Nana & Kaoru (ナナとカオル, Nana to Kaoru) is a Japanese erotic romantic-comedy manga written and illustrated by Ryuta Amazume. It was serialized on Hakusensha’s seinen magazines Young Animal Arashi (2008–2009) and Young Animal (2009–2016), collected in eighteen tankōbon volumes, and expanded into additional manga series, an original video animation, and two live-action films. For BDSM-media readers it is a long-running franchise that treats gear shops, stress-relief negotiation, and power-exchange feelings as serialized romance problems rather than pure gag props.
Plot of the Main Series
Kaoru Sugimura is a 17-year-old virgin with an S&M fetish whose main hobby is purchasing and maintaining S&M equipment because he has no partner. He has long dreamed of an SM relationship with childhood friend and next-door neighbor Nana Chigusa, who is widely seen as perfect and constantly attracts other boys’ attention. Their closeness deteriorated as they hung out with different people and as Kaoru failed to take school seriously. Nana’s stress load at school grows so heavy that a teacher suggests she find a way to relax. One day Kaoru’s mother gives some of his S&M toys to Nana for safekeeping. Nana finds a leather one-piece Kaoru bought, tries it on, accidentally locks herself in without the key, and needs Kaoru to free her. Afterward she discovers the activity relaxed her and improved her academic performance. The two begin engaging in more S&M activities they call “breathers,” exploring that world while keeping it secret from some schoolmates and family. The story follows those sessions as friendship, desire, and trust develop.
Black Label
Nana & Kaoru: Black Label is set several months after the main series ends and follows the pair during vacation. Kaoru meets his idol, erotic novelist Shuutarou Sarashina, by chance; inspired by Kaoru’s youthful enthusiasm about S&M, Sarashina invites him to help on a new book. Nana asks Mitsuko to tutor her on various subjects. Unbeknownst to both, Sarashina and Mitsuko are lovers, and Mitsuko is the main inspiration for Sarashina’s novels, but their feelings have become twisted and broken over the years. Across the vacation, Nana and Kaoru encounter deeper S&M than they had considered, take a step forward in their own relationship, and help Sarashina and Mitsuko come to terms with love they had long hidden inside SM structures.
High-School Sequel Continuity
Kōkōsei no SM Gokko (later collected as Nana & Kaoru: Last Year) is a direct sequel beginning in Nana and Kaoru’s third year of high school. The first seven chapters take place before Black Label; subsequent chapters take place after. The subtitle frames the work as “high schoolers’ S&M make-believe,” extending the franchise’s core premise with later-stage relational stakes.
Characters
Nana Chigusa is a popular, beautiful high-school student who excels in academics, serves as student-council vice-president, and competes on the track team. With so much pressure on her, a teacher’s advice to “take a breather” leads her into erotic S&M play as a masochist with next-door neighbor Kaoru—play that improves her academic situation. They had fallen somewhat out of touch at the series start, then grow closer through breathers; Kaoru supports her even when she does not fully realize it, and she gradually falls in love with him by the end of the main run, with further development in Black Label. Live-action: Maho Nagase (film 1), Miku Aono (film 2). OVA voice: Kaoru Mizuhara.
Kaoru Sugimura is the average student secretly in love with Nana since childhood and overjoyed when she agrees to participate in S&M play. He struggles to hold himself back when she willingly submits for breathers. Initially he holds intensely dark desires to dominate her, holds them back for a time, then realizes he does not want to hurt her and simply loves her and wants love returned. He works to improve himself so he can stand alongside her. Live-action: Rakuto Tochihara. OVA voice: Junji Majima.
Mitsuko Tachibana runs the S&M store Kaoru frequents. She has vast practical knowledge of S&M and teaches Nana about lifestyle elements. Little is said in the main series beyond that expertise; Black Label reveals she is lovers with much older novelist Shuutarou Sarashina. She loves him dearly but fears he might leave, so she tries to make herself his “perfect woman,” binding him to her—until they admit true mutual love with Nana and Kaoru’s help. She majored in Japanese history at Todai, studying culture and customs since the Meiji period, where she first encountered SM in forms of torture research, and even attended graduate school.
Ryoko Tachi meets Kaoru on early-morning stamina runs. He mistakes her for a boy until she mentions heptathlon; annoyed, she shows modest cleavage as proof. After learning Kaoru’s secret hobby she develops interest and tries to join activities. Unlike most characters she can switch between submissive and dominant roles but prefers her submissive side. She comes to love Kaoru while accepting he will never see her as he sees Nana, and she helps Nana when needed. Nana first treats her as a love rival, then as a close friend.
Shuutarou Sarashina is an erotic novelist referenced throughout the main series—Kaoru uses his books to study dominant technique—but he never appears on-page until Black Label, where he meets Kaoru by accident and recruits him for research help. He and Mitsuko met when she was a college student and bonded through S&M; years twisted love into darker possession until the younger couple’s story helps them admit genuine feeling again.
Media: Manga, Spin-Offs, Films, OVA
Written and illustrated by Ryuta Amazume, Nana & Kaoru ran in Young Animal Arashi from January 4, 2008 to October 2, 2009, then transferred to Young Animal from October 23, 2009 until conclusion on August 12, 2016. Hakusensha collected chapters in eighteen tankōbon volumes released from November 28, 2008 to October 28, 2016. In November 2021, Fakku and Denpa announced English publication as a 3-in-1 omnibus edition.
Black Label, set eight months after the main events, launched as an extra edition in Young Animal Arashi on July 2, 2010 and finished April 4, 2014, collected in five volumes (June 29, 2011–July 29, 2014). Fakku licensed English; the first volume was announced for April 15, 2025. A yonkoma spin-off by Tamami Momose, Nana Kao Pink Pure, ran in Young Animal Arashi from October 7, 2011 to November 1, 2013 (collected volume January 29, 2014). Another series, Nana & Kaoru: Last Year (serialized as Nana to Kaoru: Kōkōsei no SM Gokko), ran in Hakusensha’s digital erotic magazine Harem from November 29, 2018 to October 29, 2021 across five tankōbon (first July 29, 2019; last December 24, 2021).
Two youth-romance erotic films directed by Atsushi Shimizu released March 19, 2011 and September 8, 2012 (Nana & Kaoru: Chapter 2). An OVA produced by AIC PLUS+, directed by Hideki Okamoto with character designs by Atsuko Watanabe, released March 29, 2011.
Reception and Sales Notes
Selected Oricon weekly manga chart results: volume 3 reached 30th place and, as of January 31, 2010, had sold 25,008 copies; volume 5 reached 22nd with 34,146 copies as of October 31, 2010; volume 6 reached 15th with 34,792 as of April 3, 2011; Black Label volume 1 reached 23rd with 33,619 as of July 3, 2011; Black Label volume 2 reached 28th with 21,655 as of June 3, 2012; main volume 9 reached 24th with 55,005 as of October 7, 2012; Black Label volume 3 reached 46th with 18,741 as of March 2, 2013; main volume 11 reached 22nd with 40,873 as of August 4, 2013. Jean-Karlo Lemus of Anime News Network praised the first volume’s continuation potential, art detail, leading couple chemistry, and “tons of actual research into BDSM philosophy,” while noting a bumpy start—useful framing for kink readers who want toy literacy inside erotic comedy form.
Why the Franchise Matters for BDSM Readers
Nana & Kaoru is not a technical dungeon manual, but it is one of the more visible twenty-first-century manga franchises to treat S&M gear shops, stress-relief negotiation, and the emotional ethics of domination as ongoing story problems. Mitsuko’s shop scenes function as lifestyle education beats; Kaoru’s struggle with harmful fantasy versus care maps a young dominant’s moral education; Black Label uses an older SM couple as cautionary mirror for what happens when power exchange replaces honest love talk. Live-action and OVA adaptations pushed the brand beyond tankōbon collectors. English omnibus plans from Fakku and Denpa extend that audience further.
Collectors should distinguish the main 18-volume run, five-volume Black Label, Momose’s yonkoma, and five-volume Last Year, plus the two Shimizu films and Okamoto OVA. That media stack is the full commercial footprint of Amazume’s “breathers” premise—from weekly magazine serialization through digital sequel and Western licensing. On a site devoted to BDSM video and fetish literacy, the series sits with other BDSM literature entries as a soft-kink romcom that still bothered to research implements and power-exchange feelings—and sold well enough to chart while doing it. Whether a reader arrives through ANN praise, live-action curiosity, or English omnibus shopping, the through-line is the same: erotic comedy built around secret SM sessions that double as academic stress relief and slow-burn romance.
Franchise Map for Collectors
Tracking Nana & Kaoru means separating publication lines carefully. The main series is eighteen Hakusensha tankōbon from the Young Animal Arashi and Young Animal runs spanning 2008 to 2016. Black Label adds five volumes of vacation-era deepening with Sarashina and Mitsuko. Momose’s Nana Kao Pink Pure is a yonkoma side dish. Last Year / Kōkōsei no SM Gokko returns to third-year high school across five digital-magazine volumes through 2021. Screen adaptations include the March 2011 and September 2012 Shimizu live-action films and the March 2011 AIC PLUS+ OVA with Mizuhara and Majima in the lead voice roles.
English-language access is expanding through Fakku and Denpa’s announced omnibus treatment of the main series and Fakku’s Black Label license. ANN’s early praise for BDSM philosophy research remains a useful critical tag for kink readers shopping erotic manga that tries to know what a shop full of implements actually means emotionally. Oricon peaks—especially volume 9’s fifty-five thousand copies and multiple top-thirty chart weeks—show the soft-kink romcom found a sizable seinen market without abandoning SM toy literacy or the breathers conceit that started when Nana locked herself in Kaoru’s leather one-piece.
On bdsmwild, the franchise earns space beside other BDSM literature because it stages negotiation, shop education, and dominant self-restraint as plot, not only as costume. Whether someone watches the live-action chapter films, collects Japanese volumes, or waits on English omnibus releases, the through-line is erotic comedy built on secret sessions that double as stress relief and slow-burn love story—complete with an older SM couple in Black Label as a warning about what happens when power exchange replaces honest speech about attachment.
