Anime: Munou na Nana

Munou na Nana had an interesting idea for a plot, but it turned to shit after a few episodes. Still, it manages to be an entertaining and enjoyable show.

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An interesting start

The basic idea of the plot is pretty cool, and is more or less an anime version of the Werewolf card game.

The main character, Nana, has to kill a whole lot of people on an island isolated from the rest of the world. The people she must kill are students with supernatural abilities called talents, ranging from overpowered abilities like time manipulation and immortality, to more standard stuff like healing other people’s wounds. But Nana doesn’t have a talent – she is “talentless”, hence the name. And so she has to isolate her targets and kill them one by one using her assassination skills, and then create herself an alibi after each murder. On top of that she also has to pretend that she is one of the talented.

Enters Kyouya, the main antagonist of the first half of the series.

Kyouya’s role in the first half of the series can be compared to L’s role in Death Note. He quickly identifies Nana as being the first suspect for the murders, but doesn’t have an actual proof to incriminate her and get the other students on his side. So for an important part of the series, he will watch each of her actions, hoping to catch her in the act.

But it turns out to be dumb

If the basic idea sounded cool, the show quickly becomes very stupid.

Nana and Kyouya are presented as geniuses when they’re actually not that clever, it’s just that they’re the only ones with a somewhat working brain, while the rest of the cast is dumb as hell. The students see their peers getting killed one by one, but don’t react. They should be panicking or trying to find the murderer, but instead they swallow Nana’s obvious lies and go back to their lives like nothing happened.

Kyouya becomes a useless secondary character after several episodes, and his character development is put to a halt. The nice Death Note vibes that the viewer was getting in the first half of the series begin to disappear and the show turns into some sort of anime Battle Royale with superpowers.

Nana is portrayed as a manipulative genius who uses other student’s talents for her own benefit, but she makes stupid decisions very often. In the first episode she kills the student whose talent is being able to cancel other people’s talents, even though she already had him in her pocket and could have make good use of him.

Then there’s also the fact that towards the end of the series, the show decides to add some dumb and unnecessary romance between Nana and another character, Michiru.

The characters are very average

Except from Nana and maybe Kyouya, the rest of the cast is forgettable and cliché.

The students that Nana targets aren’t introduced until it’s their turn to be killed. Most of the time they will appear on screen and the you will be like “who’s that guy, again?”. Nobody knows, because they were barely given any screen time before and you know that they’re going to die very soon.

Then you have the too young, too simple, sometimes naive Michiru, an annoying secondary character with an irritating high-pitched voice who starts to play a more important role in the last episodes because Nana takes a liking to her.

It is entertaining, though

Even with a nonsensical plot and bad secondary characters, the show still manages to be entertaining if you don’t give too much thought to it. How? Well, it hides (or tries to hide) its flaws by being fast-paced, having a lot of twists and ending each and every episode on a cliffhanger. However, this also means that the series abruptly ends on a cliffhanger, which isn’t really satisfying.

It is also enjoyable because for once, we have a main character who is pretty good: a two-faced serial killer who manipulates people with her fake personality and uses amoral tactics. She gets character development and character evolution during the series, but it is sad that this evolution is brought about by a crappy romance story. A likeable character overall, and some people will enjoy her “edgy” side.

Production-wise, the animation is more than decent. The character designs, backgrounds, props and such were okay overall. Sound-wise the BGM had nothing noteworthy, but it didn’t hinder the show. The opening was very nice and the voice acting was somewhat good if you don’t count Michiru’s infuriating voice.

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Conclusion

To conclude, Munou na Nana is neither a ground-breaking anime, nor an unforgettable one. It is, ultimately, yet another one of these shows that had an interesting idea for a plot, but turned out to be very disappointing. However, it also has some good elements and can be enjoyable if you don’t give too much thought about the plot.

It’s crazy to think that two shows that reminded me of Danganronpa came out in the same season, one was Akudama Drive, which was brainded but kinda fun, and the other was Munou na Nana, which was braindead and not really fun.

To its credit, it’s a really easy watch and there are enough things happening in each episode to maintain the average viewer hooked if they don’t think much about what is happening and honestly, if more comes out, I’ll definitely watch it because I want to see what happens next.

Visually is serviceable, the artwork is ok, the character designs are akin to those in My Hero Academia although not as creative or unique, the backgrounds are simple but well made. The effects aren’t bad at all but the show abuses a lot of using a certain filter with a certain color for when a character is having internal thoughts, depending on the person, pink for the protagonist, blue for Kyoya and such, and gets tiresome rather quickly. It also does the same as Moriarty the Patriot and about every anime with dark overtones that comes out today, it splashes red all over the screen for when a murder happen or it’s about to happen and it also gets tiresome because it looses impact the more it’s used, overuse work against intention.

As always, I have nothing to say about the sound, both music and effects are serviceable and have enough impact but are not exactly memorable, both the opening and ending are fine, voice acting is also serviceable but nothing special.

Now that all that filler is over, we can talk about what really matters here and say that Munou no Nana relies heavily on having similarities with other works and subverting expectations, to the point of being able to fool unexperienced viewers into thinking it’s original, without adding much (or nothing) on its own.

The premise, the first episode and the first promotional material (both videos and first poster) makes you think that it will be a literal clone of My Hero Academia, with his own version of Deku, that has a very similar design, the same personality, and is equally bullied. He is also presented as someone with seemingly no powers and has a very similar name to the actual protagonist of the show, further making you think that it will be about him. And then the episode is about to finish and the series changes completely.

Basically, all of the above was brilliant marketing, making you expect something derivative that cashes in on a popular series, and then proceeding to give you something completely different, which is basically like Danganronpa by having a school student trying to kill all of their classmates. It was also lucky to come out close to the very similar flavor of the month (despite being two years old) videogame Among Us, thus being seen as the anime version of it.

Anyways, so we have this girl going around, gathering information about the powers each student has and then killing them off. The good thing is how each ability has actual weaknesses that the protagonist can, and does reasonably take advantage of, making her seem smart, the bad part is that every other character is so dumb and fall on her traps and schemes so easily that it kills the illusion that you are watching a well thought out series about murders and how the culprit is gonna do it and how is she going to get away with it.

My first real issue with the show, aside from the dumb characters, is how lucky the protagonist is that no student here is strong, I mean seriously they all have very specific powers that makes her act in a certain way in each episode, and lets her plan something specific in each episode (something pretty convenient) but they are otherwise very weak and are taken off easily. They are supposed to be the saviours of humanity that fight against dangerous enemies but they otherwise die the same way every normal person would do, and don’t receive any training in the school that is supposed to prepare them for doing that in the future.

And I just have to point out how convenient it is that everyone buys her lies about her fake talent, it has an in story excuse, since every power has its strenghts and weaknesses, but when the protagonist comes with a different excuse of how it worked or didn’t just when it was needed, and everyone eats that crap everytime, it becomes unexcusable and a clear sign of bad writing. It also abuses it a lot, doing it once or twice would be convenient but acceptable, but when is overused like this, it becomes unacceptable. In JoJo, Joseph can guess what his enemies think and that conveniently throws his opponent off a little, enough to give him time to come out with another plan, but it’s not abused as much and is presented as dumb in a series with an over the top tone, here it’s presented in a serious manner and that only makes it lame.

Anyways, having a character going around killing other characters in each episode in somewhat convenient ways with very convenient outcomes would get formulaic and boring very fast, which it does, and thus the series introduces a main antagonist who looks like a combination of Bakugo and Todoroki and sounds just like Gray Fullbuster from Fairy Tail. What I’m trying to say is, this character was planned to be the one to confront the protagonist from the get go.

From there, they play a Kira and L cat and mouse game where they know exactly what the other does and are constantly trying to make the other look like the culprit (in case of Kyoya) or themselves innocent (in case of Nana). But just like with everything thus far, everyone around them is so dumb they don’t believe what Kyoya says, even if it makes sense to the most part and is often supported with actual evidence.

On top of that, these people are acting all friendly when they live in a world where something is supposed to be out there ready to kill them on the spot. Heck, even when they are getting killed off each day, they still don’t suspect their classmates (especially the students who just transfered) and still act all friendly, just like in Danganronpa. Bad shows copy even the worst aspects of other bad shows it seems.

I’ve seen people defending the show saying that is understandable for the characters to be this stupid because they lack the information the viewer has, which is true. I’ll expand on that later but now I’m gonna say that, just like it happens with Moriarty, having a Mary Sue protagonist in a series about murders and cat and mouse game kills all the tension and makes the show very dull to watch.

And Nana is not even consistent in that regard, for example, Moriarty is a Gary Stu but at least is presented as such in his own series, he is more consistent than Nana, who constantly messes up yet still gets away with it simply because the script says so and everyone else is seriously dumb, instead of doing that with actual wit.

Even if someone still manages to defend the show in this regard, there are instances where someone else than Kyoya finds out about Nana but doesn’t expose her for stupid reasons. It makes sense for the necrophile girl to remain silent but what valid excuse does the guy able to seen the future has for not doing so? Why he wanted to fuck Nana, that’s why, Such stupid reasoning and it made him look like a one dimensional ugly bastard rapist you would find in a doujinshi instead of a shounen series. No, there are no valid excuses for this episodes, the show is just lazily and badly written.

And I also have to point out how having an inmortal antagonist who is also mentally unbreakable ruins all the tension and fun even further.

A common criticism about the series, which I agree with, is how Nana kills the only guy with the capability of nullifying others’ powers, who would be helpful later on, and constantly keeps doing something similar, killing off characters that could be helpful if used against others. I mean, the first guy was already kinda exploitable if you think about it, try to put him against his bullies and convince him that those fuckers are the enemies and done. But oh well, if he’s exactly like Deku then he would consider his bullies as his potential boyfriends, I mean best friends, so it would be pointless.

Still, for an agent that is supposed to have been trained her whole life in stealth and assassination, as well as someone that is constantly acting like someone she’s not, Nana sure rushes to kill off everyone instead of trying to manipulate them against the others, which would make the series less formulaic and tiresome and actually somewhat smart, and not leave her exposed every single time.

Another issue with the show is the mood whiplash, as it’s constantly throwing random silly comedy in the middle of serious moments that are supposed to be suspenful and intense, doing it once or twice would be forgiveable but when it happens all the time it becomes a serious problem. And it’s not because the series is a shounen, Moriarty is a shounen series as well and it never trashes its tone like that by throwing stupid comedy just because.

Even Kyoya, who’s supposed to be the serious and smart character and counterforce of the protagonist, has silly quirks such as wanting friends, crack jokes in inappropriate moments and even wanting to play with Nana’s hair, what a way to kill the characterization of even the only actually interesting character of the show.

The theme present in the show basically comes to down to discrimination based on previous events, just like in Moriarty, the other muder mystery show of the season, and just like that series, it fucks it up in its presentation for the same reason, it presents the conflict in a simplified good vs. bad way. Only one side of the conflict is explained and it gets really hard to accept their ways of reasoning and acting when they have innocent high schoolers being killed off for doing absoultely nothing, it’s completely one sided, victimizing and unjustified that it ruins the whole theme exploration.

And finally there is the issue of the nonsensical setting, it’s almost impossible to accept that no one finds it strange that there’s only one school to train the future protectors of mankind, and it’s located on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere, even My Hero Academia is better in that regard. The show tries to excuse that by basically turning the setting into a Battle Royale clone midway, but that only makes things worse. Are you telling me that all of humanity agreed to send kids on an isolated island in hope of everyone killing each other? Talk about a one sided conflict. And you are also telling me that this has already happened before? And no one found it strange how all the future saviours of humanity died together on the same island? Many times? Hello? And it also turned the show from something with pretences of intelligence to a generic death game you can find everywhere these days in both anime and western entertainment since the success of Fate/Zero in 2011 and The Hunger Games in 2012.

Heck, now that I think about it, another strange thing is how no one finds it weird that the stories about the enemies of mankind are basically legends for there has not been a case since forever and are you telling me that only the talentless people know about the incident in the past? How is that possible? Are these kids taught different history depending if they have abilities or not or what? Even when they go to the same school before the latter are sent to an isolated island?

I don’t even understand how do these kids even have families back in their home, if this school has been doing that since who knows when, their parents should all be dead as well…or that would be the case if it was genetic as in My Hero Academia, but it’s not. And that only raises the question on how do these people even get their powers from, it also makes me think that perhaps their parents themselves sent their kids in order to get killed on that island and that only makes it worse.

Finally, aside from the characters being dumb, only two of them have background stories, one is Nana herself and is just a generic revenge plot past, and the other is Michiru or whatever that dog girl is called, and is a generic I helped someone once and began doing it ever since type of past, boring. I can give the show credit for developing Nana a little by becoming genuinely attached to her, and not only because of her healing powers, but it comes to down to being reluctant at first and then attached to someone just because they are kind, with yuri overtones included.

No, her actual development is slowly wanting to know the truth behind all things and even that is nothing much.

In conclusion, Munou na Nana is a show that you can easily watch if you just accept everything it throws at you at face value but the moment you start thinking about it, it falls apart completely, the setting makes absolutely no sense, the themes are rarely explored and when they are, the presentation of them is pathetic, the plot is full of conveniences to the point it becomes unacceptable, the tone is a mess and the characters are absolute garbage. And I will still torture myself to watch more of it if it gets more seasons because I want to see how the plot unfolds, even when it takes all of my stamina to not fall asleep while doing so.