I really enjoyed the first season of Talentless Nana.
Based on the manga by Looseboy, it was a fun show to watch, where the twist of the very first episode was that the superpowered individuals we were following were actually being hunted down by a normal person to save humanity.
Watching Nana trying to covertly murder all of her classmates, while being constantly under suspicion from wannabe detective Kyouya, only to slowly begin to realize she is killing innocent people, made it extremely fun to tune in every week.
So, once the first season was over, and seeing that it was unlikely we would get a season two because of the lackluster Blu-Ray sales, I decided to give the manga a read and it did not disappoint.
Picking up from where the season one finale ends, the manga details the aftermath of the traumatic events from that finale on Nana’s psyche, and how she slowly comes to realize the full weight of her crimes.
Nana’s character development is great, as is her growing bonds with the other characters, especially Jin, who I have a theory about, which I will get into down below because it contains spoilers.
Back to Nana herself, she has many fantastic moments of growth, especially after yet another traumatizing and horrifying reveal for her that shatters her entire world view and causes her to temporarily snap entirely.
As for the other characters, many of them are very well handled, especially the new and returning characters.
The new main antagonist of the story, Nana’s mentor, Tatsumi Tsuruoka, is a fantastic villain, who gives off a very threatening presence.
Although, this praise of the characters being said, the author still has a problem with introducing many of these characters because they are just introduced like they’ve always been there when we’ve never seen them before.
It’s very clear that Looseboy comes up with these characters on the spot.
The only new ones who have a well built in introduction are Tsuruoka, Moe and one other character.
Speaking of which, I’m about to get into spoilers for the manga now so, if you’re anime only, then just take my word for it that the manga is really good and stop reading at this point.
Now then, this other character I’m referring to is actually something I was worried about coming into the manga.
I had heard rumors that the character Nana murders in the first episode, Nanao Nakajima, was actually alive somehow.
When I heard this, I was very much against the idea.
Nanao was a purposeful red herring in that first episode, being a bland protagonist cliche who existed to just get killed by Nana for the twist.
I really wanted the impact of his death to stay and didn’t think his character would be strong enough to get me to like him if he came back.
Well, I shouldn’t have doubted Looseboy because Nanao certainly came back and it was in the best way possible.
I love how he has been crafted into an antagonist for Nana, now that she is finally beginning her redemption arc, which will undoubtedly create a rocky road for this redemption in the future of the story.
Another element of the manga that surprised me was the revelation that Jin is actually, well… not Jin.
“Jin” is just the form he’s been showing to Nana and everyone else to fight them off with telekensis if need be, and he has been keeping the real Jin, who is in a comatose state, safe.
So, who is the fake Jin, then?
Well, this is the part where my theory which I mentioned earlier, comes in.
I believe that the fake Jin is actually Kyouya’s missing sister.
Her Talent was probably Transformation and she used this ability to win the civil war and keep the fake Jin alive, before acting like she was the real Jin to try and uncover the conspiracy.
There are some holes in this theory, like that fake Jin doesn’t really seem to be that interested in Kyouya, which he would be if he was actually Kyouya’s sister, but this could just be to keep him safe.
It will be interesting to see if my theory about Jin is correct or not as the manga goes on.
Overall, I would say that the Talentless Nana manga is quite an enjoyable read, despite its problems with features like character introduction.
I hope that, despite the low Blu-Ray sales, a season two will get the green light, so I can see all of the great moments from the manga adapted.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 