MUNOU NA NANA

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA DramaMunou na Nana
ONA ComedyMunou na Nana: Mini Anime

REVIEWS

• 

  notpettan

  43/100
  Among Us x MHA sums up the premise and how dumb everyone is, yet creates an enjoyable experience with massive potential

  __MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD__

  “So basically this anime is like Among Us X My Hero Academia! It’s really fun! You should go check it out!” - Literally everyone.

  Alright, I’ll be the first to admit that I took this recommendation and rolled with it. I mean, come on! Those are two things I genuinely enjoy!

  And let me say, the first episode got me hooked. The first episode starts off with a pretty typical plotline resembling My Hero Academia (as the short description suggests). We are introduced to the world assaulted by the monsters called the “Enemies of Humanity” and students from all around Japan with supernatural powers called “The Talented” are gathered on a deserted island to train in order to fight these “Enemies of Humanity.”

  Here we are introduced to our protagonist, Nanao Nakajima, who seems to be a powerless misfit on the island. He has no friends and is pretty much ignored by everyone until a beautiful young pink-haired girl named Hiiragi Nana (I see, the love interest of our protagonist) uses her own power to read his mind to realize that Nanao’s really lonely, then reaches out to him and becomes his “first friend”, and maybe one day even potentially being his girlfriend!

  

  Now we gotta get into quirk, I mean, power training where everyone shows off their flashy powers to everyone until suddenly, oh no! Somebody accidentally unleashed a super-duper power move and is going straight for Nana! Who can possibly save the day now?! But suddenly Deku, I mean, Nanao shows off his great quirk, I mean power, that he has the ability to cancel any power! (Wait, so we’re in the Toaru series now?!)

  Suddenly, Nanao is super popular with everyone because of his heroic act, and Nana blushingly asks him if she can walk with him alone! Ooooh… maybe some spicy romance will come of this?!

  

  The two of them reach the cliff. The wind picks up and scenery perfectly draws out Nana’s beauty in the sunset. Her eyes sparkle, thanking him for everything he’s done for her. The two get close together, wait, are we getting the kiss already? That’s pretty quick for a shounen series!

  When they get closer, suddenly, Nana grabs Nanao’s back and flips him off the cliff with the only thing that leaves him from falling off the cliff is a rope dangling from the cliff fence. And thus her final words before dropping Nanao off the cliff, “it is not me who is the enemy of humanity, it is you people who are the enemy of mankind.”

  

  The chills intensify. This is where the realization sets in that everything is flipped on its head. This is not Nanao’s story, this is the story of Hiiragi Nana on her quest to eliminate everyone off the island, the true “Enemies of Humanity.” And her power? Not a real power. She actually has no power, and all her predictions shown in the first episode were good deductive skills from small details in Nanao’s words, belongings, and expression, and therefore is called Talentless Nana.

  But even though this first episode was incredible by introducing its premise and its twist flawlessly, this twist is also the start of its downfall because it begs to question, “Now what?” Nana even says to herself in the next episode that she can’t hide Nanao’s disappearance for much longer.

  So what would any smart assassin do in this scenario? Learn everyone’s powerset before attacking anyone in particular? Wait for time to pass after everyone’s calmed down to make her next move? Maybe make a large and elaborate plan to kill everyone at the same time without anyone noticing until the final climax?

  No, instead, she goes on a careless killing spree. For someone as “clever” as Nana proved herself to be in the first episode, she acts VERY irrationally from here on out. Nana goes on to eliminate as many people as she can one by one by picking her targets based on the “Kill Estimate Potential Amount” on her smartphone and how deadly they are according to the numbers. She doesn’t think of the consequences of her actions, leaving large tracks behind her during these murders, and making large contradictions in her testimonies when people like Kyouya Onodera, are interrogating her. Nana doesn’t even follow up with her brilliant deductive skills to fake her mind-reading ability where she straight-up asks “what are you trying to say?” and “what are you thinking?” to other people on the island. Why would someone with mind-reading powers ask “what are you thinking” to someone? Shouldn’t they already know?

  

  So now that many people are gone, Nana is suspiciously away during these murders, and her alias and testimonies are contradicting each other, what do the survivors have to say? And this is where the second part of “MHA X Among Us” comes in. And just like public lobbies in Among Us, everyone is too dense and stupid to put the pieces together to realize that Nana is the real “Enemy of Humanity” and continue to remain oblivious and stick their heads in the hole. All Nana has to say is “oh the Enemy of Humanity is actually lurking this island and killing that person behind our backs” and everyone just believes her. Even Kyouya, who’s pretty much-deduced everything perfectly on his own, tosses up all his evidence and says to himself, “pft, there’s not enough evidence to accuse Nana because ‘she has no reason to murder.’”

  This cycle continues on and on for a couple of episodes. Nana finds someone to kill, she kills that person with an “elaborate plan” with a major hole that NANA WAS WITH THEM BEFORE THEY DIED. Why do the characters still believe that the Enemy of Humanity only appears in front of Nana and not any other students? How does this make any sense?

  

  The following few episodes continue to follow this formula and later becomes painfully obvious that this is just the new norm. This is probably the point where everyone just closes this series for good and labels it as “the worst anime this season” because of how everyone acts and that the story progression from here on out is illogical because of everyone’s stupidity.
  But I beg to differ.

  The series takes a break from its episodic target-of-the-week formula when Nana turns her attention to the cute, small girl Michiru Inukai who has the power to heal any physical wound with her tongue, followed by the introduction of Jin Tachibana, a previous island-dweller who has the ability to shapeshift into anything he wants and also copies its abilities.

  At this point in Nana’s killing spree, Jin already knows that she is the murderer. But instead of reporting Nana, he instead tries to investigate Nana’s origins and motivations because as a previous island dweller, he knows something fishy is going on because something similar to this has already happened. Everyone living on the island was eliminated, and the only reason Jin got out was that he was able to shapeshift into a bird to fly back home. But when he tried going back home to his grandma, she freaked out because she didn’t remember Jin. Something was clearly not right, and he realized that reporting the murderer would do almost nothing without figuring out who was behind the murderer herself.

  While Jin is out figuring out more about the island situation with the help of Nana’s confiscated smartphone, Nana continues to go out and try to eliminate Michiru. But Michiru is constantly nice to Nana, healing her wounds after her multiple accidents trying to eliminate targets and also getting away from dangerous attacks even if it costs some of her life. Nana, because of her past of her dead parents and learning to trust no one, begins to question Michiru’s motivations and doubts herself on whether or not Michiru actually knows that Nana is the murderer.

  

  But even with multiple opportunities to kill Michiru, Nana refuses to kill her because “she might be a great alias.” Even with that excuse, Nana learns to care for Michiru and even stays by her bedside when she is unconscious for two straight days and wasting potentially valuable time that could have gone to eliminating more Talented.

  When Michiru finally wakes up, Nana reluctantly stays longer with Michiru to learn why Michiru was unconscious in the first place. And all Michiru said was that she did this to herself while saving some injured cats.

  ”But why?”, asked Michiru, “why do you give yourself up for others?”

  Michiru goes into her backstory, talking about how she was constantly bullied at school for being a Talented until someone who showed up in Michiru’s life that gave her power meaning to start using it for good in the world. We later learn that the girl who “saved” Michiru and became a close friend to her was actually dying from cancer, a terminal illness that Michiru can’t heal with her ability. But the message in the back of Michiru’s mind that the girl reminds her is that “it’s like knowing that eating sweets will cut your life a little shorter. You just got to live a little and accept it!” And although the girl passed away, Michiru continues to use that as her life motto that no matter what, she would use her ability to save other people’s lives.

  This moment indicates the true climax of the series. Nana now knows that Michiru means no harm to Nana or anyone, a matter of fact and that her true loyalty lies with saving people around her, even at the cost of her life. As Nana begins to have an internal struggle over her ideals and mission, she begins to question the authority of the people who she is fighting for and what those kill estimate numbers really mean on the smartphone they gave her.

  And that, my friends, is powerful.

  Although most of this journey’s been a painful ride because of its base on stupid characters that lead to a relatively poor storyline, Talentless Nana manages to solidify itself with an interesting continuing premise that has potential to continue going in this direction and end up becoming a truly brilliant series. People may come and say that this series is truly garbage because of these major flaws, and I cannot overlook them. However, I will continue defending this anime for bringing up a great ending to the series and bringing up more questions about the mystery behind the government and their true agenda for the Talented.

  

  So yeah, I guess I’ll go read the manga now (or wait for the second season that will probably definitely not come.)~~

  Continue on AniList
• 

  TheDeedsOfMen

  90/100
  A wholesome, light-hearted series. Brings a smile to my face. ...The comedy is legit funny, actually.

  It was the year 20XX. Earth was assaulted by dark and edgy anime, bringing cynicism and grim moral commentary to the hearts of jaded viewers. To counter this threat, they published a light-hearted, wholesome anime: Talentless Nana. Follow the adventures of the kind and heroic Nanao and the lovable airhead Nana as they work tirelessly to help their friends and defend all of mankind. There is even romance in the air and comedic hijinks for good measure. Nana's cute, cheerful smile will melt the icy hearts of critics everywhere. The feel-good anime of the decade.

  [And this is where I give the obligatory spoiler warning. There are quite a few.]

  The point is: You can't trust synopses anymore. This is already the second series for which I have to say this in a review. This series is actually about good and evil. Not "the good heroes vs the evil monsters" kind but the more nuanced kind in which characters sometimes actually think about their moral decisions.

  We get something with visceral malice, dysfunctional conscience, effective dark comedy, heaps of deception and irony, and surprisingly interesting dialogue. How despicable actions can you carry out until your conscience kicks in? Anything and everything, or is there a limit? And what kind of strain will this place on your future interactions with people? If you keep lying repeatedly, how difficult it will be to convince someone when you are actually telling the truth? As a result, the drama is actually dramatic and the comedy is actually funny. The quality of the dialogue is also surprisingly high, especially including the protagonist's inner thoughts. It is written in a witty way, juxtaposing a facade of seemingly simple lines with more analytical, viscerally heavy-hitting dialogue that tramples on the appearances. Meanwhile, the plot is regularly throwing twists at the reader, and some of them can actually be surprising, which is not something that happens all that often.

  Now, some people call this series a "Death Note clone" or "Among Us + My Hero Academia," but I actually think it is something else. Those interpretations may have been effective at spreading word of this series and granting convenient titles to videos on Youtube, but they are also somewhat misleading. This series doesn't have to be Death Note or Among Us. It can be its own thing, and it is better that it is its own thing instead of trying to mimic those other options too closely. For instance, I don't think it is trying to be about outrageously complex mind games with characters somehow predicting dozens of moves ahead. It is more about the moral weight of murder, deception, manipulating public opinion, and exploiting people's weaknesses, and all the long-term consequences that come with those actions.

  There is actual moral tension, shifting moral alignments in a relatively believable way, a powerful sense of hatred and malice, dynamic character relationships strained by past deeds, and tons of delicious irony. The character relationships and interactions can be more dynamic than might appear at first. All of this also results in nice dark comedy that goes far beyond the norm. It blends in well with the drama and doesn't feel out of place.

  The dark comedy really is very delicious here. I often found myself laughing at the ironic deception, the thinly veiled threats, the outrageous juxtaposition between cheerful and dark thoughts, the dissonance between people's outward behavior and inner thoughts, and the relationships strained by what happened many episodes ago. It hasn't been marked with the comedy tag, but who cares? It fits my sense of humor better than most comedy I've seen in anime, manga, light novels, etc. There is also meta-commentary and subversion of various common tropes. Seemingly generic heroic characters end up as something different, and tropes related to generic main characters are showcased, then brutally subverted.

  A few of the characters eat up the vast majority of focus, development, and the best dialogue. But better a few good characters than none at all. And the characters should often be introduced more organically, longer before their main role is played out.

  The voice actors did a great job here, Nana's especially. I also liked many of the facial expressions, the color-coding for inner monologue, and some suitably over-the-top visual choices like non-existent wind indoors for a big mental showdown, complete with dramatic music. The opening and ending songs are catchy, the opening especially, and the lyrics for both are very fitting. By which I mean that they are nightmarish in a personal, knife-in-the-heart kind of way.

  Now let's discuss a topic people like to bring up: stupid and allegedly stupid decisions by the characters, especially some side characters, and whether this counts as luck, plot armor, or whatever. The answer is nuanced. Much of the alleged stupidity is actually deep ignorance, which is different, and the ignorance has been caused on purpose. It is revealed very early on.

  First, a general point: If you follow the full narrative, it is very clear that people irrationally believing in propaganda and other convenient lies is intentional. It is even clearer if you read the manga.

  "Humans don't believe the truth. They believe people."
  "People believe what they want to believe and hear what they want to hear."

  It is not a bug; it is a feature. The author is trying to make a point here, and he is not trying to hide it. Call it social commentary if you like. More about that below.

  If you abuse existing misinformation and other characters' motives, it isn't really plot armor. It is not as though you need additional coincidences for it, aside from the existence of the misinformation and the motives in the first place. Sure, some of the characters are legitimately too trusting or have issues with their mental health. ...Which can still sometimes be suboptimal writing, but that is different than plot armor. Not to mention, several of the events and beliefs are 1) explained in greater detail later on or 2) setups for future plot points with interesting payoffs. This doesn't apply to nearly everything, but sometimes you should be patient and try to look at the narrative as a whole.

  Well, let's go over some points and hope it won't turn into a full essay.

  [Obligatory spoiler alert again, though I will try to avoid saying the biggest spoilers outright. There will be many mid-sized spoilers though.]

  1) Blaming the Enemies of Humanity

  In Among Us and also in Danganronpa, for instance, the players and the characters are immediately told that there are killers among them. That is the premise. Here that is not the case, and there are potential scapegoats, most notably the dreaded "Enemies of Humanity." Original name, I know. (Nice troll, author.)

  Anyway, these aliens conveniently happen to be invisible or be able to influence people's minds, or at least that is what many characters believe. And why is that? Because the belief has been perpetuated by decades of government propaganda, all the way down to their textbooks. Often you don't even need to suggest to them that the Enemies of Humanity are at fault; they will recite their textbooks and general knowledge and come up with the idea by themselves. This is a central part of the premise that was established immediately, and even before the events of the series, most of the characters had assumed that these aliens were already on the island, so of course that is their default explanation for problems. In the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, they will believe the alien option. Imagine a story in which the characters genuinely fight against aliens. If a few of them die, would their first assumption be blaming a human killer? No, that would be the wrong genre. Though usually the aliens are not quite as well hidden.

  Is it dumb to believe in government propaganda and conspiracy theories? Sure. It says something about people's poor critical reading skills. But that is only to be expected. Mankind is dumb like that. Look at the conspiracy theories tens of millions of real-life people believe in with far lesser propaganda efforts, not to mention their belief in all kinds of entities without empirical evidence.

  Keeping that in mind, they are mostly reasonable in not assuming that there is a grand government conspiracy out to get them. Come on, that can't be real, right? There is seemingly no evidence of it. So if that particular conspiracy happens to be real, they are walking into it blind. Good job with the brainwashing, shady government conspirators. There is a nice quote about it later on. "People believe what they want to believe and hear what they want to hear. ... How would that benefit them?" (I omitted a part there to tone down the spoilers.) Incidentally, the idea of mind-controlling aliens is also a setup for a future plot point. It has some ironic payoff that I don't want to spoil too much.

  2) Suspicious alien attack

  Stabbed by an invisible alien? Suspicious, right? Yes, but if you have been indoctrinated into believing that invisible aliens are a thing, less so. And there was no apparent motive for the self-stabbing anyway, so figuring it out required several logical steps that indoctrinated people would not bother to take. Still, Kyoya rightfully points out that it is suspicious that it retreated after a single attack, and he isn't wrong, but let's think about it for a minute. If the best this alien can do is a relatively weak stab attack, and the building is full of super-powered humans about to rush in, retreating might not be a bad idea. Even if it is invisible, it isn't hard to guess where it is if it tries to stab people. But maybe it would opt to self-sacrifice to take out the mind-reader, probably a big threat. That would have been an interesting argument for Kyoya to make.

  3) Why not reveal everything to the class the moment you learn the truth?

  Without evidence? That wouldn't go so well. And they lacked evidence, with the exception of Tsunekichi. (More about that below.) Second, for many of them, it would not have helped them achieve their goals. I am not going to go through each person's motives individually.

  4) Just ask her to read your mind

  It happens multiple times during the series, and there are plausible ways out of them. And there apparently are convenient limitations to her mind-reading ability. Nana states that she cannot reliably focus on specific thoughts or parse very specific pieces of information from them, including particular strings of letters or numbers such as passwords. Also, the presence of many people creates background noise that can cover the target's thoughts.

  And it is not as though the students are constantly badgering each other to show off their powers. Even with a mind-reader it is natural to primarily try to have a normal conversation. Would you really ask them to focus on your thoughts instead of talking? Then they might find out things that you don't want them to, and it would be considered rude regardless.

  5) Precognitive photos

  Tsunekichi had strong empirical reasons to trust the accuracy of the photos. He had tried to defy them before, but it had never worked. What was dumb was not anticipating what was done with the photos, though it was true that the tampered material had not been handed over voluntarily, which made it seem more plausible. The way his character was written, it seems that his fatalism had turned him so passive and uncaring of anything that he could barely be bothered to take any measures to protect himself. He is someone who had given up on actively living his life for the most part. So I guess you can substitute stupidity for mental illness.

  By the way, here is a possible interpretation of how the photos work:

  It seems clear that the predictions made by the photos take into consideration how the characters react to those photos. Tsunekichi was refusing to head to the murder scene before the photos were tampered with, and that happened because of the existence of the initial photos. Nothing that happens to fulfill the photos ever seems to violate normal laws of physics. The conditions just happen to be right for the outcomes.

  So the events had to progress roughly the way they did because otherwise the pictures would not have come true, and they had to come true. The events played out as they did because the characters are who they are. It is not as though we should assume that people have metaphysical free wills. Their actions are predictable, at least by some superpowers that can make normally impossible calculations.

  If Tsunekichi was the kind of person who would reveal the information to the class or would figure out that the fake photo was fake, he likely would not have got the photos in the first place because then the existence of the photos likely would have prevented those events, and he only gets photos that come true. He could have got a different set of incriminating photos though. If this is the case, what actually ruined Tsunekichi was his fatalism because that is what lead him to behave as he did.

  Tl;dr: It is all about causality and determinism. (Let's not get into a quantum mechanics fight in this context, please.)

  6) Mind-reading the spirits of the deceased

  "But that is not how mind-reading works!"

  Well, how does mind-reading work in real life then? Let alone in this fictional world? Yeah, I thought so. Also, they were already doing necromancy in the same room; speaking to the spirit of the corpse is only a few more steps beyond that. Some talents can be broad and multi-purpose, developing into slightly different directions than what you'd initially expect. This seems especially apparent after reading the manga further. That doesn't mean that the ability can't be too convenient in that particular situation. That applies to many other talents though, including the necromancy that was literally going on in the same room.

  This isn't about tactics, but I did find the irony pretty funny. It is adding insult to injury: first the person gets killed, and then people are pretending to speak on behalf of his spirit.

  7) No autopsy

  Tsunekichi was running around telling everyone about the girlfriend thing, so her being the victim of blackmail, assault, etc. was very plausible, most of which was actually true. If she had killed him, it would have probably been by stabbing or blunt trauma, but there were no signs of those. And in that case, she would have openly admitted to self-defence. (The method of killing was the reason against that option.)

  8) No zombie "autopsy"

  People were crept out by the necromancy and allegedly Tsunekichi's suffering on top of that. The decision comes down to how willing they are to torture Tsunekichi's soul to maybe learn about the Enemies of Humanity. I could see them not caring about him and going through with it anyway, so it is reasonable to argue that it was out of character for some of them. You can call it dumb if you like, or being too kind-hearted. It is not ruthlessly efficient, for sure. Maybe Kyoya would have liked to go through with it anyway, but the others would have dragged him out of the room if necessary.

  9) Letting a captive free in exchange for help

  Letting another character free in exchange for letting them use their talent to "speak" to their loved one beyond the grave. That isn't plot armor though, more like emotionally manipulating people by abusing their romantic feelings and state of mind. First of all, she was not planning to kill her captive at that point anyway, and only decided on that later. Exposing everything to the class wouldn't work because of the lack of evidence. She should have taken more precautions though. Barricading the door, for instance. Though it was plausible, given the state of mind of the person in question. But still, barricade the door. Then they probably would have had to talk their way out of it.

  10) "Barricading" in a shed

  The point of the plan is that it wears the opponent down and makes her easier to find while also lowering the chance of her exposing anything to the class. (Not that she had any evidence, and it would have run contrary to her motive anyway.) The time of sunrise was not a deus ex machina because it is easily predictable. The real problem was whether sunlight would deactivate the zombies. Even though it was very likely that sunlight had some effect, judging by the time of day a particular zombie appeared in school, it was not certain that all zombies are equally affected, and furthermore it was possible that the sunlight worked on the zombies too slowly. If they immediately went on a full assault, maybe there would have been enough time to get something done. There was the threat of a hypothetical trap, but still.

  11) Blindly following the leader

  Yes, it is dumb to blindly follow charismatic leaders, but that is what people do. They follow their Great Leaders and trust their words. Look around and read the news. People are actually pretty dumb in that sense.

  12) Not seeing through facades in general

  Yes, it is dumb to let yourself be too easily influenced by a nice smile, kind demeanor, and convenient words. People are dumb like that. Well, I suppose realism isn't everything in fiction though. Narratively, many of the scenes are supposed to be about emotional manipulation instead of foolproof game-theoretical solutions. And you don't really see the latter pretty much anywhere in fiction; you pretty much only get impossible predictions and unlikely coincidences, with a few exceptions. There is of course room for improvement in the manipulation department too, though it was still very amusing to see.

  13) Too often near the victims

  Well, three times as far as most characters think. Still, it creates more suspicion, as mentioned several times and especially addressed during the events of episodes 4 and 8. Not to mention that being the leader puts her in contact with more people, which makes her a likely witness. This was stated multiple times.

  14) Michiru is gullible and trusts her friends too much

  Literally canon. Even the narrative openly acknowledges it. It was done on purpose because it is used in a few later plot points. In the case of the incriminating photo, there is also the additional point that based on earlier photos, it seemed that they could indeed be inaccurate. It still should have rung alarm bells though.

  15) Why not call the phone instead of a body search?

  Sounds and other alerts can be turned off, you know. It might be worth a shot though because it is not like there is any downside to it, even if the chances of it working are low.

  16) Why don't they simply have the military level the island?

  Explained in episode 2. They have to know enough about the abilities first, and even if you ask them first, they won't always be honest. And an all-out assault may be too apparent, and word might get out. It is still an option if all else fails.

  17) Why doesn't the school take the deaths and disapperances more seriously?

  Remember what the purpose of the school is. Why would they? The idea of having them stay on the island is addressed a bit more closely later on anyway. And they did halt the classes when the corpses of the victims started showing up.

  18) Why don't they halt the classes the moment some people stop showing up for class?

  Then they would never have class because they keep skipping class anyway.

  19) Why don't the students take more action?

  The moment victims start appearing, they increasingly go hide in their rooms. Gathering everyone in one place or trying to leave the island would be problematic too. That said, some of them are not barricading in hard enough, and you can see the result. On the other hand, isolating too much can make it easier to be picked off one by one, especially if there really is an alien menace or a third-party killer around. They could set up a system for keeping tabs on each other in some organized way, not that it would be foolproof. If you try to move around in groups, people will be reluctant to do so if they can't trust the other members. This is even more of a problem if there really are mind-controlling aliens who can influence people with weak psyches. Then people really would bunker down in their rooms, whether it is rational or not. Giving Nana some kind of security escort would have been a good idea though.

  20) Just go look for the aliens

  By wandering in the woods in small groups? Or burning down the woods altogether? I suppose they could do so, not that it would help much against invisible aliens. They could also attack spam in a systematic way and see if they manage to land lucky hits. I think barricading in their rooms is the more likely action they would take though.

  21) Should have done more research

  This is a great idea, actually. The schemes would have been more effective if they had done much more research into the characters' abilities beforehand. And they probably should have. The downside is that it gives the enemies more time to organize, as was about to happen, but it probably would have been worth it anyway.

  22) How about not revealing that you are a mind-reader and leaving the talent question open?

  Not a terrible idea because several students do that. It comes with its pros and cons though. It makes you appear more suspicious because people will be cautious of your unknown ability. Though mind-reading is already quite powerful in its own way. Not revealing it also removes the chance to tell people the helpful "info" that mind-reading brings. And if mind-reading is only your fallback option, people will be upset that they only learned about it afterwards.

  23) The schemes are too simple

  Simple schemes are actually more effective. Why would you want your schemes to be so complex that you need multiple flowcharts? In real life, you can't predict other people's actions with arbitrary precision. The kinds of schemes that rely on outrageous predictions against astronomical odds will probably fail. Of course, there are many works of fiction (including quite a few anime, manga, light novels, visual novels, etc.) in which characters carry out such predictions and are lauded as geniuses. But they are not actually geniuses because the works do not present the actual means to carry out those predictions. Here the plans are plausible to construct.

  Here the narrative at least presents plausible and semi-plausible explanations for the events instead of the usual completely arbitrary impossible predictions and very unlikely coincidences. I would rather take flawed human reasoning than the kind of reasoning that is impossible for anyone except the omniscient. Yes, I prefer characters to be fallible humans than perfect (or "perfect") god-like entities.

  Anyway, in summary, Talentless Nana is a wholesome anime for light-hearted fun. Would recommend.

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• 

  lllllllllll

  85/100
  An amazing adaptation of Among us X MHA except Imposter has no abilities

  Talentless Nana gave everything that 2020 was meant to be, a great psychological/thriller anime built with a fantastic plot that never disappointed, the story is about a trauma suffering kid who is manipulated to kill talented people who have specials abilities that defy the rules of reality in this review I will be giving my thoughts on the plot, characters, animation, sound and lastly enjoyment.

  As always make sure to check out my other reviews and follow me on Anilist and discord if you want to debate about the opinions and thought that I gave in this review.

  Discord: Chungu5#1753

  Plot

  Talentless Nana is a story about a young girl tasked to kill talented human being’s whist attending these specials school and not getting caught, kinda like among us except its 1v30 and the crewmates have special abilities. These talented human beings are gifted abilities that defy the rules of reality and are considered enemies of humanity by the humans (humans with no abilities), the talented and their families are conned to enrol their children into these special school which is placed on an island that is isolated by humanity. The main character Nana is perceived to be very skilled and very cunning which is fuelled by her desire to kill the talented humans, the story doesn’t disappoint in developing characters and showcasing the skills and kills that take place with every little detail explained with logical thinking behind it, one killing that truly fascinated me was the killing of Tsunekichi Hatadaira, Hatadarias ability is that he can print images up to and including 5 images that depict the future which cannot be changed, this fascinated me because Nana was able to manipulate the images that Hatadaira printed while he was asleep then replace them so that Hatadaira would believe that he had won which unfortunately led to his downfall as Hatadaira character and including most talented students is that they are unbelievably cocky and arrogant in their abilities. This is just one of the many masterclasses the story gave us in Talentless Nana.

  Characters

  Nana was written immaculately they way she dealt with accusation struggle and meticulously slide her way out of bad scenarios throughout the series was impeccable not only that but as the story went on we began to see glimpse after glimpse of Nana's back story which had not been mention at all, the way her character started to break down when she finally said her back story to Michiru truly showed another side to her, not once did she break down or lose control when killing her target nor once did she began to doubt her self if these killings were meaningful, but at that moment we began to see a slow but steady shift of Nana character from being this imposter like character to now being this neo crewmate it was truly amazing. On the other hand, the story did an amazing job of fueling her anger, every episode she would plan/kill one of her fellow students and the audience will be left in awe and confused to not knowing what her motives were but as the episodes and development went on it became clear who the catalyst for Nana was and the constant anger that she had.

  

  Animation

  Not much can be said about the animation it was not terrible but at the same time, it was not unique. This may be because this animation is not entirely relied upon cool battles and action but more dialogue and psychological aspects, however, the art and character styles do a great job of perceiving fear throughout the show, those large eyeballs and dead bodies do give an accurate representation of the fear and thriller genre that is trying to be expressed in this piece of work while also maintaining this lovely dovey type of aura some of the characters give, all in all, the characters may not look the best but when fear and shock is experience the art of the characters is a sight to be seen.

  

  Sound

  The opening gives us a sinister vibe while also trying to show fear and danger that is to be seen in the upcoming episode whereas the ending always gives the audience hope that the talented will find out the killer and always leaves Nana in a sticky situation, this amazed me because both openings and endings both are juxtapositions to each other they both counter each other spreading different messages at different parts of the episode.

  Enjoyment

  This show was truly an amazing show to watch, looking back at 2020 this anime does stand out with the rise of among us and the countless Talentless Nana references said while playing, it was truly great and worth picking up this series. The countless times I was left on my heels wanting to watch next weeks episode but couldn’t because I was watching it weekly truly hurt a lot, this alone is enough for me to know that I truly enjoyed this show.

  Overall
  
  I would highly recommend people picking up this series as the thill, the dialogue and psychological warfare is immaculate. Talentless Nana truly showed what an anime adaptation of among us would look like and frankly it did not disappoint.

  I thank you guys for spending time reading my review make sure to check out my other reviews on Akudama drive and Haikyu as always if you want to debate or just want to talk add me on anilist or Discord.
  I also recently created a discord server for people to post their reviews on seasonal and just normal anime/manga so if you want to join feel free to join.

  Discord: Chungu5#1753

  Continue on AniList

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