About midway through the Amazing Nurse Nanako OVA series, I started to have my doubts about whether I could actually put a review for the series into FanCruft’s database. By the end of the third disc, I knew that I couldn’t – Nanako is a series that is simply way too offensive to too many different types of people. There are lines, even for anime, even for anime very well aimed at adults, and Nanako crosses those lines. I can’t really get myself angry over this series; it’s clear it wasn’t intended to be taken seriously, but I can’t include it in good faith as an anime recommendation for anyone.
What is it about Nanako that rubs me the wrong way? Well Doctor that Nanako serves is supposed to be a mad scientist. I can understand that, but why is he an abusive asshat? Why does no one see any problem with torturing Nanako in order to make her scream in order to lure out a monster that’s run amuck in the hospital? And what exactly is so “amazing” about Nanako anyhow? If it’s supposed to be her bust, I have to say that the character design from the original Divergence Eve is still even more absurd.
Additionally, I think there’s something slightly insideous about the views implied in Nanako about religion. It’s no Da Vinci Code in terms of its popularity, but if it were on the radar, I think the Vatican might be offended as being portrayed as trying to resurrect Jesus Christ through cloning, failing, and then burning the results alive. Nanako inadvertantly bombs Buddist* monks praying at a temple. The good doctor, combining both of the serious problems of this OVA into one, says that he won’t let the “so-called God” take his “toy [Nanako]” away from him.
The juxtapostion of the humorious Nanako with the more serious plot and animation style of global conspiracy could have gone somewhere interesting. As it is, little is resolved in the slightly unstomachable work.
*I think