Genre: Comedy/Romance
Company: J.C. Staff
Format: 12 episodes
Dates: 1/8/2003 to 3/26/2003
Kirisato Nanaka is a 17-year-old high school student who spends all of her time studying for the upcoming college entrance exams. After a bad fall down a flight of stairs, Nanaka wakes from the injury believing she is only six years old. Her childhood friend Nagihara Nenji struggles to keep Nanaka’s memory regression a secret while she recovers but manages to get herself into one mess after another. Will Nanaka ever return to normal?
summary by Madoka
Reviewed: 09/03/2003 by
Grade: 79% 
Highs: Anime-within-anime
Lows: Useless side characters; little emotion
Much like its protagonist, Nanaka 6/17 suffers from an identity crisis. At times this series is a shounen anime, complete with side characters only there to dote on the male lead. Other times, this series is a cute shoujo anime with romance and a magical girl tossed into the mix. Even though this television show has the rare distinction of showing an anime within the anime, the extraneous side characters and emotionless lead characters ruin the potential for Nanaka 6/17 to be an involving series.
Nanaka as a six-year-old and the anime she enjoys are admittedly quite adorable. As she is a fan of an anime known as “Magical Domiko” (an obvious wink at Sailor Moon and other mahou shoujo series) viewers get the unusual chance to see how an anime otaku is perceived. Anime plays an important role in this series and at times “Magical Domiko” takes center stage to support the plot. This anime-within-anime approach is unique and succeeds at simultaneously poking fun at anime and contributing to the story.
Although Chiba Chiemi gives an admirable and convincing performance as two different personalities, it’s a shame that the older version of Nanaka is depicted as an emotionless, unsympathetic character. Since the younger Nanaka is a more appealing character, the series has to work hard to keep the viewer emotionally involved in her plight to return to her old self. The additional characters of the obligatory sword-wielding girl and a young girl with a crush on Nenji serve absolutely no purpose in the story and could easily have been written out of the entire show.
Nanaka 6/17, even with its faults, is still an entertaining anime with just the right amount of romance for romantic comedy fans.
Nanaka 6/17 can be downloaded legally in the United States HERE.
Anime Academy 