Amazing Nurse Nanako

Japanese Title: Nanako Katai Shinsho
Also Known As: Nanako’s Anatomy Report
Genre: Comedy
Format: 6 OVA
Allegiance: Pioneer
Director: Negishi Hiroshi
Vintage: 1999
Intelligence Agency Report by: Lady Sage
Nobody’s really sure why the brilliant Dr. Kouji took the amazingly dim and utterly inept Nanako on as his assistant, or why he puts her through his bizarre training program when she can’t even cook a fish properly. Little does the dimwitted girl know that she is the key to one of the greatest experiments ever conducted.

Field Agent Report by: Lady Sage
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
1.50
1.25
1.00
5.00
0.75
Overall 1.25
(not an average)
Let it be said right off the bat: Amazing Nurse Nanako is one of, if not the worst anime I’ve ever seen. It is a poorly animated, badly written, unfunny comedy with disturbing hints of misogyny usually reserved for hentai that did not deserve to see the light of day. The plot spans six episodes, four of which give very little information, instead offering an overdose of fanservice and stupid comedy with insipid and obnoxious characters. The other two have an overdose of plot, supplying too much content in too little time. Naturally, what is given is poorly explained and doesn’t really make much sense. This sort of pacing is fairly common, but in the concentrated doses of Amazing Nurse Nanako, it comes across as all the worse. 

Surprisingly enough, the seiyuu cast features some of the best in the business, including Seki Tomokazu, Koyasu Takehito, and Yamamoto Maria, in the worst performances in their careers. However, the blame cannot be entirely placed upon the cast. The characters they struggle to portray are flat and unlikable: even the protagonists, Nanako and Dr. Kouji, each boil down to one personality trait each. Some of the side characters do actually get something vaguely resembling a personality, although others just seem to be there for no reason. In fact, it’s never really explained exactly why all the characters are living with Dr. Kouji, since they never actually do anything. 

The seeds of a good story are present in Amazing Nurse Nanako. Unfortunately, it got bogged down in poor pacing, despicable characters, and an obsession with providing the maximum fanservice in the minimum time.