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Nana Hiiragi is the titular main protagonist of the psychological thriller manga series Talentless Nana and its 2020 anime adaptation. Introduced as a new transfer student in a school for teenagers with superpowers, or as they called "Talents", Nana is revealed to be a government-affiliated assassin, groomed from her childhood into being a ruthless killer. Feigning her Talent of telepathy, Nana infiltrates the school to assassinate her classmates, believing this will protect the world.
She was voiced by Rumi Okubo in Japanese and Michelle Marie in the English dub of anime.
What Makes Her Magnificent?[]
- She is one of the smartest characters in the series, using a combination of analysis, manipulation, charisma and physiological knowledge to outsmart many people. The only people who rival her are Kyouya, Rin and Tsuruoka, and even then, the former two didn't expose her crimes because Kyouya wanted to learn her motive first and Rin needed her alive to investigate the government, respectively, while Tsuruoka was one who taught her everything she knows.
- Her backstory is extremely tragic, as she was just an innocent girl with two loving parents, who had said parents murdered by the government, before she was subjected to an abusive training that saw her getting turned into a ruthless and remorseless murderer she is today. But that being said, she never allowed any of this to become a monster like Tsuruoka or just as amoral as Moe, showing that even when being used as a pawn, Nana maintained dignity and honor.
- It's also shown that she prays for victims she believes didn't deserved to be killed despite her disregard on their morality, and according to Tsuruoka, she intended to fund a schoolarship for orphans like her using her salary.
- She is mentioned to be insanely good at playing board games like chess and shogi when she was only 5-6 years old, showing that she was already smart and crafty at such young age.
- Feigns being an innocent, ditzy sweetie to charm her classmates and make it easier to kill them, while using her high analytical skills to deduce something about them from minor details.
- Slowly builds up a friendship with Nanao Nakajami, only to throw him off the cliff when his guard was lowered, and despite revealing her intentions to him, she took time to apologize for bringing up his daddy issues as a part of her farce, which seems to be genuine given her own backstory.
- Upon ensuring Yohei Shibuzawa didn't see her throwing Nanao off the cliff during his time travel investigation of Nanao's (supposed) death, she tricked him into time travelling back to the lake before Seiya froze it, killing him secretly and without any evidence.
- When Kyouya Onodera began suspecting her, Nana spied on him to learn his daily activities and eventually used his attempt at befriending her to figure out he can't sense smells, allowing her to orchestrate a gas explotion in a shed where he warms up milk for a homeless cat, but not without evacuating said cat. While it somewhat backfired because Kyouya's talent is immortality, it can't be really detracting given even the government failed to dig up anything on him.
- Wounded herself and make it look like it was an attack by an "Enemy of Humanity" near Michiru Inukai when she wasn't looking, confirming her false claim the "Enemies" are on the Island and getting herself elected as a new class representative, which would grand her better chances at knowing her classmates' talents and personalities. Even Kyouya, despite his growing suspicions towards her, was forced to back down, as going against her right now without ironclad proof of her murders wouldn't end well for him.
- When blackmailed by Tsunekichi Hatadaira with prophetic photographs of her murders, Nana pretended to go along with his hedonistic whimps, only to use his ability to make said photographs when he only sleeps to replace the ones he recently made with fake ones, giving him false sense of security, only for her to kill him when he lowered his guard.
- Pretended to barricade herself inside the warehouse when targeted by Yuka Sasaki and her horde of zombies, only to escape and attack Yuka when she was least expecting it, successfully getting the real item that lets her control her "boyfriend"'s corpse, after figuring it out during their intial struggle. She then faked the item's destruciton and pointed out all inconsistencies in Yuka's backstory to physiologically break her down and kill her at her lowest.
- It's also shown that her verbal beatdown and eventual murder of Yuka is played for pure satisfaction, given she turned out to be a depraved stalker who killed said boy as to not have another girl date him, with Nana herself looking at Yuka during her spiteful motive rant.
- Needing an alibi for Yuka's death, she secretly kills Kirara Habu in the forest, before using her phone to orchestrate her best friend Kaori Takonashi's death by poisoning her contact lenses, making it look like Habu killed her. She then has Moguo and Seiya burn down all corpses Yuka controlled, unknowingly making them burn down Habu's corpse and her phone as well, thus creating an alibi for herself and getting away with murdering three students on one day.
- Thwarts two attempts by Jin Tachibana (actually Rin Onodera using Jin's appearance) to out her as a serial killer and comes deadly close to killing him, if it wasn't for his quick thinking.
- Develops genuine friendship with Michiru, one of the Talented students, despite originally using her and planning to eventually kill her, to the point Michiru's sacrifice to save her from fatal wounds devastated Nana and made her question her mission.
- Figured out one of Mogue's henchmen was the killer of Ryuji Ishii from simply seeing his talent in action once and used herself as bait, so Kyouya would restrain him, while also being content with dying for Michiru's sake during the confrontation, citing it as a punishment for all her murders.
- She ultimately decides to break free from Tsuruoka's control with Rin's influence, redeeming herself and intending to expose the government's crimes. Despite this, she maintains her magnificence, such as outsmarting two more students when she was driven into a corner by them, keeping her fellow child soldier Moe in line for her goals, before convincing her stop working for government out of genuine empathy, and even faking being brainwashed after 3 years to engineer an escape from prison for everyone.
What Makes Her a Baddie?[]
- She was originally a serial killer sent by the government to kill the Talented, who are all teenagers around her age, regardless of them being good or bad (even if most of her kills are hard to mourn). Her failed murder of Nanao also kick-started his descend into madness, not to mention she even contemplated leaving Michiru to die on two occasions despite growing to care for her.
External Links[]
- Nana Hiiragi at the Talentless Nana wiki
- Nana Hiiragi at the Villains wiki