[Kaoru Chujo]

Good first epsiode. Nana is now at the top of my list for the new season, along with Suzumiya Haruhi.

I liked the movie, but this is much better so far. They stick pretty close to the look of the manga, and the characters work better for me. It took a while to get used to the voices -- and maybe I'm still adjusting to Nana Komatsu (light Nana) -- but they were good choices, and the real human voices bring the manga characterization to life. The voice of Nana Oohashi (dark Nana) was a little rougher than I expected, but I got used to it fast. The voice of Nana K adds a certain strength that threw me at first, but is interesting. This first ep helped me get into the characters more than either the movie or the first part of the manga did.

Gunslinger Girl and Rozen Maiden do not actually recommend the director to me, but this ep was well conceived, well constructed and well paced. It showed a nice touch.

The sketchy animation of the faces is based on the manga, but maybe doesn't work quite as well in anime. The exaggerated motion of Nana K's mouth babbling on the train didn't work for me, for example. In fact, I found Nana O's voice and look a little more effective than Nana K's. Maybe I just miss the very first part of chapter one, which I think really fleshes out Nana K's character (so to speak). I guess they thought her early dalliance was a bit heavy to start with.

But this is mere quibble. Seemed like a great start to me. At the end, when Nana K said she almost cried, tears came to my eyes, too.

By the way, I love ParaKiss. It had its problems, and so far I like this better, but I like Kobayashi Osamu's work, or at least I've liked both Beck and ParaKiss. It is true that it was not especially true to the feel of the manga, but I thought it was a good anime.

And I am totally in love with both the OP and the ED.