I think it’s super neat how Talentless Nana starts as this cat and mouse game of chess between two smart ppl tm, but it’s themes end up revolving a lot more about overcoming emotional abuse and grooming, repenting and working hard to become a better person.
Like I’ve said before how much I love Nana’s arc, how she starts blindly obeying the orders given to her, completely dehumanizing other kids in her eyes so she could kill them and ever so slowly realizing the truth of the thing. That they are innocent and she’s being manipulated. And it’s really great because it’s so gradual, there is no snap realization of ‘oh wait they are good.’ She notices their niceness early on but she keeps dismissing and turning it in her head. ‘They might be nice, but they are still the enemy, even the kindest must have a bad side, look at them throw around their powers, they are obviously dangerous.’ Every time she has a doubt she turns it on its head and uses the times she was proven right to solidify her claim ‘Yuuka seemed like a nice person but was actually a bad one deep inside, they are all like that.’ The denial is that first thing that hits her and she twists the truth in any way she can find because if it really is the truth the implications are too heavy to bare.
And then there was Michiru, kind, selfless and full of love, becoming Nana’s first (girl)friend, giving Nana that sense of love and care she never truly had. Michiru who was always by her side, who never once doubted her, who stood up to Kyouya for Nana despite being generally super non-confrontational. Even when Nana doubted her, even when she assumed the worst, Michiru had time and again proven that she trusts Nana, that she loves her, that she would never turn against her. Michiru sacrificed her own life for Nana without hesitation out of pure, selfless love.
And if one monster could be so kind, couldn’t they all be so?
If Michiru was human couldn’t the rest of the talented be human as well?
And it’s not a fact that is easy to face, Nana still fights it, still struggles with it. She practically begs her Tsuruoka to tell her the reason, to ease her worries and to tell her that what she did wasn’t just a senseless act of cruelty, that it had meaning, that it made the world better. I really like how she doesn’t immediately move from ‘Michiru was good’ to ‘Government is evil and must die’. Nana was brainwashed and gaslit into a child soldier her whole life, it is not a truth that is easy to swallow. It is very realistic for her that in her time of doubt she turns to the person she sees as her moral and life guide, to Tsuruoka and he continues manipulating her, refusing to give her a proper answer, admonishing and threatening her for even asking it, putting conditions on it that include killing another classmate which she really doesn’t want to do when she’s so unsure about the meaning of her actions. He pairs her up with Moe to increase the pressure and to keep an eye on her and when he finally tells her the truth he takes pleasure in tearing up her whole world.
Even as she looks for truth out of his mouth, Nana is slowly changing, slowly turning, becoming a better person even as she still clings to his word, which in the end will help her tear away from his control completely. She forgives Hikaru, despite Hikaru proving himself legitimately dangerous. She forgives Koharu, despite Koharu targeting and tormenting her personally. She protects Kiyomi, knowing how it’s like to be brainwashed into doing something you didn’t really want to do. These things don’t come naturally to her, she has to put conscious effort into them, but she still does them. This girl who once doubted Michiru for just looking a bit in thought has now learned to forgive others, trust into them and give them second chances. I think it’s really telling how kind Nana is becoming, how deliberately kind after her tough life. She had faked kindness all through the manga but now she’s doing it for real, going so far as to kill again so Moe wouldn’t have to. Because Moe hasn’t killed anyone yet, her hands are still clean and as badly as they got on at first, after spending time with Moe and Moe’s grandmother, Nana simply can’t stomach letting Tsuruoka turn another young girl into a killer.
She has so far attempted to tell the whole truth to both her whole class and just Kyouya, despite knowing what she did was terrible, despite hating herself for it and finding she can’t forgive herself. She has been interrupted both times but she is willing and ready to do it despite knowing full well it will probably end very badly for her. She knows what she did and she feels terribly for it and that’s why she’s trying to confess and I know once she finally manages to do so she will take any punishment the class decides on as fair. She knows she had done evil and she wants to make amends no matter how much they may hurt. She is becoming a better person and she is willing to work hard to prove herself as so, even as she repents for her sins.
Talentless Nana really is about overcoming abuse and repenting for your own mistakes while at the same time growing from them and becoming a better person. And I really like that it takes such a realistic road towards that message, with no sudden realizations or heel face turns. It displays every painful step, it shows Nana going in circles, refusing the truth, denying and twisting things to fit with the view of the world she has, trusting and refusing to trust, taking one step forward and two steps back and all of those are perfectly natural steps in overcoming abuse and the mental damage it caused. It’s just really good in that regard what can I say.
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