Talentless Nana: Cute Faces Hiding Sinister Intentions
Talentless Nana aired in October 2020 and was produced by Studio Bridge. It was adapted from the manga of the same name by Looseboy and Iori Furuya. The story follows a group of high school students who have superpowered abilities. They have been shipped off to a remote island to receive training against the enemies of humanity being told they are the only chance at stopping these monsters. However, nothing as it seems. As misleading as the first episode is our secondary character Nana Hiiragi is actually our main protagonist. And her mission is to eliminate every superpowered student on the island.
This show was an absolute backhand to the face, and I love it! The reason is that Talentless Nana made the most generic first episode and completely flipped the script right at the end of the episode by killing off the guy we thought was the main character and replacing it with who we would expect to be the love interest. Who in their right mind does this!?
Watching the reveal that the world hates superpowered individuals due to a war that happened many years ago is a very new perspective for me. We learn very quickly that super-powered individuals who worked for nothing to get their powers let it go to their heads and that as time grew their powers only got stronger and evolved. This island high school very quickly becomes a secret governmental execution camp where Nana is sent to infiltrate and kill them all. This has more wild betrayal twists than Future Diaries!
But it’s done so expertly well. Nana fits in well with her fellow targets because of her deductive reasoning. She picks up on the smallest of details and while not having a talent makes it come across as the ability to read minds. Conveying that fact makes everyone none-the-wiser to the fact that a lot of it is ultimately deduction and guesswork.
Nana expertly portrays this to the students coming across as gentle and kind. So unassuming who would think she was trying to kill them? But there are smart individuals. A couple of times we hear the students wonder why their teaching facilities are in the middle of nowhere. Why does the faculty seem wholly unprepared to handle students as well as train them? One of the characters raises a phenomenal question.
They are told they are the stars among the country’s finest because of their abilities. And yet a classmate hasn’t been seen for days and no one is investigating it? The teachers are enquiring and interrogating students. It’s almost like they don’t care. And this is pointed out phenomenally. It’s so plain to see that this is a slaughterhouse disguised as an island but because these kids have been flooded with promises of grandeur, they don’t see it. More often than not they are just doing their own thing.
This show is fun. Like a lot of fun and I highly recommend this to anyone who likes a good detective show, but you see the murders and such first before figuring out how they get found out. It’s great and I can’t wait to watch more.