yes, Nana is probably one of the most beloved shoujo out there. Ai Yazawa is one of the big names of shoujo, right up there with Yuu Watase and The Magnificent 49ers or Naoko Takeuchi. It’s a big deal. So, the manga began running in 2000. Famously, it has been on hiatus since 2009, although Yazawa has done some interviews for the 25th anniversary of the series saying that if her health should permit, she would like to get back to drawing it. You know, we hope that that would be the case, but if it doesn’t, her health is more important than the comic, as much as we yearn for it. It is currently twenty-one episodes [Vrai likely means volumes in reference to the manga] but in 2006 it was adapted into a fifty episode anime, which is technically forty-seven episodes plus three recap episodes.

For those of you at home who are shoujo fans, it was directed by Morio Asaka, who is probably best known for also directing… well, actually probably best known for directing this. But you may also know him for being the director of Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, Chihayafuru, and My Love Story, as well as, recently, My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 two years ago. This guy is major shoujo anime royalty.

And so, the anime is, I think, quite well regarded. Famously, I think, the manga has left off at a pretty dire cliffhanger place for our leads. I know that the anime cuts off a little bit sooner because the manga was still running when it came out. So, we will talk about that as we come to it. If folks are interested, maybe we’ll do a separate cast about the manga and the extra material there, but for now the anime is going to be our main focus. And, I guess, to start, for the three of us, do you want to talk a little bit about your history with the series?

DESTINY: So, Nana is definitely one of those shows that changed my life. I love shoujo, all things shoujo, and there are some core shows that really stick out to me, Peach Girl being one of them, and Nana is also one of those. So, for me, I watched it when I was younger, and to be honest with you, I feel like it was not the most appropriate time to watch Nana…

[Chuckling]

DESTINY: I really found myself—and we’ll definitely talk about it more as we get into it… To this day, I definitely still identify myself as Hachi a lot of the time. And even… Like, it’s funny. My husband, in his phone, my name is Hachi just because I got him to watch Nana and he’s like, “Oh! Wow, those similarities are there.”

VRAI: Oh, that’s so cute!

DESTINY: But then I think about it, and now that I’m older and I’ve rewatched the series a bunch of times, I feel for her now. I look at it as a very different perspective, you know? When I was younger, I saw the similarities with her and I was like, “Oooh, we are two… I see it, girl. I get what you’re saying,” and then I’m like, “Actually…” Now I’m like, “Oh, I feel bad for you.” [Laughs] Maybe you shouldn’t align yourself so much with Hachi! And we’ll talk more about why as we start watching the show. But it’s one of my favorites, and to me I think it was one of those shows where I was like, oh, anime could be a multifaceted thing. It’s not just, you know, like, Sailor Moon or Pokémon or any of those things. It’s actual, like, real depth, real people’s stories. Fun fact: I think like three years ago, for my birthday I tattooed Nana and Hachi on my arm. It’s them drinking soju together, and I’m just like, yeah, this is a perfect scene. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Yes. Is it a panel or did you get somebody to freehand something?

DESTINY: It’s a panel. It’s like one of those drawings that, you know, the mangaka would draw on the back of the manga where they’re just like, “Thanks for reading the manga!” It’s like one of those, where they’re drinking and they’re singing karaoke together. And it’s still one of my favorite tattoos to this date. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Yes! If you have a picture, please send it. I’ll post it when we put this episode up because that’s so cute.

DESTINY: [crosstalk] Oh, for sure, for sure.

VRAI: What about you, Tony?

TONY: Well, it’s interesting. Quite honestly, I feel really out of my depth with shoujo and josei manga, which is one thing that I’m really trying to change, which is part of why I wanted to do this podcast, so that I could really have a deeper understanding of the history of shoujo. And the really funny thing is that I feel like shoujo often gets stereotyped as these kinds of fantastical romances that are unrealistic or without depth, but when you watch Nana, it could not be further from the truth. 

When I was watching Nana, the thing that I was struck most by: like what you said, Destiny, real people. These people feel recognizable culturally. These are people who I’ve met, right? These are people who are speaking with naturalistic dialogue, talking about real relationships in ways that don’t feel like they’re the author-insert just speaking whatever the author’s thinking but feel like they’re each having these different perspectives that we’re meant to kind of go “Hm…” about, right? Watching Nana is a lot of watching characters say some things are kind of messed up and accepted as just hegemonic or fact, and you in the audience as an adult, especially if you’re a feminist, a feminist-minded adult thinking, “Oh, God! That’s how people think, isn’t it? Oh, no!” 

But the thing is I 100% think that Yazawa-sensei knows this! She is very clear-eyed in how she writes her characters. And I was blown away. It was incredible. And I think watching the anime also was good for me, because I think that Ai Yazawa’s art style is just so distinctive and so outside the universe of the art styles that are used in contemporary manga. In terms of its sense of distinctiveness, it almost reminds me a little bit—not art style-wise but just in terms of how distinctive it is—of Tatsuki Fujimoto, in terms of… somebody who doesn’t understand the medium, isn’t willing to dive into it, might think of it as a little off putting, right? But—

VRAI: It’s very detail dense.

TONY: Yes. But watching the anime, I think, was a really good easing into that art style, in a way that I felt like Paradise Kiss was a little opaque to me because of the art style.

VRAI: Oh, interesting. Uh-huh.

TONY: Which is not a diss on Paradise Kiss. It’s a diss on me for being so basic. But, you know, I can’t wait to talk about the character designs in this show and the art style because there’s so much to unpack there. Oh, my gosh. It’s—

VRAI: [crosstalk] Yeah, it is— Oh, no, please, finish your thought.

TONY: Yeah, that’s all I really had to say.

VRAI: Mm. No, it is interesting you say that because… So, for me, ParaKiss is one my favorite manga of all time, period, and certainly my favorite teen coming-of-age manga. But I always held off… I held off on Nana specifically because… Well, when I discovered ParaKiss, Nana was out of print at the moment and it had just gone on hiatus, so at first I was like, “Oh! I’ve seen things go on hiatus before. I’ll just wait for it to come back.”

DESTINY: [crosstalk] Come back. [Laughs]

VRAI: And then it didn’t come back. And so, then several years passed and we started the site, and I was like, “Ah, well, this is a big name that I haven’t seen, and we do this watchalong format, so I’ll just wait until we do it for the podcast,” and so I’ve been waiting for ten years! [Chuckles]

DESTINY: Oh, wow!

VRAI: But I know what you mean about Yazawa-sensei’s art, Tony, because as much as I love her—like, I love ParaKiss, I thought Last Quarter was pretty good—I’ve been working through Neighborhood Story, but it’s been kind of difficult reading it on my phone. I don’t have the physical volumes like I usually do for her work, and it can be hard to translate something that’s that visually dense and that has these very tiny, very word-dense text bubbles in a small digital format, and that’s been an interesting struggle.

But, yeah, I’m just so pleased to finally be watching this after hearing about it for years. And I’ve discovered—You know, I’ve sort of come across some spoilers over the years, just between editing stuff for the website and just doing a little bit of prep for this podcast, but I really don’t think that so much matters with a character study like this. I think Yazawa excels at writing human characters who are messy people where we very understand that they are messy and that we are watching them, rather than feeling like the work maybe accidentally aligns with their perspective, although… and one thing that I think we’ll coming back to is that the one area where I feel like that gets a little fuzzy is that 90% of men in Yazawa are trash! [Chuckles]

TONY: Mm-hm.

VRAI: But I do think the one for this episode—and it won’t be an issue next time—the one spoiler we are gonna kinda have to acquiesce to is that we don’t technically know that… You know, we have two Nanas—and very quickly Nana K. will get the nickname Hachi—but she hasn’t technically within these first seven episodes, but it’s gonna be really confusing to talk about them otherwise. We can use, like, Nana O. and Nana K. if we need to.

TONY: Yeah, let’s just use Hachi, please.

DESTINY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

VRAI: Yeah, that’ll be much easier!

TONY: Yeah, Hachi is Nana K., right?

VRAI: Yes.

TONY: I’m not…? Okay, okay, okay, good.

VRAI: No, no, you’re good, you’re good. Yeah. And I guess I’m a little… I guess I technically, in my potted history… But so, if you want to listen to this without watching the show, good on ya. I don’t know that you’ll have the best experience but we welcome ya. Or if you haven’t watched it in a while, don’t want to rewatch, but you’re checking in with us, the teeny-weeny little plot recap is that Nana Komatsu and Nana… is it Osaki? Now I’m checking. Yes, Nana Osaki… are two 20-year-old young women who meet serendipitously on a train to Tokyo. 

Nana Komatsu is twenty and has been very sheltered her whole life. She’s sort of chasing this romantic ideal of love but hasn’t found it. She got involved with an older man, who she was having an affair with, and then he kinda dumped her to go back to the big city, and she is now following her boyfriend there without any real plan of what she’s doing. Nana Osaki is a punk musician whose boyfriend also left to go to Tokyo, and she is going there two years later to pursue her dreams as a rock star. They part from the train and then once again serendipitously meet, looking at the same apartment, and decide to become roommates. And the story progresses from there as a human relationship drama and how these two navigate adulthood. 

And I think, before we start talking about the plot, the aesthetics I think are not a bad place to start. Like you said, the character designs, this series is monumentally influential in the world of fashion, and of course the music element is so important to it as well. Are either of you punk music fans? Tony, you’re of course a DJ, so do you want to talk?

TONY: Oh, my goodness! Well, I think what I’ll say is… Gosh, I don’t really know much about the universe of fashion or punk that the show inhabits. It’s not really my universe, but I do come from a similar kind of underground scene in my music-making. I’m a DJ in the underground techno and rave scene. So, a lot of the fashion stylings… there’s a lot of crossover between the fashions of the techno and rave scene, and some of it, especially the chains—like the chain that Ren wears with the lock on it is one that I’ve definitely seen on many men around me when I’ve gone out to parties, you know—the different ways that people will style themselves, the mindset around body modification is very specifically punk, right, with Nana having so many different earrings.

And I think it’s very fascinating to me because more than anything what really makes the show powerful is how the fashion is so specific to the characters’ identity and cultural location, in a way that I don’t often find in shows. I mean, to give a very silly example, I was having this conversation with my roommate the other day about the character designs in Gnosia, and they’re very pretty and they’re very frilly and they have all sorts of things going on, but what they tell us about the characters’ identities and where they are situated culturally within the world of Gnosia, I have absolutely no fucking idea, right? You know? [Chuckles] 

Versus, when I watch Nana, the minute I look at a character, I feel like, okay… and it doesn’t feel like stereotype. It feels like, oh, that is a person who has these influences from this specific fashion stylist, from this specific realm of cultural production. Which is different from stereotype, because stereotype is catering to a very shallow understanding of who people are and ascribing, oh, you know, this person wears this, and that communicates all these different things about their personality, even, you know? And it’s interesting thinking about that in the context of antiblackness, right, because in antiblackness the baggy pants might signify this culture, which signifies some negative attribute, right? Whereas I feel like in Nana, those things are disentangled a lot, right? Like, Junko and Kyosuke… that’s his name, right? Kyosuke?

VRAI: Yes.

TONY: Yeah, Junko and Kyosuke are Black characters, right? But that is disentangled necessarily from all the different cultural things that they represent and who they are as people. It’s not stereotyped. It’s specific. And, yeah, it’s so powerful in that way, and I’m just in awe of it, honestly, because I feel like I never encounter this in anime, this level of specificity, and this level of specificity that intersects with race.

DESTINY: I totally agree. I think that, especially if we’re talking about Junko… because there was one scene, actually, in Nana where Junko makes a face and I had to pause it and her… It’s insane. Her face actually turns black, and then it goes to her original skin tone, which when rewatching it, I was like, “What? What was that?” and I paused it and I was like, “What… Why did they…?” And so, it made more confirmation to me that, oh, she is a Black girl. And that’s not something that’s been really talked about, that I’ve always just kinda been like, well, I mean, just based off of her curly hair and even, like you mentioned, with her boyfriend with his dreads, it just kind of is reminiscent to, like, “Oh, we’re just here.” It’s never something that’s brought up, which honestly I’m kind of glad it wasn’t really brought up, because I know that sometimes when race is brought up it’s not always handled the best way, so I’m glad that it was just treated as just being a part of who they are and not something that needed to be called out or mentioned.

But going back to… I’m not really much of a punk fan, to be honest with you, but I am a fashion freak. I love fashion. I love just going on Pinterest and looking at different fashion. I love looking at old catalogs of runways and things like that. And Vivienne Westwood is just a strong piece throughout Nana, right? There’s even moments where she’s gifted Vivienne Westwood, and it’s something that you’ll see randomly. I think there’s a joke on social media where it’s just like watching the people of Nana go through things in life and they’re dripped out in Vivienne Westwood, where you’re like, “Oh, that is so expensive!” like that little lighter chain… It’s like, that’s expensive! But look at you just casually walking around with it. And I know they actually modeled a lot of Ren and Nana’s outfits and things very similar to the Sex Pistols, like Sid and Nancy. If you actually look at old pictures of them side by side, you’ll actually see they’re very reminiscent in the way that they dress and you can tell that they were very inspired by them as a couple when dressing them. And then, looking at Hachi’s clothing—

TONY: Oh, they’re literally— Hold on. Literally, the necklace! Like, look at that necklace! It is the same. The same necklace that Ren wears is worn by Sid Vicious! That’s crazy!

DESTINY: Yeah! Exactly! Isn’t that crazy?

TONY: And it’s also worn by like every porn star ever nowadays. Just gonna put it out there. [Laughs]

[Chuckling]

DESTINY: True! So, it’s just crazy to see how much of the real world got really submerged into this story. And just even looking at Hachi’s clothing, she’s very opposite of Nana’s outfits! Hers is very based off of her personality, and I think that both of them tell so much with their clothing and the way that they dress and style themselves. And even watching how their fashion sense basically evolves over time as the story goes on is something cool to notice, as well.

TONY: Well, yeah, because Nana’s often feels like it’s related much more to her sense of domesticity, right? And so much of Nana K.’s story feels like a woman who’s confronting the limits of the domestic fantasy. And that’s reflected in her clothing, right? All the ruffled, frilly edges. And, at the beginning at least, so much of it feels very domestic and traditionally feminine, much more so than Nana O.’s. Right?

VRAI: Yeah. Yeah. So, I am not a fashion expert. I probably know less about it than you, Destiny. I have learned a little bit because my partner’s quite interested in the history of garment-making and that kind of thing. There’s a really good article that came out in honor of the show’s anniversary. Honestly the anniversary’s been really helpful for prepping for this podcast. There was a wonderful article on Vogue where they talked about it from a fashion perspective and the fact that Hachi’s fashion style is what you would term soft romanticism, which just goes perfectly with her character. You’ve got all those Peter Pan collars, you’ve got a lot of very soft pastels, those high socks and stuff. And actually, Yazawa did an interview on the Westwood site where she mentioned that a lot of the pieces that Nana O. wears are based on personal pieces from her collection, which I think is just…

TONY: [crosstalk] Wow.

DESTINY: Oh, wow.

VRAI: Yeah, I know, right? So, she’s a big fan. And I think it’s so interesting because Vivienne Westwood is hugely influential to what punk is. I would not call myself a punk expert by any means or a music expert by any means, but I do like punk music. I know much more about American and British punk than I do Japanese punk, so, folks, I would love more info from the comments, but I’ll go from what I know if it helps. 

So, Westwood is… her house style dressed a lot of bands, so there is a sense to which you can say Westwood is punk and punk is Westwood, but at the same time I think there does come an element where it breaks down to… uh, what would you call it… fashion house punk or DIY punk. You know, these are kind of two different schools. And I think that will be an interesting tension because finances and the minutiae of making your way as an adult are so crucial to the setup of the series. I wonder what kind of give there will be there, because of course fashion and that dream of “Fake it till you make it” making appearances is also so core, not just to the series and its themes but also to making it as a musician, especially a female musician.

I do really like that… So, Blast’s music style definitely is a more melodic kind of punk. This is not “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” but I don’t think it has to be. I like more lyrically focused punk. This is more like “Celebrity Skin” Hole than it is “Violet” Hole. But actually what Nana’s style right now reminds me most of is X-Ray Spex, which technically still exists as a band, but it shouldn’t because it is singularly defined to me by its lead singer Poly Styrene, who has the most ethereally raw, haunting voice you ever did hear. I encourage folks to go out and listen to some of her work. It’s fucking incredible. But that was something that was really cool to me, to listen to those lyrical elements, and it makes me really want to know more about the evolution of punk in Japan. And especially, I’m curious to see how this thread of, speaking of arthouse and DIY, how this tension of having a label versus not having a label that they’ve set up with Nana versus Ren will continue to be a tension, you know?

TONY: Mm.

DESTINY: Mm.

VRAI: [Chuckles]

TONY: I think about this a lot as a techno DJ because I play shows mostly in small venues, and all the money that I’m paid is paid for by party promoters, who are just scrounging up money from their last party to pay for the next party, right? [Chuckles] You know, with every cent that they can afford to give me, paid directly into my bank account, you know, and with the flight and everything. 

And I put so much heart into my sets and, you know, I’m responsive to the crowd and I don’t preplan a set. But then when I go to, say, big music festivals, right, I often get frustrated because I’m like, “This is all pre-produced. This is all so getting away from the heart of what it means to be in the rave scene,” because rave, in a very similar way to punk, came from this very underground culture, it came from this very anti-establishment… and, I mean, really, rave music, especially the music that I make, originally came from Black culture and Black DJs in Detroit, which is often erased when you look at the larger scene, with the festivals and all of that, which always center these German and Dutch DJs who have no connection to that history. And so, to me, it’ll be really interesting to see how that question of the structures in which people make music and the structures that you’re allowed when you get a label but also how that controls you is going to be represented.

DESTINY: Something that I also did want to mention is… Kind of going back a little bit into the fashion aspect of it, [something] you’ll also notice a lot with Hachi is she mirrors a lot of her fashion style but she also mirrors it around the people that she’s with at the moment. So, you’ll notice when she’s… and I’m trying to make sure that this is very much at the beginning. When she’s with Junko and she’s hanging out with Junko a lot, you’ll see she often mirrors her a little bit in her wardrobe. And you’ll probably see later on, as she starts going around different people… and obviously she doesn’t dress like Nana, but she does end up finding herself dressing what maybe she thinks people would like to see her in, but also liking what she likes as well. 

It’s very interesting when you start to see how much Hachi molds herself to the people around her and how she takes on their thought processes. It’s just something I want you guys to notice when you’re watching it and be like, “Oh, that’s kinda crazy,” when you start noticing the way that she kind of maneuvers and dresses around. Like, she doesn’t ever take it too far where you feel like, oh, she’s putting on a costume of somebody else, but you definitely feel like, oh, she’s trying to fit in here, and so she’ll dress according to the part.

VRAI: I think that, you know, as we talk, Nana isn’t the only series to have characters with specific costumes and costumes that change depending on mood and location, obviously. But I think that is a very shoujo thing. I think of a lot of especially battle shounen, you know, you get your character and this is their outfit and it’s recognizable, whereas shoujo is a lot more free with looks and changing and how that can affect emotionality. But often that—

TONY: Famously Sailor Moon, for example. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Exactly. And I think that—

DESTINY: [Chuckles]

VRAI: Well, and famously Cardcaptor Sakura, which I think makes Asaka such a wonderful pick for this, to really convey those. And that can be such a struggle with anime because, you know, with manga, the artist is limited by their own limitations, you know, what they feel up to drawing for that few panels for that scene; whereas with an anime, you are making a character sheet and this is the model for the character, and if the character has a new outfit, you gotta make a whole new model sheet, and that’s a lot of reference, that’s a lot of money. It’s something that is a lot bigger undertaking to intentionally take on and make part of your series rather than saying, “They always wear this outfit” or “They wear this basic shape with these clothes.” So, to have that level of detail is so beautiful and I think that’s something that you probably have to fight hard to preserve. And I think it also ties into that specificity we were talking about earlier, you know. It tells you, “Pay attention to this. This isn’t simply aesthetic; it is also thematic,” which honestly I think even goes as far as tying into what makes Junko and Kyosuke so cool and understated as Black characters, whereas in other… kinda famously, anime is sorta shitty about that.

TONY: Oh, my God. Yeah! [Laughs]

VRAI: [crosstalk] You know, the Nagatoro “Oh, she’s just tan” of it all. Whereas, no, if they’ve given these characters locs and curly hair and she wears a bonnet to bed, these are specific choices you’ve made on purpose, and we know this because it’s consistent across the work. And I think that small thing informs so much of what makes the show feel so true and lifelike.

TONY: And with what you said earlier about the fashion and what it demands of the artist, right, I just put in the chat a picture of… a character sheet for just one of Nana O.’s outfits. Did one of you guys want to describe what you see in this?

VRAI: Oh, my God.

DESTINY: Oh, wow.

VRAI: Yeah.

DESTINY: Uh, well…

[Chuckling]

DESTINY: She has that iconic Vivienne Westwood ring on, which I love.

TONY: The one that’s segmented, yeah.

DESTINY: Yeah. She’s in this super short skirt, which I feel like wouldn’t really be her style so much so. I feel like it would be more of Hachi’s style, but it would be very interesting to see it on her.

VRAI: Yeah, and it’s like… So, you’ve got the four turns that you usually see on a character sheet, so we can see her from the four major angles, but we’ve also got closeups of both hands because she’s two different rings, we’ve got both of her ears because she’s got earrings that are different on each side, and closeups of each of her accessories. This is hugely detailed!

TONY: Yeah, it’s like “This is how the segmented ring moves in five different poses. This is the inside of one of the rings, detailed so close up that you can see every little rivet of the ring.”

DESTINY: It’s crazy. It’s so detailed, yeah.

VRAI: Makes it make more sense that… Destiny, how much reused footage are we gonna be seeing? [Chuckles]

DESTINY: [Laughs]

VRAI: Oh, I see.

DESTINY: Um, yeah! There are a lot of those flashbacks [Chuckles] and the ones where you’re just like, “Oh, okay. We’ve already gotten to this part already.” I don’t think it’s painstakingly annoying, but I do think sometimes it is a little like, “Ugh, we really don’t have to do this again.” I think it was episode 6 that’s even just a recap already, and we’re just like, “We’re only six [in]… Why are we recapping already?”

VRAI: Yeah, it’s interesting. Like, we are revisiting their meeting with the added context of where they came from, which is cool, but I feel like in another show it would be like, “Oh, we’re revisiting the key moment of this, with some extra dialogue that reflects things that we know now,” rather than “We played the first episode again with one or two new scenes.”

DESTINY: One or two new scenes, yeah. And it’s like, okay, at this point I could have just went back and watched it again and been like, oh, okay, I get it now. But having that recap, it almost didn’t feel like it needed to be there, but… So, you get some of those throughout the season.

VRAI: [crosstalk] Gotcha. It feels very tied to anime production of that era, where “Alright, we’re going to run this for four cours, so we gotta make that work.”

DESTINY: Absolutely.

TONY: But aren’t we happy that it got that many? Because Lord knows they don’t get that many nowadays.

VRAI: Oh, yeah. Listen, I’m not complaining necessarily. I think it’s sort of charming and fascinating, but it’s twenty years ago now. It’s fascinatingly a different world to think about.

TONY: Yeah.

VRAI: Well, we are a little over the halfway point now, so we should probably get into some of the theme things. I feel like we really need to talk about, already, how this show deals with sex, because it really bowled me over that… You know, Nana O. is a particular type of character. She’s sort of the “tough but innerly fragile who’s built up these walls around her” kind of character.

These characters are very human, but they also echo types. And so, it’s not a surprise to me to see that she and Ren were sexually active, although for a manga that started in 2000, the fact that right out the gate she’s very firm and self-advocating about birth control, I thought, was cool, especially in this era of “Oh, well, you’ll have a baby and then you’ll derail all your priorities.” But I was super surprised that Hachi has sex, that Hachi has had sex with multiple partners, even though she’s like the very sheltered heroine, and from the beginning of the story. And that feels notable for her type of character, for the innocent character.

DESTINY: Yeah, I think it really calls out to, again, the human aspect of these characters, right, because that… And I think that’s something that also gravitated me towards the manga and the show, is because it’s like, “Yeah. So, what? It’s just a part of who you are as a person.” You know what I’m saying, in the way of just growing up and going through all these different feelings and things like that. I was so tired of seeing that innocent type of archetype character, because when you think about Hachi as a whole, you just know that she’s the type of person to want to leap into… Especially when it comes to relationships, she wants to give it her all, in every sense of the word. She craves that intimacy so much. So, I would’ve been shocked if that wasn’t part of her character. So, seeing that she was able to kind of express that… And no one really judged her, either, for it. No one was like, “You shouldn’t be doing that.” No one chastised her for it, even Junko. I don’t think— If I’m remembering correctly, too, it was never about that. Maybe about how quickly she fell for partners and things like that, but it was never about the act itself, which I also thought was real and very thoughtful in a way, you know?

TONY: If anything, Junko is frustrated with Hachi for trusting people too quickly and for her kind of romantic fantasies that she has about people and how they potentially interfere with her ability to see danger she’s in or… I find it really fascinating because… Hachi is kind of a unique character because usually the sexual act is kind of represented as this kind of fall from innocence where it’s like “Before sex you think that romance is wonderful and great and this magical thing that’s gonna make all your problems go away, and then after sex you’re just like, ‘Oh. Uh… this is not good. Yikes.’” But for her it’s interesting because sex actually pulls her deeper into those fantasies and deeper into that romantic feeling, right? Which in my experience is really much more of how sex operates oftentimes, at least in my relationships, as, you know, sex is something that can reinforce your fantasies about a person, can lead you to be a little more delulu, right?

DESTINY: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

TONY: And can be… You can read onto sex what is comfortable for your sense of the world and what is useful for you to maintain your ego and your sense of who you are, right? And that’s really what happens with Nana, is that the sex that she has she interprets as… One moment really stuck to me. It’s the moment where she has sex with Shoji for the first time, right? And she’s lying in Shoji’s arms, and we get parallel shots of her lying in Shoji’s arms and Junko lying in Kyosuke’s arms, and she says, “A woman’s lot in life… can be pretty good.” You know? Or something like that. And I was just like, there’s so much happening in that one quote and one image, right? So much about compulsory heterosexuality, right?

VRAI: Ooh, because Hachi’s a lesbian! We’ll get to that.

TONY: [Laughs] Because she imagines that this is what it means to have happiness as a woman, is to be lying in a man’s arms, right, and he’s satisfied in some sort of monogamous relationship that is, in spite of everything that led up to that moment, of Shoji berating her and saying that she’s naïve and stupid (or I don’t know if he used that word, but, you know, it’s the implication, right?) and she’s manipulating him and just all these grotesque stereotypes. So, what it means to be a woman is to be manipulated and then to trick yourself into thinking, “This man is the man of my dreams.” You know?

VRAI: Mm-hm.

DESTINY: And I think that something that Hachi constantly… Like you mentioned before, where it comes to her desire to constantly find meaning in things that maybe are not there, the way that she looks at sex, she’s like, “I’m falling deeper in love with this person.” It’s like when you’re like, oh… And that was the part of me where I was just like, “Oh, I see myself. I get it, girl!” where you’re just—especially as a lovergirl, myself—where you’re just like, “Oh, my God! He texted me good morning today!”

TONY: [Laughs]

DESTINY: “Oh, my God! That means I am the first thing he thought of in the morning!” It could’ve been like thirty other girls that he texted or you could’ve been on the list, you know, but in your mind, you’re just like, yeah! And I think with Hachi it’s like, oh, I had sex with him. That means he loves me or, like, he values me or he sees me in this way because of X, Y, and Z, because of what I can give him. Just like you mentioned with that quote, she feels like this is—ah, my poor, sweet baby—this is what it means to be loved, to be… And you’re right. Eh, Shoji… I have my own thoughts about Shoji.

VRAI: [Snorts in amusement]

DESTINY: But, you know, she has these relationships and you’ll see how it’s just like she just doesn’t understand, one, there’s so much more, right? There’s so much more to life in general and more to having a healthy relationship. But I mean even with her first relationship being with the salaryman… I don’t even want to call it a relationship.

TONY: [pensive] Mm.

DESTINY: It’s not a relationship!

VRAI: [pained] Mm!

DESTINY: That man… was a predator!

TONY: Yeah! I mean, she was in high school when it was happening, right?

VRAI: [crosstalk] Total creep.

DESTINY: She was in high school; he was a grown man. And, again, I will not dive too deep into it, but as someone who’s been in that situation, where I was with a very older man in the very young ages of my adolescence, you feel like you’re just so special to this person. Mind you, they’re an adult and you are a child and you know nothing. And looking at Hachi and her relationship, the way that she even talks about her being with this married salaryman, and she’s just like, “It was true love,” I’m like, “No, it wasn’t! You don’t understand!” And she’s just had this thought since such a young age, it just follows her throughout her whole life, it feels like. And so, yeah, the way she views sex is it’s like… I’m happy that she’s sexually active and she’s happy to go through it and she’s being safe and thoughtful, but I’m also like, “You’re putting it in the wrong places! The validation you’re looking for shouldn’t be there.”

VRAI: And I’m so struck by the tenderness that the story treats Nana with, because I think it’s super important that this runs in a shoujo, though, because I think a lot of the story beats are things you would, at least with where the genre… (Er, not the “genre.” Bad self.) … within where the demographic has codified now, you would think of these as josei tropes because it’s about young adults making their way in the working world. But it’s a shoujo. And I think the way that Hachi thinks of romance is very reflective and, I think, meditating on the way that sex was often used in shoujo works at the time, because it’s not like shoujo heroines never have sex. But it was often something that was like a climactic milestone in the relationship, where you’re cementing your bond as your true love forever. 

These are hugely emotional moments. Whether that’s positive or devastating, it’s still like a major… sex is a major milestone. And I think nowadays, you know, you would have… This isn’t Madoka’s fault, but it is assuredly a thing that seinen loves to take patterns in shoujo and be like, “Hey! Has anybody ever noticed that this is kinda weird and that maybe we should dig into that? Aren’t they fucking stupid for not doing that before?” Whereas Nana has created a heroine who believes that having sex means that she’s found true love, and it’s like, “Oh, girl, no. You’re a baby and you don’t know anything. You are so sheltered. And you are being damaged by people who are taking advantage of you. Let’s walk through what this means.” And it’s not contemptuous of her. It’s not contemptuous of those other stories. It just wants to think about them and set them in this real-world context, and I respect it so much for that.

DESTINY: Yeah.

TONY: Absolutely.

VRAI: And like you were saying, Nana O. is working with a very different set of tropes. I’m so struck by that “Ah, just have the baby.” Fuck you. Ren is on my shit list forever.

TONY: Again, this is back to compulsory heterosexuality, right? Nana O. has different desires for her life than wanting to have kids. There’s this one very particular track: the only way you are seen as valuable to the male gaze if you’re a woman, or any kind of person whose body maybe is capable of making babies, is as a baby-making machine, right? You are supposed to… You know, you can have your fantasy of a career and joy for a little bit. You know, you can go to college, but [in] college you’re actually supposed to be meeting a man and then having kids and then living a life of domesticity. And of course, you know, nowadays it’s more like you have to do that and have a career. [Chuckles] No longer is it “Just be a housewife.” It’s like “Be a housewife and have a career.” It’s, like, a lot. And so, for me it’s interesting how much she pushes back against that and how that doesn’t stop her from enjoying the relationship that she does have with Ren. She still enjoys the sex with him, and the sex is not presented as being bad because of it. There’s not a dichotomy set up between Nana K. having sex and Nana O. not, because they both have sex, right? But she takes active steps to make sure that it doesn’t result in a baby.

When it becomes clear that that is not the direction that… I mean, the whole thing with Ren was really puzzling to me in some ways. But one thing that was really interesting is that he goes on this whole thing about how he wants to have this kid with her and that they could just live this kind of normative life where they’re taking care of the kid, and then immediately, when she says that she’s not going to, he tells her what he was planning to tell her all along, which is “I’m moving to Tokyo. I’m leaving you. Our relationship is over,” essentially. And neither of them are happy about it, it looks like. I mean, Ren looks like he’s about to cry on the train and Nana actually is crying, right?

VRAI: Yeah, it’s… I don’t know. I can’t imagine, from here, liking— Maybe I won’t hate Ren, but I can’t imagine liking Ren.

TONY: Oh, I’m not saying he’s great. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, no. But I mean more that… I mean, I guess I was bringing that up sort of in comparison to Shoji, who is like… he’s got these nice guy traits that sucks, but there are moments of him that are more in that realm of Yazawa excelling at “Oh, you’re a human who’s fucking up, too,” because he’s so shitty and masculine to Hachi in that moment, but then later on I’m like, “Oh, no, I understand why you’re freaked out about your girlfriend showing up at your house with no plans and no money and no job,” and like, “Yeah, no, you’re fine being uncomfortable with that. That’s fine.”

TONY: Yeah… [Laughs] I would be, too!

DESTINY: Yeah. It’s like there— [Sighs] And I think that’s part of the beauty in all of it, is because you see it as like, okay… To be honest, I don’t care for Shoji, and as we continue to watch the show, you both will see why I don’t care for him. I think—

VRAI: Because he’s a man in Yazawa manga who’s not George?

[Chuckling]

DESTINY: Yeah, exactly. I think he’s very much that “Oh, I’m a nice guy!” I hate that archetype because I know you are not a nice guy and this façade that you’re doing, [there’s] no accountability, which is frustrating. But then, it’s like, you’re right. You have Hachi here, who is just like, “Oh, my God, you got into the school of your dreams? I’m so happy for you, but I’m also going to just lock myself onto you.” And not only does she do it to Shoji, but she also does it to Junko, too, because Junko has her own dreams. These are not Hachi’s dreams. Hachi’s one of those people where she just wants to be guided through life. She never wants to be someone who has her own discernment inside of herself as far as what my dreams are going to be. She thinks very… right now, what’s happening in this moment. 

And it’s so funny because I’ve met so many people like that, especially women who are just like, I don’t… And it blows me, especially as someone who is a feminist. It just is like, “You have the agency to choose what you want to do! Why would you give up to anybody else?” I just… Sometimes I just wish I could be like, “What do you want to do? What are the things that guide you?” because she just follows Junko, then she follows Shoji, and she’s just following whoever’s around her with no real thought into what she wants to do.

TONY: And it’s very interesting because there’s very important key moments in the series where she’s at a crossroads, like where Shoji has just berated her and she’s kind of puzzled because she’s out there in the middle of nowhere, having just…

DESTINY: Left her family. [Chuckles]

TONY: Yeah, and run into her disgusting predator ex. And he gives her a narrative, right, with how she should think about herself, the narrative that, of course, Kyosuke and Junko seem to agree on. Kyosuke and Junko narrativize to Shoji this romantic “Yeah, you guys are obviously into each other. Shoji, you’re being stupid for leaving her in the wild out there. And Nana, even though you haven’t said it, obviously you’re in love with him! Go to him!” You know?

VRAI: Yeah, it sucks so bad!

TONY: And she just goes with it, right? And there’s such extreme contrast between the Shoji that we see in the manga, which is so mean to Nana, and then what she then says in her whole monologue to him about, like, “I see this kind, loving person who’s brought me so much joy!” When, girl? When has he brought you that? I have not seen it! [Chuckles]

DESTINY: And a part of me also feels for Junko in the way of having to be that mother figure when you never asked to be in that situation or that position. Again, as someone who’s been in that position a lot of times where people feel like you can solve everything for them. And going back to even Junko being a mixed-race Black woman and having to tell her friend, like, “Hey, you can’t do that” or “Don’t do that,” or being kind of like that guiding light for her, it could be very daunting and exhausting, and, you know, you just tell them, “Oh, you know, you’re in love. You’re gonna do this.” You kinda push them in a direction where you could hope that they would figure it out on their own. And I feel like a lot of times I wish Junko would have more serious conversations with Hachi in a way where she didn’t just coddle her so much. 

But again, when you’re in that situation and you love your friend to death and you feel like you are that older sister or that person where you have to help them, you find yourself kinda in a crossroads because you don’t want to be too hard on them and you still want to live your life and have your own things. You know, like, Junko has her own boyfriend that she’s trying to deal with. She’s in her own school. There’s so many things happening in Junko’s life outside of Hachi, but you’ll see whenever they’re around each other, it just turns onto Hachi, how is Hachi feeling, what she’s doing, what’s her next move. It’s sad and frustrating…

TONY: [crosstalk] She has main character syndrome, yeah.

DESTINY: Yeah. It’s frustrating, especially when you’re in that type of friendship, because you truly do love your friend but you will end up giving a lot of yourself to your friend without even realizing, which is just tough within itself.

VRAI: Yeah, and I think the show—

TONY: [crosstalk] Yeah. And to— Sorry. Sorry.

VRAI: No, please, go ahead.

TONY: I was just going to say: and I think what you brought up about her being mixed race is also relevant because so often Black women are expected to be the caretakers of non-black people, right? [Chuckles] And if they’re not, they’re seen as, like, angry. Not that that’s ever explicitly stated in the text, but to me it’s a very difficult-to-avoid resonance that her role has.

VRAI: And I think the story really does convey why they are still friends, because Hachi is so… she’s just so sincerely sweet, and if you asked her to do something for you, she’d do it in a second. But she doesn’t think about what you need. She doesn’t think about the fact that by bothering Junko at her job, she could get her fired! And I feel some sympathy for Hachi because I was really quite that self-absorbed at that age, just sweet and I loved my friends, and if you’d asked me I’d tell you I would have done anything for them, but I was just so oblivious and self-centered that I wasn’t thinking about how I was inconveniencing them with things that I was doing because I was doing those things; they couldn’t have anything to do with my loved ones! And, like, no. No, you’re a teenager and stupid. You’re a teenager and you’re ignorant and just not thinking about the people around and why. 

But, yeah, I do sort of hope that that push to… I mean, clearly, the push to make Hachi more independent is a key part of this series. And I do think it’s… Clearly, it doesn’t happen to everyone, but I think there is definitely a narrative with young femme women where, yeah, it’s like “Follow your dreams!” but nobody ever actually gives them the material steps of what that means, like how to actually enact that in the real world. Hachi hasn’t learned— Because Hachi’s big problem is that, sure, love is easy for her to grasp on to because it’s what she knows. She knows that she loves the people in her life and she wants to stay with them, and everything else is just steps to do that. But she doesn’t know how to apply for an apartment. She doesn’t really know how to look at a career, not just a part-time job. She doesn’t to take… like, “If I want to do this, I need to go here and I need to go these steps to have a job.” That’s never occurred to her as part of her life. That’s never been instilled in her as something that is important. And to a certain extent that’s personal fault because clearly Junko has managed to do it. But it’s also just something that’s not considered to teach young women because, yeah, you’re gonna get married and have a baby anyway and then you’ll be a housewife with a man to rely on.

DESTINY: Exactly.

VRAI: I don’t know. I’m really loving this show, and I’m so glad to finally be watching it.

TONY: Oh, big same. Big same. It really is so much of what I’ve been looking for for so many years, because, I mean, I think one thing that’s always frustrated me about romances is the sense that… it’s what we were talking about earlier about sex. In real life, in my experience, sex is such a huge part of romance from the beginning. And that aspect of “What do you do after you’ve had sex in a romantic relationship?” is, to me, the really interesting thing because, in my experience, most of a relationship is after you’ve had sex, right? So, to focus on everything else often feels like ignoring the most interesting part of a relationship to me. So, to have shows where that’s really centered—and centered with such naturalism because the dialogue in this show is so astonishingly naturalistic—is wonderful, and I could not ask for a better adaptation.

We have to talk a little bit about the directorial choices and the visuals in this show, because, oh, my God. The use of shadow, alone, is…

VRAI: Yeah, it’s beautiful.

TONY: … mind blowing.

DESTINY: Yeah. It really is.

VRAI: It is a good-looking show. And we haven’t even talked about… Eh, well, I think it’s okay because it’s definitely going to keep coming up. I am curious with the manga, because this issue of… these two women are so wonderful and multifaceted and their, as far as I know, permanent love interests are so trash that I wonder if the manga came back at this point and the Nanas didn’t end up together if there would be tables flipping left and right.

DESTINY: It’s hard for me to talk on this because I know what happens in both the manga and the anime, so… I feel like, based off of where we are now, I think if it ended the way that it did without the Nanas reconciling in any way, again it would be just one of those things where it would probably lay hand to how honest and true the story is, right?

VRAI and TONY: Mmm.

DESTINY: Not every story ends up with a pretty bow. Unfortunately sometimes the people that we love so dearly and so intensely, too… because I think we’ll notice throughout the series just how intensely everyone’s codependency is throughout this entire story.

VRAI: Deeply!

DESTINY: Everybody has some type of codependency issue among each other. [Chuckles] But I think when you have someone who you love so intensely and so strongly for such a period of time in your life, it doesn’t always end perfectly, especially when it comes to friendship breakups and relationship breakups. Sometimes things just don’t end up with a nice bow. And something that I’ve started learning now, being in my 30s, is… I used to see people—like, older people—and I used to be like: how did you get here? How’d you get to this chapter in your life? How’d you end up living here and you have a daughter or a son and you have no husband or no wife. How did you get here? How did your story unfold to this? 

And I’m always curious about that, because, you know, we all have different walks of life and all that jazz, but it doesn’t always end up with a pretty bow and I feel like people maybe wouldn’t flip tables as much as we would think. I think it would lean more into, like, this was a true story. This is just how people feel throughout their lives. And it’s bittersweet and it hurts and I think that’s why everyone’s like, “It makes me cry every time!” [Chuckles]

VRAI: I mean, that is why I adore Paradise Kiss so much, is it’s willing to do things with the romance story that aren’t often done. So, yeah, nah, fair enough.

DESTINY: Yeah, Paradise Kiss makes me cry all the time. That goodbye scene, I’m like, [Gasps raspily].

VRAI: [Exhales steadily, with a noticeable rasp]

DESTINY: Yeah, exactly.

VRAI: Yeah, I’m very… I’m so hype. Is there any important setup from the beginning that you want to touch on that you think we haven’t really talked about yet?

DESTINY: In the first couple episodes… So, we did 1 through 7. So, in these episodes, I almost want to say not much happened. You’re just really getting an introduction to everybody. Ah! I did want to mention Yasu. That’s my…

VRAI: He’s a bro!

DESTINY: If we have any green flags… [Chuckles]

VRAI: He’s the other dude who doesn’t suck. It’s him and Kyosuke!

TONY: He really doesn’t suck! I was just thinking about this.

DESTINY: That’s my boy!

TONY: I wrote it down that the men in Nana’s band other than Ren seem like legitimately decent people.

VRAI: I’m not sure about the blond, but it remains to be seen.

TONY: Yeah, they were kind of objectifying Nana. [Chuckles]

DESTINY: Yeah, you’ll see. Yeah, I think Yasu’s the only one.

[Laughter]

DESTINY: And Shin maybe, but you’ll have to meet Shin way later on. But I think, yeah, Yasu is… I have a little keychain of him, too, on my phone. That’s my baby. I love him. He is a green flag. I love how they met Yasu and it was like, “Oh, okay, she’s actually in capable hands.” Like, “We’re good to leave her.” Like, they didn’t care about anybody else! But, like, he’s just so intelligent, so smart. I feel like there’s so much depth to his character, too. He’s not just like, oh, that character just says “Okay” to everything.

TONY: There’s actually a few moments that I kinda want to talk about. If we can have, like, quick lightning round of unpacking certain quotes… Can we do that as kind of a structure?

VRAI: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hit me with the quick-fire ones you want to hit.

TONY: Okay. So, the first one is Yasu saying to the blond-haired boy, “Nana is not some cat who belongs to Ren.” I forget exactly what the end of that quote is, but just implying that…

VRAI: Right, that she’ll go to Tokyo if she wants to, basically.

TONY: Right. I thought that was so interesting because it was one of the first times that a male character in the series has talked about a woman as like, “No, she deserves to have agency, and the way you’re looking at her is infantilizing. Stop it.” [Chuckles] You know?

VRAI: From the jump, too. Like, this is backstory. Yasu continuing to be a green flag.

DESTINY: Yeah, he’s literally just… He’s wonderful. Just a wonderful guy. [Chuckles]

VRAI: Yeah. Alright, hit me, hit me. Next one.

TONY: Okay, next one. We didn’t talk about Shoji’s rape comment, but I feel like it’s worth mentioning.

VRAI: Yeah! Mm…

TONY: That moment, oh, my God, it made my stomach just drop, when Shoji is like, “We can’t be here alone, because I might force myself on you!” And Nana looks at him and has the most human reaction of just a pause and just “Why would you say that?”

VRAI: Yeah, because… Yeah.

TONY: Yeah. And then the moment where she says, “I love you, but you say things that make me lose interest.”

VRAI: Yeah. Well, and I think that comment is at such the heart of the mentality of why sex doesn’t happen earlier in a lot of stories aimed at young girls, because men are scary, that idea that men are wolves, to use the Japanese idiom, that if you let your guard down, they’ll hurt you and they won’t think anything of it. So, obviously, if you have sex, that’s a big act of trust. And, you know, it is, but it shouldn’t have to be like that, in that be-all-end-all way. And that’s hurting women to have to frame it like that.

TONY: Or to even be close to a man at all!

VRAI: Yeah, because Hachi’s trying so hard to make this a friendship even though she did like him.

TONY: No, no, no, I… It just, to me, was so interesting because her response felt so naturalistic. And it wasn’t a “I hate you because you say this.” It wasn’t a self-blaming. It was her standing up for herself and saying… It reminded me of a quote… I forget who it was from, but that when you say hurtful things to people, it makes them love you a little less. And I think about that a lot and why we have to be so careful with what we say, you know?

VRAI: Mm-hm.

TONY: Okay. Um…

VRAI: Next one, hit me, hit me.

TONY: Okay. I think, similarly, when she does stand up to Shoji, she says to herself, “Why, at a time like this, must I speak like a bitch?”

[Chuckling]

VRAI: Aside. I’ve been watching it dubbed and I don’t remember what the line is there, but I remember it sounds a lot more natural!

DESTINY: Yeah.

[Laughter]

VRAI: But the sentiment of that is real, though, in terms of… well, I mean, you know, you’re either a princess or a witch, right? You’re either a good girl or a bitch. And standing up for herself, I guess, makes her a bitch. And it’s so revealing of the mentality that’s been driven into her.

DESTINY: Yeah, and how she categorizes herself. You know, something that I’m always curious about and they never dive into this, so this is just me talking in general.

VRAI: Ooh, yes, please.

DESTINY: You know, Hachi is one of three girls. I’m very curious to know how her siblings are. I know that we see them very, very briefly. She has one gyaru sister who’s younger than her, and then she has an older sister that I am pretty sure is married. So, I’m very interested to see, especially her being, I think, pretty much the middle child, because I know her younger sister is younger, right? 

I’m always interested in how that dynamic also applies to why she, one, seeks validation the way that she does and then, two, what was drilled into her growing up and how she views things in that way. Because her sister being a gyaru character, her younger sister, is just… you know, she’s so flashy and her skin is actually super tan. And, yeah, so it’s kind of funny when you see it in the manga form because you’re just like, “Who is this character?” and it turns out it’s her sister. And it’s just so interesting to see she’s trying to put herself in this box or this bubble of “Oh, I don’t want to be this way. I want to be this perfect archetype.” And seeing her sisters being so different from her, it’s just so interesting, and I wish we could learn a little bit more about her just being that middle daughter.

VRAI: Yeah, I think, already even, there’s a lot that you could unpick from that. Oh, we gotta come back to that. That’s so interesting.

TONY: Yeah. Okay, last lightning round piece. I have to ask you, Destiny, because you would know this. In the manga, are the song lyrics included, and do they include the phrase “Everybody’s raping me”?

DESTINY: That, I don’t remember. That, I genuinely don’t remember.

TONY: Because that’s one of the lyrics that Nana O. sings in one of her punk songs, and it is like “Whaaat?”

DESTINY: Really? I have to go back and see that, because… [Creaks wordlessly, as if in awe]

VRAI: I mean, that’s very Courtney Love, like Hole. That’s very punk.

DESTINY: Yeah!

TONY: Okay, okay. [Chuckles]

DESTINY: Because that’s what I was thinking. It’s leaning into that punk… Yeah. Interesting. I gotta go back.

VRAI: No, that’s so punk. Like, on the one hand it’s absurd and it reminds me of the theme song ending on “I want to need your love.” I kept thinking, like, alright, is this actually the cool, multilayered thing that it’s implying in English or is [it] the fact that it’s a loanword, the fact that maybe it’s not necessarily an entirely intentional construction and maybe it’s like… Is it supposed to mean more straightforwardly “I need” rather than “I am chasing the desire to want love like I’m supposed to”? And so, I think the fact that “Everybody’s raping me” is a line she sings in English… it’s like, on the one hand, that’s very punk because it’s talking about sexual violence towards women but taking it out of her own mouth and using it as a weapon. That’s very punk. But also, there’s always… the language barrier, I think, is very interesting and will continue to be interesting with how the music is constructed in this show, you know?

TONY: Oh, yes.

DESTINY: Yeah.

VRAI: I’m hype. I’m hype.

DESTINY: Yeah, this is really fun. I’m really excited to go through the series again.

VRAI: Yay!

DESTINY: It’s always great. Especially when people don’t know what to expect, I’m always just like, “Oh, just you wait. There’s so much to unpack.”

TONY: Oh, I can promise you, between me and Vrai, I am completely, completely unspoiled on anything, so you can count on me to have just fully in-the-moment shocked reactions, any reaction you could imagine.

DESTINY: I can’t wait.

VRAI: That’s why we do these watchalongs. I think our plan is loosely to probably do either five or six episodes, depending on how dense it goes, because, you know, it’s a long show but we don’t want to do it for six months. So, I think, loosely, our goal next time, if you’re watching along at home, is to do episodes 8 through maybe 17 or 18. And we will dig into the happenings there.

Thank you so much for joining us at home, AniFam. We hope that you are having a good time. We hope that you are likewise celebrating Nana’s 25th anniversary, and we wish Ai Yazawa all the best because she has given us so much wonderful art. Please check out Destiny’s work at Getting Animated across the internet.

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