Oh no, people are reading NANA here… I might have to join in. I absolutely love the series (and Yazawa Ai!) despite having only read/watched it in Japanese with varying degrees of understanding.
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Hehe sounds like you should definitely join!
And everyone, remember, if there are any dialogs / panels / sections that feel unclear feel free to ask about them, that’s the advantage of reading as a Book Club, we can help each other 
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Already halfway through the week’s reading 
(Now if someone would start a ご近所物語 and/or パラキス club to peer pressure me into finishing those series too 
)
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I loooove パラキス! I have watched the anime a few times, but never actually read all the manga (despite owning them…lol @ my book purchasing habit). Would love to do a book club! Same for ご近所物語 – only read the first volume.
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Finished up the section. 
I love how realistic all of the characters feel. (Outing my age here a bit, but) I think I’m a year younger than Nana (奈々–I suppose I should get used to using her kanji since that will make things easier down the line) was when this came out and everything about it just feels so correctly late high school.
I also don’t think I picked up on how nostalgic/melancholy the tone is the first time I read it (but that was back in the days of reading paper books with paper dictionaries so there was a lot I glossed over. I eventually gave up around book 5, and I was a little scared of starting because of the Natively level (although it’s bumped down into purple since the last time I looked 
), but it’s been a enjoyable read.. although certainty part of that is that I ran my copy through Mokuro.
I would be down 
I think the only Yazawa Ai series I’ve actually finished is 下弦の月 but that’s only 3 books long, so…
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I didn’t think to take notes in my first reading session but did afterwards.
Notes/Thoughts
Recap of what’s happen so far. Nana’s boyfriend broke up with her. He seems to be a bit of a dick known for cheating on his girlfriends? Nana wants to go to the same university he is going to and get back together with him. Unsure of her opinion on the cheating thing, I think she’s dismissing it as just rumours?
page 13
Nana is thinking back to her first crush, which was her art teacher when she was in highschool, who left to work at another school. Nana is bi. This also seems to be where she met and became friends with Jun.
page 14
More crushes, not reciprocated (and they shouldn’t be given the ages)
page 15
Oh it is so light in comparison to the density of the other pages XD
Nana is attracted to a lot of people on their outsides, and is worried that none of them will ever like her back. This is when she meets her now ex, who it seems saw she was upset and took advantage.
page 16
Not sure why she thinks he’s lying about his name or his age… If I’m understanding correctly she’s third year of highschool so whether or not this age gap is legal depends on whether or not she’s had her birthday but either way it is uncomfortable.
page 17
it hurts, this is not a good situation, and she can’t see it, and argh
page 18
… was that not the same guy we saw at the beginning of the chapter? Well, at least it’s more likely he was genuinely being helpful.
Is it the same guy? I’m lost.
page 19
RED FLAGS RED FLAGS! Seeing his wedding ring I now know what the earlier cheating comments were about. And a decade is far too much of an age gap for my liking. And he is so taking advantage of her, but also my stupid dad thoughts are calling her stupid for being taken advantage of which I know is not how that works.
Also, confirmed that they are the same person as the guy from the beginning, I’m not loosing my mind just yet.
page 20
He either didn’t tell her things or lied about them, she is somewhat aware that the situation is bad but doesn’t seem to really care? Thinks things are genuine?
page 21
understood each individual word but brain is not connecting them. She’s at uni now I think? We’re caught up with highschool graduation, I think? And she chose to go to this uni to meet guys?
page 22
hair talk. her hairdresser likes her hair, though her friend insulted it, I think.
page 23
Nana has noticed that she was always attracted to much older men, and is hoping at uni she’ll meet a lot of guys around her own age and things will go better.
I think we have another 一目惚れ target…
Specific questions:
Page 16
middle panel「今思うと偽名かもしれませんが、年もサバよんでるかもしれませんが、」
Best I can tell, these are saying he might be lying about his name or his age, but I cannot figure out why 奈々 would assume and never mind I just realised the 今思うと part is saying that now looking back she’s wondering if he lied about his name or age, not that she was wondering at the time. Going to leave this here though in case anyone else was confused.
Page 20
Most of this page cleared up thanks to me realising this is all future 奈々 looking back, but I’m not sure on the last couple boxes.
「別れられて幸いだったと前向きに開き直ろうと思います。」
I think this is along the lines of “If being broken up with was happy, then I think I’ll fight back by being positive?” Clearly this is figurative as I doubt she’s gonna go around punching people, but I’m not really understanding the metaphorical fight, and I’m not sure on the 前向き part either.
Went back through to find specific things to ask about but actually a lot of it was clearer either reading the second time around or as I was typing the question 
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Unless someone beats me to it I will write you a long answer with some corrections at some point today
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Correction part 1
Corrections on the story:
Nana is a hopeless romantic. She falls in love all the time and dreams of the perfect gentleman. One man (the one you call the boyfriend) took advantage of that, he’s a married man with a job. He used Nana (just met her to bring her to love hotels) and when he grew tired of it (or sensed that she was getting too attached) told her that due to his job he needs to relocate to Tokyo (probably a lie, and when she thinks about it, his name and age could have been a lie too) and they won’t be meeting anymore.
Nana graduates high school and doesn’t know what to do with her life, she just follows her friend Jun to an art university to study (not really, she just wants to meet a new boyfriend, she hopes she will have better luck with people her own age instead of older people)
It’s a bit hard to follow because we start with the married man and then we go back in time to the start of her high school time, she says that her highschool life started with falling in love (the art teacher) and also ended with falling in love (the married guy). She tells her about the other guys in between she fell in love with (which includes her changing haircut multiple times, and getting new hobbies, for example she got into movies because she likes the guy at the video rental place). With her first crush, the art teacher, she regrets that she never told him her feelings when she had a chance, so next time she has feelings she just goes for it “hey make me your girlfriend” “hm, no”, then she adjusts again and decides she will try to be more smooth about it.
Hope I didn’t make too many mistakes, writing from memory, but I will make another post when I have time to sit with the book to add some corrections to your page by page and specific questions
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Correction part 2
Yes, yes, and yes. spring of the first year of high school, so probably right at the start of the school year (april)
Not sure how you got that?
Yes
Yes
She also thinks that she’s not good enough looking, so she wants to be on a diet to get thinner, that’s why she feels unwell after the movies, she hasn’t eaten enough.
See my previous answer (but I think you got it too), he’s the first guy and she’s just remembering how they met, knowing what she knows now (she will get dumped) so she reflects that it was probably a fake name
Same guy
Yes same person and yes Nana is very naive
Yes you got it, we caught up, they graduated, and she follows Jun to art school to study (well really, as Jun guesses, she only cares about meeting guys)
Jun doesn’t know who Nana is talking about, she tells it’s the hairdresser. Jun remember the scene where Nana is completely infatuated and tells him “just do whichever haircut you like”, remember that she facepalms saying “that guy…” (meaning Nana, not the hairdresser)
Yes and yes
I translate it as: “It was lucky that he left me, I will be facing the future positively now, I think”
別れられて: I was left
幸い: a luck / fortune
だった: that was
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Haha I would join those too 
I have read all パラキス in my native language and have always dreamt of trying more Ai Yazawa stuff but wasn’t easy to buy at the time. Fast forward 20 years later and the magic of Internet, now we can read anything! Which also means my backlog is way too big now 
but still hoping to get to it one day!
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Summary
I thought the art teacher was a woman? Wishful thinking on my part I suppose
Thank you for the corrections/confirmations.
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Just your average Japanese twink.
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That second question
To try to help further break this down – おうと思う is basically thinking of, planning to do.
開き直る can be to fight back in a sense; it’s basically changing one’s attitude to be more assertive, bold, and face a thing directly. In one of my Japanese dictionaries it’s “急に態度を変えて、正面きった、またはふてぶてしい態度になる。” (正面をきる in there being about facing something head-on).
前向き is about being positive, thinking about the future. I don’t quite want to say optimistic, which is part of how I had mentally categorized it, because these Japanese definitions I’m referencing now seem slightly different. “物事に対する姿勢や態度が積極的・発展的であること。” Proactive, future development-minded, etc. The opposite is 後ろ向き, basically dwelling on the past, where this one is thinking about where to go from here.
前向きに開き直ろうと思います - so she has deciding to make that assertive change to a more positive view of things.
別れられて幸いだった - it’s lucky that “I was parted from” – phrasing it awkwardly to pull apart each chunk but hopefully this part makes sense.
So it’s her declaring she’s going to choose to flip her thinking to the positive and decide that it was ultimately a good thing that he left her. Does that all make sense?
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The thread for week 2 is here!
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That makes a lot of sense, thank you!
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