Nana Komatsu
Encyclopedia
Name Nana Komatsu
Occupation Misc
Misc
Misc or MISC may refer to:* miscellaneous* Minimal instruction set computer* MISC Berhad, Malaysia International Shipping Corporation Berhad* Moi International Sports Centre, in Nairobi, Kenya...

, housewife
Gender Female
Born July 7, 1980
Height 158 cm
Weight 46 kg
Family Mother (Natsuko), Father (Goro), Older sister Nao, younger sister Nami
Spouse Takumi Ichinose
Portrayed by Aoi Miyazaki
Aoi Miyazaki
is a Japanese actress. She is best known for her pure image and roles such as in Nana and Virgin Snow. Her brother Masaru Miyazaki is an actor, and they starred together in the film Hatsukoi. She married Sosuke Takaoka on June 15, 2007, her partner since she was fifteen.-Career:Miyazaki started...

 (film 1), Yui Ichikawa
Yui Ichikawa
, is an actress and model from Tokyo, Japan. She is also known by her nickname, Yui-nyan. As an actress she has appeared in several dramas , and in recent years she has concentrated more on her film career. She played a minor role in the movie Ju-on: The Grudge and reprised her character for a...

 (film 2), KAORI
Kaori
Kaori is a Japanese feminine given name. Kaoru is a variant of this name and it uses the same kanji as Kaori . Both names mean "Fragrance".It may refer to:-Entertainment:...

 (anime series), Kelly Sheridan
Kelly Sheridan
Kelly Sheridan is a Canadian voice actress based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.-Biography:Sheridan has voiced various roles in anime and other animated cartoons, such as Barbie in the computer generated Barbie film series since 2001...

 (English dub), Rumi Shishido (video game)


is a fictional character in the manga/anime series, NANA
Nana (manga)
is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa, serialized in Cookie published by Shueisha. The manga derives its title from the name of the two main characters, both of whom are called Nana. Nana Komatsu is a small town girl who goes to Tokyo to follow her boyfriend and...

, by Ai Yazawa
Ai Yazawa
is a Japanese manga author. Her pen name comes from Japanese singer Eikichi Yazawa, of whom she is a fan.-Biography:Yazawa started her manga publishing life in 1985. She studied in a fashion school but later dropped out. Throughout her 15 years of publishing, she wrote over 10 series in Ribon...

. She is the titular "Nana" of the series, along with Nana Osaki
Nana Osaki
is a fictional character in the manga/anime series Nana, by Ai Yazawa. She is the titular "Nana" of the series, along with Nana Komatsu.To disambiguate between the girls, the English-language publisher of the manga, VIZ Media, uses Nana O. to refer to Nana Osaki.-Character history:Nana O. was born...

.

To disambiguate between the girls, she is generally referred to as 'Hachi' by her friends, and the English-language publisher of the manga, VIZ Media
VIZ Media
VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...

, uses Nana K. to refer to Nana Komatsu.

Character

Nana Komatsu came to Tokyo, looking to find her dream. Unlike Osaki, Komatsu came from a large and happy household, though her childish outlook prevented her from living on her own initially. She's the middle child of three sisters.

Her chance encounter with Osaki began a friendship which changes Komatsu's life forever. She is introduced to Osaki's band, Black Stones, and their members (initially Nobuo Terashima and Yasushi Takagi). She later even helps "Blast" to find their bassist by drawing posters to advertise the vacancy and posting one at the furniture store where she first worked and another at Jackson Hole. Much to her surprise, she also discovers that the members of Blast were friends with the members of Trapnest, a popular rock band of which she's a very big fan. After learning of Osaki's breakup with Honjo Ren, she helps the two to reconnect after realizing that they were still very much in love with each other.

In the early stages of the manga, Nana fell in love with many men at first sight. Her affair with Asano Takashi, an older, married man from Tokyo, was a brief tryst, but she believed it was her first love.

Nana's first serious relationship was with Shoji Endo, whom she met at art school through her high school friend Junko. Shoji's acceptance into art university was Nana's reason for moving to Tokyo, since her life before was centered on happiness through love. Shoji and Nana dated until he found her demands tiring and he cheated on her with Sachiko, a restaurant co-worker. After the confrontation of his infidelity, he chooses to stay with Sachiko because she stood up for him when Osaki threaten to beat him up for his unfaithfulness to Hachi. Although they may have lingering feelings for each other (as hinted from their meeting at Jackson Hole after Nana's engagement with Takumi), Nana and Shouji are already in serious relationships and promise not to see one another again, since they must move forward from their past.

After Shoji, Komatsu found herself caught between two men: Takumi Ichinose, the leader and bassist of Trapnest, and Nobu, the guitarist of Blast (Osaki's band). Nana had always been a Trapnest fan and admired Takumi from afar. Through Osaki's connection with Ren, she was able to meet Takumi in person. From their initial sexual encounter, Nana began an unstable relationship with Takumi to fill her loneliness. She is fully aware as well that someone like her could never seriously date Takumi, but she is content in knowing that she is one of many lovers. She sees Takumi fairly little, and he does not call or text while he is on tour, but she remained hopeful that they still would maintain a secret relationship.

Nobu meanwhile has fallen in love with Hachi, but is unable to "compete" with Takumi. When Nobu makes his feelings known, she decides she wants to be with him and rather impulsively breaks off her relationship with Takumi over the phone. Nana overcomes some selfishness and realizes that Nobu is the first man she would like to spoil with love. Nobu and Nana are compatible because they have similar pure and innocent personalities and are quite loyal friends.

However, Nana Komatsu discovers she is pregnant (revealed in chapters 25 and 26), and although she really loves Nobuo, she realizes that Takumi would be in a better position to care for her and her unborn child. She also chooses to be with Takumi because she knows that the only way Nobu would be able to care for it would be to give up playing with BLAST and return to his family's inn. She doesn't want him to give up his dream, plus she wants BLAST to become famous and popular more than anything. Hachi clings to Takumi's calm attitude towards her pregnancy, and she is given strength through his kindness at that time.

Because of her pregnancy, she marries Takumi (initially in name only, for Takumi delayed their wedding because of Osaki's engagement to Ren). Her married name throughout the series is . As the time passes, she realizes she loves Takumi. Takumi's compliments on her cooking when they first met encourages her to improve her cooking even more and take cooking classes. She makes breakfast for Takumi everyday and draws a funny face on it with ketchup, usually stating her mood to Takumi. They both seem to have a mundane married relationship, with quarrels and making up due to her naive and forgiving nature and Takumi's forgetful nonchalant nature. She hopes that she will be able to live happily, although in the future sequences of NANA she lives in Japan while he lives in London, England.

Her nickname is "Hachi" - a shortened version of Hachikō
Hachiko
, known in Japanese as chūken Hachikō , was an Akita dog born on a farm near the city of Ōdate, Akita Prefecture, remembered for his remarkable loyalty to his owner, even many years after his owner's death.-Life:In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno,...

 because she always tries to be kind and faithful to her friends, like the dog from the Hachikō legend. (Hachi means eight in Japanese, and the kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 for seven can be pronounced as 'nana'. This also clears up confusion between the two Nanas.) A running gag in the series is for Hachi to suddenly sprout a pair of dog-like ears and a tail whenever she's very happy.

With the reporters of SEARCH (a paparazzi
Paparazzi
Paparazzi is an Italian term used to refer to photojournalists who specialize in candid photography of celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people...

 magazine) snapping photos of Ren and Reira together alone, Takumi decided to do some manipulating by revealing his relationship with Komatsu to SEARCH, who decided to run that news instead, and the couple formally married.

However, because of Hachi's ties with Nana Osaki, a SEARCH paparazzo was able to manipulate Hachi to find information on Nana's birth mother by showing her pictures of the woman in Osaka and threatening to print the article. Hachi travels to Osaka to discover the truth for herself, but is unable to retrieve any information from Nana's mother. SEARCH gives Hachi a choice between releasing the article about Nana Osaki's mother or a photo of Shin with Ryoko, a Reira lookalike (Hachi did not know the woman in the photo was not Reira, so she believed they were going to reveal Shin and Reira's relationship to the public). SEARCH releases the article on Osaki's mother because Hachi wanted to protect Shin.

Hachi has a maternal relationship with Shinichi. Takumi also acts as a foster guardian to Shin because of his marriage with Hachi. Hachi insists that Takumi and she must take care of Shin because Shin lacks parental figures in his life.

In future sequences, Hachi is already a mother to a daughter named Satsuki and a son named Ren. Satsuki is a six-year-old child and Ren is her older brother. Satsuki is a name Ren Honjo had chosen for Hachi if the child she has is a girl. If the child ended up being a boy, Hachi is unsure what to name him, since she desires to name her child after a flower, like Ren (one of the few suitable flower names Hachi can think of for a boy). Ren's death however makes it seem likely that her baby was named after Ren in his honour while her second child, a girl this time, got the name as chosen by Ren.
Although their family life is undoubtedly unstable and separated (with Hachi and Satsuki in Japan and Takumi and Ren in London), Hachi is still willing to be married and Satsuki wishes her family to be together. Takumi and Naoki also have a conversation about how it must be difficult on their children to have their family separated, and that Ren (who is staying with Takumi in England) should not stay in a foreign country but go back to Japan. Nobu shows concern for Ren's staying with Takumi in London and not attending the fireworks with Satsuki. However, the paternity of Hachi's first child is still uncertain, though Satsuki has black hair (as Takumi).

Nana and Takumi's relationship is rather complicated: in the future, Junko is shown once trying to convince Nana to ask for a divorce (which Nana refuses, stating that there are "many reasons why not to do that"). Presently, Takumi frequently cheats on Hachi (first with a soap-opera actress and later with Reira). They rarely stay together and Nana senses her husband's infidelity, who dismisses it with excuses, such as his work. Nana acknowledges that although Satsuki wishes her family to be happy together forever, she will be unable to fulfill that wish.

Personality

As noted above, due to her sheltered raising, Nana Komatsu is initially a rather childish and self-absorbed person. She relied heavily on Saotome Junko, a high school friend of hers.

When it comes to relationships, Hachi has fallen in (and out of) love many times. The first man she ever slept with was Asano Takashi, who was a lot older than she was. During a chance encounter in Tokyo, she comically warned him not to cheat again. However, like her subsequent exes, she could only forget about him totally after being together with another guy (in this case, Shouji).

Though very capable of great acts of kindness and caring for her friends, and even strangers, Hachi tends to be very self-absorbed at times failing to take into consideration the feelings of others. Though her friends care for her deeply, they sometimes seem to think of her as burdensome as well.

Voice actors and live-action actresses

  • In the PS2 game, she's voiced by Rumi Shishido.
  • In the anime, she's voiced by Midori Kawana, alias KAORI
    Kaori
    Kaori is a Japanese feminine given name. Kaoru is a variant of this name and it uses the same kanji as Kaori . Both names mean "Fragrance".It may refer to:-Entertainment:...

    .
  • In the first live-action movie
    Nana (2005 film)
    Nana is a 2005 Japanese film adaption of the manga by Ai Yazawa, directed by Kentarō Ōtani. The film was released on September 3, 2005. It stars Mika Nakashima as the punk star Nana Osaki, and Aoi Miyazaki as Hachi ....

    , she's portrayed by Aoi Miyazaki
    Aoi Miyazaki
    is a Japanese actress. She is best known for her pure image and roles such as in Nana and Virgin Snow. Her brother Masaru Miyazaki is an actor, and they starred together in the film Hatsukoi. She married Sosuke Takaoka on June 15, 2007, her partner since she was fifteen.-Career:Miyazaki started...

    . Since Miyazaki turned down the offer to appear in the sequel
    NANA 2
    Nana 2 is the sequel to the Japanese movie Nana, an adaptation of the manga by Ai Yazawa, directed by Kentarô Ôtani. Production for the movie began in mid-September and only one and a half month shootings finished the movie in time for the December 9, 2006 release.-Synopsis:Taking place shortly...

    , Yui Ichikawa
    Yui Ichikawa
    , is an actress and model from Tokyo, Japan. She is also known by her nickname, Yui-nyan. As an actress she has appeared in several dramas , and in recent years she has concentrated more on her film career. She played a minor role in the movie Ju-on: The Grudge and reprised her character for a...

    replaced her as Hachi.

Trivia

  • The covers of the manga series depict her activities with Osaki, which includes meeting her in apartment 707, shopping and watching a movie, among others. Also, she does not appear on the cover of volume 1, which is her only absence so far.
  • Her birthday is on 30 November, 1980 (She celebrated her 21st birthday on 30 November 2001, which is featured in volume 16.)
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