WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Talentless Nana Episodes 1-3, now streaming on Funimation.
Talentless Nana is the latest addition to the growing anime category of “telling the story from the villain’s perspective,” following in the footsteps of the most famous example: Death Note. But this time, the story takes place against the backdrop of a high school for superpowered students reminiscent of My Hero Academia, creating an interesting crossbreed between the two disparate properties.
Episode 1 Introduces the Anime's Big Twist
Episode 1 of Talentless Nana is set up very similarly to My Hero Academia. A group of super-powered teenagers is sent to an island by the government in order to train them to property fight the “enemies of humanity.” A seemingly non-powered student named Nanao Nakajima is bullied by his classmates due to his powerlessness. But then, a new transfer student Nana Hiiragi (notice the similarity in their names) who claims to be a mind reader befriends Nanao. Nana uses her power to help Nanao get over his inferiority complex caused by his father, and he finally finds the courage to heroically save his classmates from an accident caused by a superpowered fight. It turns out that Nanao’s power is the ability to cancel all other superpowers, much like Eraserhead from My Hero Academia.
Talentless Nana’s sudden divergence from My Hero Academia happens in the final five minutes of the episode when Nana abruptly pushes Nanao off a cliff. Nana reveals that she is the real non-powered character, tasked to kill every superpowered individual on the island. Nana, it turns out, is the true protagonist of the series. This shocking twist turns the entire first episode completely on its head, telling the audience that this is much more than a series about superpowered high school life.
The plot twist is not achieved through the play on the two characters’ names against the series' title but also with a carefully designed narrative structure that focuses much more on the character of Nanao instead of Nana. It does this by using common anime/manga stereotypes: the protagonist is the loner that turns out to be the most powerful person in the group and the one who gets the most character development. Nanao even sits at the protagonists' usual seat: the last row by the window.
On the other hand, Nana announces her mind-reading power as soon as she is introduced and demonstrates this power several times throughout the episode. No one would suspect that she is actually the titular “talentless” character. Truly, by the end of the episode, it is clear that Nana’s so-called superpower is just a combination of cold reading and deductive reasoning. By giving this fake power to Nana, the creators secretly set up Nana’s intelligent and shrewd nature before letting the audience in on the twist.
Episode 2 Sets Up a 'Kill of the Week' Format
While Episode 1 is built entirely around the twist, Episode 2 focuses on how a non-powered individual can really kill someone with superpowers. This is where Talentless Nana starts to show its Death Note influence. Like Light Yagami, Nana is very intelligent, careful and observant. She constantly has internal monologues; shares a strong sense of self-righteousness with Light and believes she is killing people for the good of humanity.
At the beginning of Episode 2, a flashback reveals that in the past, superpowered people suddenly appeared around the world. Eventually, they all lost control of their powers and turned into monsters that killed millions of people. Therefore, they are the real “enemies of humanity.” In order to prevent this disaster from happening again, the government gathered all the superpowered teenagers on an island so it would be easier to kill them off quietly before they become too powerful.
However, since many teenagers’ powers will grow and evolve, most details about their powers are virtually unknown to Nana, including the applications and weaknesses. Every power has a cost; therefore, Nana must first find out each of her classmates' power before devising a workable plan to kill them.
For instance, in the first episode, Nana had to make sure Nanao’s power wouldn't save him from a fall before pushing him off the cliff. In the second episode, Nana gets close to Yohei Shibusawa in the guise of investigating Nanao’s disappearance. Yohei claims he can stop time, but through observation (disguised as mind-reading), Nana discovers that his actual power is traveling to the past and changing the present. Fearing that Yohei will discover what really happened between her and Nanao in the past, she decides to kill Yohei next. But since Yohei can easily travel back in time and change the outcome of his death, Nana had to find a failsafe plan to circumvent the time-traveling power, which she eventually figures out using more observation and some very careful planning.
The second episode sets up the series’ “murder of the week” format, too. It demonstrates a very clever way of killing superpowered people, not by brute force, but instead, by gaining trust and employing clever tricks. Since two people around Nana have already disappeared, though, it is only a matter of time before others start to suspect her...
Episode 3 Gives the Villainous Protagonist a Heroic Foil
Everyone remembers Death Note for having one of anime’s most suspenseful cat and mouse games, and Talentless Nana is beginning to set up a similar battle of wits between the protagonist Nana and fellow transfer student Kyoya Onodera.
Kyoya arrived on the island at the same time as Nana and they are both transfer students -- another common feature of anime protagonists. Kyoya harbors strong suspicion towards Nana ever since Nanao disappeared after Episode 1. He claims that he had a sister who was recruited to the island but disappeared, so he came to investigate what happened to her, which might be why he is more distrustful than others. But in the eyes of their classmates, Kyoya is more suspicious than Nana because he behaves awkwardly around people while Nana is friendly and warm towards everyone.
Kyoya is aware of his awkwardness and wants to befriend Nana to learn how to make friends, but Nana is extremely cautious of Kyoya because he asks her questions that could uncover the truth. He even recovers an important piece of evidence left behind from the cliff incident. This is why Nana plans to kill Kyoya even before she learns about his real power.
As usual, Nana relies on her keen sense of observation and figures out that Kyoya has a bad sense of smell. So, she attempts to use a gas leak explosion to kill him. To her surprise, however, Kyoya is completely fine after the explosion, finally revealing to Nana that his power is immortality, which makes Kyoya the only person Nana cannot kill. Ironically, Nanao, who has the ability to cancel superpowers, might be the only person capable of killing Kyoya.
Kyoya’s immortality, combined with his astute detective skills, makes him a great opponent for Nana, much like L was the perfect counterpart of Light in Death Note. Kyoya is also quirky and awkward like L, while both Nana and Light pretend to be a popular and kind person. What is even more perplexing about Kyoya is that his social ineptitude makes him very bad at reading and displaying proper social cues, so it is sometimes unclear whether he is truly onto Nana’s plans or is simply dense and tells her everything he is thinking.
Talentless Nana's Potential
While the animation of Talentless Nana lacks the fierce intensity of My Hero Academia and the dramatic stylization of Death Note, its conventional art style complements the suspenseful story very well. The series, so far, has subverted audience expectations at every turn by skillfully following and then diverting commonly known anime/manga tropes, making it somewhat of a meta-commentary on them. The visual style only highlights the contradiction between the unusual story and the mundane style.
The characterization of the series also follows this convention. Nana is ruthless but her motivation is clearly explained. As of yet, she seems more selfless compared to Light but she also faces much greater dangers, which makes her a more sympathetic villain. Both of the victims, Nanao and Yohei, are stereotypically 'good' characters while the actual rival, Kyoya, is also very likable with his straightforward but clumsy personality. By pitting Nana against these characters, it will be quite difficult for the audience to choose which side to root for.
The overall world-building of the series is also rife with suspense. Not only are most of her classmates’ powers unknown but many superpowers have the potential to end Nana’s life very easily. How will Nana find out their weaknesses, kill them one by one, while also avoiding suspicion and survive the island at the same time?
Moreover, if the series continues to exploit common anime/manga tropes, then consider the fact that when a government is behind a secret plan, it is usually nefarious. And Kyoya’s story about his sister’s disappearance is hinting at a scheme much bigger than Nana’s mission. Are the students really the enemies of humanity? Or perhaps it is just a story used to trick Nana into killing everyone.
Now that we know there is at least one person Nana cannot kill, how will the story progress from here? Will it play out more like Death Note with a thrilling game of wits? Or will it become more like My Hero Academia where eventually everyone teams up against the main villain? It’s anyone’s guess at this point, which makes us all the keener to keep watching.
