NanaHachi

"You might not have realized... That your tiniest moves... Provoke disorder in my heart... With a strenght comparable to that of a typhoon."

- Nana

"If you had been a man, Nana, we could've lived a perfect love."

- Hachi

NanaHachi is the femslash ship between Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu from the Nana fandom.

Canon
Nana and Hachi meet for the first time when they happen to sit next to each other on the train, after they both moved to Tokyo in pursuit of their dreams. Nana Osaki is a punk rocker looking to make it big, and Nana “Hachi” Komatsu, nicknamed for her puppyish devotion and excitability, is a sweet "ordinary" girl who just wants a happy life with her boyfriend. The two hit it off despite their differences and end up sharing an apartment.

Nana prides herself on being a lone wolf despite her close relationships and dependence on her bandmates, her boyfriend Ren, and Hachi, and struggles to reconcile her self-image with her bonds. She’s also rather possessive, setting up Hachi with her bandmate Nobu so she’ll be in “her backyard,” and when Hachi announces her engagement to Takumi, Nana feels betrayed and takes a long time to accept her decision.

Hachi, on the other hand, struggles to feel happy and fulfilled on her own. Because her only goals in life are to start a family and support Nana’s band, she defines herself heavily by her relationships with her current partner and Nana, leaving her bored and depressed when neither is available. In her darkest moments, this leads to questionable decisions such as her hooking up with Takumi despite knowing she’ll feel bad afterwards.

Nana and Hachi start living together as one of the many coincidences that bound them together in life. One day, Nana performs her band's new song at the top of the table as if it were a stage. Getting closer to Hachi, she winks at her and tells her that she will make the night unforgettable. This makes Hachi blush. That same night, Hachi hears from the neighbors that the floor is haunted. So she gets scared their apartment might be haunted by a ghost. She ends up convincing Nobu to sleep in her bedroom that night, as a perfect excuse to sleep in the same bed with Nana that night. Hachi can't sleep telling Nana she's freaking out, and Nana replies that she won't have sex with her if that's what she meant.

Later, Hachi meets Shin and brings him to Nana for her band to include him as a member. After Nana realizes the great ability of Shin, they let him join the band. Back home from the studio, Hachi is celebrating and asking Nana who is responsible for the new addition to the band. Nana asks her if she wants a reward and while thanking her, she gives Hachi a kiss, making her blush. That same night, Hachi blushes once again seeing Nana's mouth, and thinks that her admiration for Nana can easily be looked at as love. Hachi also thinks that her relationship with Nana felt like "a happy first love".

Meanwhile, Shoji, Hachi's boyfriend, is cheating on her. Nana guesses this and asks Hachi if that's the case, which totally upsets her, telling Nana that he will never do that to her. Then, they talk about their dreams, and Hachi says that hers is to have a house with a big garden. Nana says that she will buy her that house once she starts earning money with her songs. At that moment, Hachi thinks that if Nana had been a man, she and Hachi could've lived a perfect love life.

Some time later, Nana's guess about Hachi's boyfriend being a cheater gets confirmed when Hachi sees him with another girl, Sachiko. Nana, who was with her in that instant, goes to Shoji, wanting to punch him, but Sachiko gets between them. Nana then yells for Hachi to do something, to react to this man's betrayal. But instead, she grabs Nana's hand and they walk away. Even though a punch isn’t thrown, Nana is still able to help Hachi by confronting her and holding her as she cries all night. Later on Hachi admits that if Nana hadn’t been there for her, she probably would have drowned herself in the river. After that, despite the fact Hachi's friends blame her for Shoji's cheating, Nana makes her dinner and makes her happy once again. So after they get tickets to see Trapnest, now that Hachi is single she asks Nana to go as her date. After the concert, Hachi starts getting jealous of Nana and Misato (Nana's fan)'s closeness and she even starts wondering if they're having sex, imagining how it'd be like doing it with a girl.

After a while, Hachi goes to visit her family, accompanied by Nana. When Hachi's mother meets her, she apologizes for her "bearing" her daughter. But Nana replies that Hachi is very sweet and joyful, which cheers Nana up. Hearing these words, Hachi blushes, and afterwards she teases Nana saying that she knows how to lie well. However, Nana tells her that she just expressed exactly what she feels, which makes Hachi blush even harder.

Fanon
Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu possess a strong bond and solidarity as women despite being opposites in many ways. What’s more, there’s  quite a bit of homoerotic subtext between the two. Though its depiction of queerness is a bit dated, it’s a powerful portrayal of a bond between women and the life the two share, while trying to find their way in the world. It’s also a series that has found itself in a very unique place in discussion for its abrupt hiatus that has lasted for over a decade, with no ending in sight.

However, sometimes the relationship between the two women is read as more than platonic. Most of the queer subtext in Nana comes through scenes of them acting as girlfriends, of Nana protecting Hachi, or even kissing her, and of Hachi saying that if Nana was a guy, she would fall in love with her. More explicitly, both of them occasionally question the feelings they have for each other. Nana describes herself as “a teenage boy falling in love for the first time” as she watches Hachi dance, and when she talks about her feelings for Hachi, her boyfriend Ren asks if she wants to have sex with her. Meanwhile, Hachi often finds other women cute, especially Nana, and even questions her own sexuality at one point. The way these moments are spread out throughout the series makes it seem as though they were meant to build up to something between the two of them, although this was left open-ended due to the series abrupt hiatus.

Fandom
FAN FICTION