Warning: This article contains spoilers for Talentless Nana Episode 5, "Talented vs. Talentless Part 2," now streaming on Funimation.
Last week's episode of Talentless Nana left viewers with a lot of questions regarding the true intentions of Tsunekichi Hatadaira, the future seer who is blackmailing Nana with evidence of her murders, but his motivations were very unclear because he already knew Nana killed Nanao back when she first came to the island, he even knew Nana will be strangling him in the near future, but he does not seem to care at all, and instead voluntarily gets close to Nana and showed her the evidence.
It turns out Tsunekichi only wanted to use the pictures to blackmail Nana into becoming his girlfriend, this trivial move seems quite dumb considering he knows Nana is a killer but is also true to his arrogant and frivolous personality. However, Tsunekichi’s confidence is not unfounded, since he is a firm believer that the future he saw is absolute and cannot be changed at all. This means that before the moment that Nana strangles him, nothing harmful will happen to him at all. Otherwise, the moment he foresaw will not happen, which is impossible according to his belief.
More importantly, Tsunekichi’s picture actually does not show him dying, but merely being surprised by Nana’s actions. Therefore, he knows he can change what happens after the picture since it was not foreseen and absolute. Tsunekichi is so sure in the fact that he will not die before his premonition that he even falls asleep while Nana is right by his side.
Tsunekichi’s power is passive and very limited. He can only see the future when asleep, and his visions are presented through Polaroids, much like Joseph Joestar’s Hermit Purple stand. Moreover, he can only see five pictures every time he sleeps. In other words, Tsunekichi has no control over what he can see, and he does not really know what he saw before he wakes up. Nana decides to use Tsunekichi’s power against him and took a fake picture to trick Tsunekichi into believing that she will be assaulted and eventually die by his hands. He lowers his guard and tries to sexually assault Nana, which gives Nana an opportunity to stab him with her poisonous needle.
Nana’s real trouble comes right after Tsunekichi dies when Michiru and Kyoya walk in immediately after. As yet another person Nana was close to dies mysteriously next to her, it is very hard to justify her innocence. Yet somehow she does. This is because Nana saw Tsunekichi’s real premonition, and it shows the exact moment when Kyoya and Michiru walk in. She deliberately coaxed Tsunekichi to assault her so she can look like a victim even when he dies, and once again blames his death on the invisible enemies of humanity.
Although Kyoya’s suspicion never really went away, Nana’s claim of being a sexual assault victim plus being blackmailed by Tsunekichi with her naked pictures seems to have stopped him from looking further. But she never expected that it was Michiru who stayed behind to try to revive Tsunekichi who would eventually find the incriminating picture of her pushing Nanao off the cliff, leaving the episode on another cliffhanger.
While Michiru seems to be a kind-hearted person and very trusting of Nana, there is no telling what she will do when confronted with such irrefutable evidence. The fact Nana hasn't killed her is also slightly suspicious. Perhaps she wants to use Michiru’s healing power to her advantage, like what happened in Episode 4. So far, Nana has already killed two people who can potentially expose her, so will Michiru be her next victim?
