'Nana 2' needed Aoi Miyazaki

Watched NANA 2 during my flight home from Perth last week. I liked the first NANA a lot, the 2005 Japanese box-office champ was consistently entertaining and featured a powerhouse performance from Nakashima Mika (til this day, I tell everyone that I prophesized her superstardom when I first heard her 'HELPLESS RAIN' in 2001) as the gothic punk rocker Nana. And there was good chemistry between her and 'the other Nana' (Hachi) played by Miyazaki Aoi, so despite the film seemingly not resolving anything much (it was obviously leaving lots of room for a sequel) and I could never really buy into Nana's romance with Ren (Ren's too bland and boring for Nana), the first Nana film still managed to make me feel satisfied.

Satisfied enough to not ask for a sequel because it had a good enough open-ended ending.

I should have treated Nana 2 as some straight-to-DVD Disney sequels and disregard its existence, because, with the overhaul of cast members (three major characters are played by new cast members... including Hachi), I figured that the cast change thing will feel more like SPEED 2 and not DARK KNIGHT. Miyazaki Aoi had made Hachi her role, infusing the characer with such (sickeningly irresistible?) cuteness that replacing Miyazaki Aoi with Yui Ichikawa is like replacing Keanu Reeves with Jason Patric, it's not going to make the fans cheer like replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal in the upcoming Batman film!

Despite knowing that the film's been both a commercial and critical disappointment, curiosity got the better of me, and I chose to watch the film.