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Japan goes bananas over the Nanas

Reading Time:3 minutes
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David McNeill

Women worldwide will feel Japanese-born Nana Komatsu's pain. A naive country girl with a talent for falling for the wrong guy, she goes looking for romance in the big city after her heart is broken by a smooth-talking married Lothario.

On the way, she meets her soul-mate: a tattooed, chain-smoking punk chick also called Nana (Osaki), who wants to be the country's biggest rock star.

Despite having little in common except a name, they bond, share a flat and fight for love and respect in the world's largest metropolis, their friendship enduring conflicts over career, family and boyfriends.

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Such is the bare plot of one of Japan's biggest pop-culture sensations - a manga story with a staggering 27 million copies in print over 13 volumes, making it as much a sociological as a publishing phenomenon.

The Nana series has spawned novelettes, foreign translations, CDs, a looming US release and a movie, which will screen at the Asian Hong Kong Film festival, which opens this week.

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Shibuya, Tokyo's mecca to teen fashion, is a regular haunt for youngsters sporting the Nana look - punky or demure, depending on which character they identify with.

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