The rare occasion when the live-action film comes before the anime, but that doesn’t make it better. Nana is possibly the best manga on the subject of friendship—and a gift that Ai Yazawa has given her fans, even with her health concerns. It was also an amazing anime that emphatically demonstrated how wonderful direction, voice acting and animation can make a manga adaptation to the screen absolutely seamless. The film, unfortunately, tries to fit a complex and methodically paced story into a small time frame, effectively rushing and diluting the tremendous emotional impact of the original. And the relatively decent casting is severely damaged by not maintaining some of the crucial actors in the second installment, effectively burying a film series that never did justice to the original story to begin with.