#WITHOUT HAVING DONE ANYTHING WITH HER LIFE TO BE PROUD OF... THE SANZU RIVER....

[sheila--e]

Maybe its my kyuuhead brain speaking but i think one of the things i wouldve LOOVED to see explored is the relationship between San & Kyuu and Louis. How to they feel about each other?? Louis has been away for years and they both presumed he died when he got bought just like the rest of the other livestock kids, or if he didnt die he was just as empoverished as them. Yet when he showed up he was adopted by a rich man, he had a better life than the both of them, had a formal education, more money than he will ever know what to do with and a secured job, and he didnt by any means have an easy or good life we all know that, but he had a better life than san & kyuu by ACRES. And how does Louis feel about that?? is there any guilt over that? we know they all had a silent agreement to never let the other get taken away, they all cared for each other, they were the only company they ever had, and yet when Louis got bought he couldnt defend them anymore. He probably had the idea they all died, and when he found out they were alive, they were piss poor. Is there envy on part of san or kyuu??? are they grateful louis actually had a better life???? does louis have guilt for not being able to help them??? actually WILL he help them. i wanna know more come on mannn.

[placebogirl7]

Hey, i've recently got into the nana fandom and i absolutely loved it and i've come across nana tiktok which is fun but i've noticed many people don't like ren. Apparently they don't like ren because he was just as bad as takumi, toxic, was manipulative, forced nana to do things in their relationship, was obsessed with her, put trapnest first and many fans have concentrated on what ren said about wanting to kill nana. It is mentioned many times in the manga about them wanting to die together which people just ignore. i completely disagree, i believe people that think that have not understood their relationship or ren and nanas intense love for each other at all. Their mutual feelings have been mentioned many times in the manga and i don't understand how fans have twisted ren and nanas relationship into such a bad one. I would love to hear your opinion cause there are not many people that understand the depth of their relationship.

Hello anon!

Well, I have to say I’m surprised about what you’re telling me because actually I’ve always seen Ren as one of the most loved characters in Nana, so no offence to the people who created the Nana TikTok but I think that they are just a “concentration” of Ren haters who went to TikTok because in the rest of the web they couldn’t find anyone else to spread bullshit about Ren XD  I mean, comparing Ren to Takumi is a pure heresy...Takumi was manipulative because he has a ego so big that he has always seen himself like the best man in the world, everything he does he does better then the others, so he want people to follow his orders and, more than anything else, he want to have always everything under his control. I’ve always said that I completely agree with Kinoshita when he said that Takumi treats the staff, his bandmates and also all the people near to him like soldiers who just have to support his ideas without expressing their own opinion or contradict him. On the other hand, Ren hasn’t really forced Nana to do anything. I mean, did he forced her to follow him in Tokyo? Hell no, he let her free to decide herself how she wanted to live her life, despite he wanted to stay with her so much. Did he forced her to accept his marriage proposal? No, Nana said yes because she wanted to stay with him. The only thing that he has done (and then he regretted it and admitted he was wrong) is continuing to ask her to live with him despite he knows she was still fighting against her proud and wasn’t ready to come back to him like before, but it’s not that he “forced” her: it’s just that he wanted to stay with her everyday, he wanted to come back after work and find his beloved Nana at home, preparing miso soup and giving him her attentions. Isn’t this what a person in love normally wants? 

Ren was obsessed with Nana, but also Nana was obsessed with him. Ok, their relationship had become toxic and they needed to solve a lot of problems, but as you said and as also Hachi said herself, their love was so big and strong that they threaten to collide everytime they met each other. Their love is the biggest, truest, strongest in all the manga. And what abaout Reira then? Wasn’t she obsessed by Takumi? But since she’s the “poor singer princess who felt so lonely”, people defend her obsessive love for him. Ren felt alone too, but unlike Reira he didn’t want to show that so much, he wanted to appear as a hero because that’s what people thought about him, that he was an invicible hero. Actually Ren was probably the most sensitive character in all the manga (and we have seen it, I mean he started to take drugs to kill the pain he felt inside).

About the fact that he said he wanted to kill Nana, as I said I admit that their relationship was come to a toxic point and they needed to talk and be honest and try to solve their problems, but there’s something we have to consider: he said that he wanted to kill Nana, but actually he never tried to do it. You can’t kill someone you love. In the end Ren killed himself while trying to be a better man and stop thinking about killing Nana, that’s what we have to consider. Ren is died while he was trying to make up for his mistakes, which is something that Takumi hasn’t done, so comparing Ren to Takumi is so wrong in my opinion.  Also, Ren was honest about this topic with Nana and he told her openly that he was thinking to kill her: she would have been afraid about this, she would have run away from him, but actually she wasn’t afraid at all. She simply said “I will wait for you at the Sanzu river”. She seemed ok with the idea of diying together, it’s a decision that they shared despite it can seem a bad decision to the eyes of many people. Look at their expression in the panels under: Ren’s eyes betray all his pain, he felt bad because he know that he’s doing something wrong everytime he thinks about killing Nana. Ren was aware that it wasn’t good, he had something that Takumi lacked: the awareness that he was doing something bad. Nana’s expression as I said is totally calm, she doesn’t care about him killing her: she had already said time before that she wanted to die with him.

When Ren died, in the last quote of the chapter Nana said “Hachi, once Ren promised me that he would have taken me with him when he died. I don’t want to be abandoned”. I mean, isn’t this clear enought to understand that Nana was totally ok with the idea of dying with him, even if it wasn’t the best choise?  Takumi forced Hachi to have sex with him more than one time, Hachi didn’t want but in the end she surrended: this is more unsane in my opionion, than the decision to die together that Nana and Ren made without being forced. 

The only thing I can “blame” Ren for is to have always put Trapnest before Nana. He died while going to fetch Reira, not while going to make up things with Nana and celebrate her birthday. When Search magazine published their secret love story, he just didn’t do anything to protect Nana, he just protected himself and Trapnest. When Kinoshita said him that if he wanted to say something to the reporters he wouldn’t have stopped him, Ren’s answer hasn’t been the one of a man who wants to put his woman first:

In the last panel you can see from Kinoshita’s expression that he was so surprised too, and I admit I was myself when I read it. I’ve felt disappointed by Ren honestly, because his words seemed to me only excuses more than a declaration of love for Trapnest. Shortly after, when Trapnest are in England, while talking to Reira about what Yasu did for Nana (punching in the face a paparazzo and putting at risk his lawyer career) he faced his mistake and he admitted that he won’t be able to do the same for her. He felt so bad after that and he started taking drugs.  

All this to say that I agree with you, people who say Ren is like Takumi need to re-read again the manga carefully because they clearly have missed some important points. And yeah, Nana and Ren relationship is so deep that you need to analyze it to understand many things. My suggestion for you: there are other social with Nana groups where I haven’t seen people talking bad about Ren (Tumblr, Facebook, some forums, Instagram, Discord...), so if that TikTok group doesn’t share your opinion and you don’t feel comfortable talking with them, I’m sure there are other people who share your thoughts and would like to talk with you ;) For example @komatsunana has created a Discord group and they are all nice people and don’t hate Ren, so I’m sure she will be happy to invite you if you ask her to join the group! ;) 

Thank you for asking and welcome into Nana fandom! ♥