Warning: This article contains spoilers for Talentless Nana Episode 10, "The Invisible Blade," now streaming on Funimation.
What Nana lacks in power, she more than makes up for it in cunning and ruthlessness. What has been less clear until this week is how Nana came to be such a cold-blooded killer. Episode 10 provides the long-awaited answer, delving into Nana's dark past.
Nana knows a monster when she sees one. After witnessing Jin’s true powers, she knows she cannot defeat him, so she tries her best to get away. Unfortunately, she is still no match for Jin’s abilities. However, Nana is starting to understand his weaknesses, it seems that Jin cannot transform into Nana so he still does not know that she is powerless. More importantly, Jin has to bear the burden of all the superpowers he copies. For instance, if he uses Michiru’s healing power, he will lose some of his life-span just like Michiru.
Jin severely burns Nana using Moguo’s pyrokinesis, but he does not intend on killing Nana, he plans to slowly gain Nana’s trust so that she will tell him more about her secrets. Nana tells Jin that she had parents and a much older brother who left home and that her father worked for the government agency in charge of superpower affairs. She believes her parents were killed by the enemies of humanity. Kyoya came to the island to look for his younger sister, so there may be some potential connections between Kyoya and Nana, and since Kyoya is immortal, he might be much older than he looks.
Nana passes out from her wounds and wakes up to a worried Michiru, who already healed her. Michiru believes that Nana is hurt by the enemies of humanity, and a vulnerable Nana starts to confide in Michiru about her past. Nana’s parents were brutally murdered by some robbers one night, leaving her alone to cry for help. During the police questioning after her parents’ death, Nana found out that the intruders came into her house through her bedroom window, and Nana used to sneak out of her window to go buy comic books at night. Nana blames herself for the death of her parents, so she became ruthless and vigilant against all enemies of humanity.
This episode marks a major character development for Nana. She not only reveals the root of her hatred for the enemies of humanity but, more importantly, is also starting to trust Michiru much more than was previously shown, even though she constantly warns herself against emotional attachments.
However, there are several issues with Nana’s story. First, her parents were decapitated and put on display after they died. If it was just a robbery gone wrong as Nana says, why would the robbers deliberately do something so vicious? Moreover, if the intruders did come in through Nana’s window, then they already know Nana will be back in the house at some point, and she could be a potential witness to their crimes. Why would they leave Nana alive even when they took the time to brutally kill her parents? Though this is not to suggest that Nana killed her parents, but the inconsistencies hint at something much more sinister behind her parents’ murder, most likely without Nana’s knowledge.
Sinister things are also happening on the island while Nana recalls her past. When Nana and Michiru wake up in her dorm the next morning, Kyoya informs them that another student on the island has been murdered. This time, Nana knows she is not the killer. Jin warns Nana at the beginning of the episode that when her arrogant and spoiled super-powered classmates see a lot of deaths, it might awaken more violent tendencies within them, and it seems this is exactly what is happening.