Talentless Nana Review (TV Series, 2020)

Talentless Nana is an anime series adapted from the manga by Looseboy. it is a Shonen horror/thriller series about the potential end of the world. In the near future, the Enemies of Humanity have appeared, wreaking havoc and destroying lives wherever they go. Children are also developing supernatural powers. The Talented are recruited to go to remote training schools while their powers fully manifest, preparing them to fight to save humanity.

There is a twist at the end of the first episode that reveals the actual plot of the series and it’s magnificent. I was hooked straight away.

Spoiler

You originally follow the story of Nanao, an unpopular boy in the class who doesn't have a strong power. He quickly befriends Nana, a new student, who can read minds. Eventually, Nanao is forced to reveal that he might be the strongest Talented child of all time: he can nullify anyone else's powers. Nana brings him to the shore to celebrate by throwing him off a cliff and revealing she's a government assassin sent to destroy the Talented before they turn into Enemies of Humanity.

Talentless Nana is as fascinating as it is brutal. All of these Talented characters are hiding major secrets from each other, as they’ve been warned that Enemies of Humanity may have infiltrated the school. Sure, the textbooks show giant monsters with gnashing teeth, but they also learn very quickly that many of these Enemies look just like regular people with extraordinary powers. Being too strong leaves you vulnerable to anyone who is trying to destroy the Talented, while being too weak means the Talented themselves may try to destroy you as a useless asset.

The teachers are almost non-existent. They aren’t Talented. They are adults doing what they can to train children to be weapons against unimaginable evil. Teachers aren’t even supposed to breakup fights in a regular school because the risk of injury is too high. Imagine what they could do when Mugou, who can produce fire, and Seiya, who can produce ice, decide to battle to figure out who becomes the class leader. I’m not putting my life on the line to stop that fight, and neither do the teachers on the show.

The result is a cross between Lord of the Flies and And Then There Were None with superheroes and raging hormones. For every sweet character like Michiru (a Talented healer who can fix any physical wound with a lick), there’s an incredibly aggressive character like Kirara (a Talented fighter who produces poison) or the aforementioned Mugou (a Talented bully who doesn’t think twice about throwing a giant fireball at his classmates if it will let him get his way). These teenagers are navigating puberty and ever-growing superpowers that won’t fully develop until they’re adults. What seems like a silly parlor trick could wind up being a weapon powerful enough to destroy all of humanity in the blink of an eye.

Spoiler

The story is told from Nana's perspective after you get through the first episode. We're in full Death Note mode with color-coded inner monologues about evil schemes and power dynamics as she calculates exactly how to destroy her classmates one by one. It is chilling. This is the closest I've seen an anime come to capturing that full on American Psycho or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer vibe where you should hate the main character but can't help but by charmed by their wit and style and personality.

As the story progresses and the students realize what has to be happening, the series starts to shift. There is no clear right and wrong anymore. What you thought was happening is not. Well, it is, but not in the way you thought it was. There are Enemies of Humanity at play, but also something pushing the Talented to use their powers against each other for nefarious reasons.

Talentless Nana is a great story of antiheroes and destruction. There are moments that feel as tragic and terrifying as Battle Royale and moments as carefree and silly as Ouran Host Club. It’s a wild and unpredictable ride. There are twists that I figure out but attributed to entirely the wrong character; there are also secrets hiding in plain sight that I didn’t see until it was too late to brace myself. Those are the kind of scares and shock value I look for in a serialized horror story.

Talentless Nana is streaming on Funimation.

My book #31Days: A Collection of Horror Essays, Vol. 1 is available on Ko-fi.