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"Nana, how come being happy and making your dreams come true are two different things? Even now, I still don't know why.."

Story/Plot: 10/10
NANA is an anime that involves punk/rock music culture, romance, drugs, alcohol and the male prostitution of japan (sex for money).
It takes a lot of maturity to understand how deep this story is. The drama of it is so real, that makes you think: "this could be happening to me right now." I can't say much without using spoilers but this story had one of the best development I've ever seen.

Art/Animation: 9/10
The art is simply beautiful. This isn't an anime that the characters ... use the same basic clothes every day, same make up or even the same haircut. there's an huge variety of styles. For example, we've the two main characters, both named Nana but being totally different in terms of styles.
Where one goes for cute/pinkish style the other dresses up in a punk/rock style, which is a really nice difference to see.
Since NANA was released in 2006, the episodes don't have such good quality like nowadays, so I have to give it a 9, only because I can't see the art of the characters in HD.

Sound/Music: 10/10
So, we have two bands in this anime, obviously there's gonna be a lot of different type of songs. You think to yourself, maybe I will like band 1 more because I think this genre of music is better.. no. Believe me. Coming from an hard rock/metal lover, I enjoyed every single song, including the ones that are not my genre at all. why? because the songs are so well written for each character to sing. they talk about their feelings, they talk about their lives, about their lovers, about their past. All of the songs have an huge meaning behind it.
adding up to that, the openings and endings are sung by band 1 and band 2 members, that is just.. so precious!

Characters: 10/10
I have to be honest, the first time I watched NANA, I was probably 13/14, and for a time I had harsh feelings against some of the characters. But by re-watching it over and over again through all these years ( I am currently 23 btw ) I've learnt how to like all of the characters. Why? Because of life experiences that made me become an open minded person. Now, NANA is probably one of the few animes that I don't have any problem with the characters. Everyone commits mistakes, sure, but in NANA when a character commits a mistake, in terms of love, work, life, we get to see the character's side, their reasons to do what they did and explanations. We see them get stronger through the story.
I've got to say there are characters that had such an HUGE development and that was gold.

tl;dr - NANA was the first anime I fell in love. I re-watched it 8 times and I still would get emotional watching it. I recommend it if you would like to experience real life problems and drama. This anime portraits the real world. People go through these phases in their lives, have the same problems and mentality. There will be a moment where you will want to hug them and make them feel better. Just watch it, it is worth the time.

Overall: 10/10