Nanaka 6/17

This is a 13-episode series which is really, really well done. The major characters are Nanaka, Nagihara and Amemiya, all high school students, and Kuriko, a six-year old girl. There are also a number of other characters in the series.

Nanaka has dedicated her life to studying, so much so that she will even fake a fainting spell during physical education so she can be sent to the nurses office where she can study in quiet. She virtually never laughs or smiles. She has only one friend, Nagihara (Nagi, for short), who is a childhood friend of hers.

When they had been young she decided she wanted to grow up as quickly as possible and began her emphasis on studying. Gradually she grew somewhat apart from Nagi and in the first episode there is scene where she seems angry at him since he is not taking his studies seriously, etc. He tells her off and starts to walk away, then turns around. She isn't there but her umbrella is.

He finds out that she has fallen down a long flight of concrete stairs. When she wakes up in the hospital she believes and acts as if she were her six-year-old self. Nagi then has to try and hide the fact that this has happened from the other students which proves to be incredibly hard to do. The six-year-old Nanaka is a spontaneous, happy, laughing individual, the complete opposite of how she normally behaves.

There are a number of very funny adventures that happen. Amemiya is a girl who likes Nagi but sees Nanaka as her rival, yet she is willing to help him protect the girl and hide her secret.

The characters are all well done and the story is very good, especially when it contrasts childhood behavior with adult behavior. It's quite a commentary on how adults often become stuffy, boring people who have basically killed their inner child.


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