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.