The Talentless Nana Season 2 anime will have pink-haired assassin Nana Hiiragi’s world turned upside down with several stunning revelations. But when will Munou na Nana Season 2 come out?
The anime is being produced by Japanese animation studio Bridge, which was founded by former members of Studio Sunrise. Bridge is best known for collaborating with big-name studios. For example, they worked with A-1 Pictures/Cloverworks on the Fairy Tail anime series and Toei Animation on the Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold anime.
Studio Bridge has created anime productions on their own, including the 2017 The Royal Tutor (Oushitsu Kyoushi Heine) anime, the 2014 Nobunagun anime, and the 2013 Devil Survivor 2. Most notably, Studio Bridge will be producing the 2021 Shaman King reboot.
The studio and staff for the Talentless Nana Season 2 anime has not yet been announced.
For the first season, Studio Bridge assembled a group with a long list of big-name anime to their credit. The Talentless Nana anime was helmed by director Shinji Ishihira, who is best known for directing Edens Zero, Fairy Tail, and Log Horizon (including the 2021 Log Horizon Season 3). He’s done storyboarding for popular anime like The Seven Deadly Sins and My Hero Academia (see our stories on the 2021 The Seven Deadly Sins Season 5 release date and the 2021 My Hero Academia Season 5).
Writer Fumihiko Shimo (Clannad, Fairy Tail, Fate/stay night, Full Metal Panic!, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, Infinite Stratos) is creating the series composition. Artist Toshihiko Sano (Fairy Tail, Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun Season 2, Shaman King) is the character designer. Composer Yasuharu Takanashi (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Fairy Tail, Gantz, Kengan Ashura, Killing Bites, Log Horizon, Naruto series, Zombieland Saga) wrote the music.
The Talentless Nana Season 2 OP (opening) theme song music and ED (ending) have not yet been announced.
For the first season, the Talentless Nana OP was “Broken Sky” as performed by Miyu Tomita, while the ED was “Bakemono to Yobarete” by Chiai Fujikawa.
The first season of the Talentless Nana anime was streaming with English subtitles on FUNimation Now, Amazon Prime Video, and Crunchyroll. A FUNimation Talentless Nana English dub has not been announced and FUNimation’s fall 2020 schedule listed the series as a Simulcast, not a Simuldub.
The finale, Talentless Nana Episode 13, releases on December 27, 2020.
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Updated December 31, 2020: Added Talentless Nana Blu-Ray/DVD sales numbers.
This article provides everything that is known about Talentless Nana Season 2 (Munou na Nana Season 2) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Munou na Nana Season 2 release date predictions
As of the last update, Studio Bridge, Square Enix, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Talentless Nana Season 2 release date. Nor has the production of a sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed this article will be updated with the relevant information. In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Munou na Nana Season 2 premiere date will occur in the future.
Having assembled such a talented team for the first season is both a blessing and a curse. While the anime has been well-received by reviewers, the main issue is that the anime has not been immediately planned out for a second season.
In general, most workers in the anime industry are contractors who jump between studios for projects. Scheduling an anime production takes years to gather the animation staff and the voice acting talent. This is usually done quietly internally, and anime seasons are not announced until the company is ready.
For example, the overwhelming financial success of the first Re:ZERO anime was not unexpected. While the producers quietly renewed the anime it was years before Re:ZERO Season 2 became public knowledge. And since continued success seems assured, the producer is already discussing the Re:Zero Season 3 anime.
While the Talentless Nana anime probably won’t have that level of success, it still serves as an example of why it can take so long for a second season to come out.
In April 2021, the Talentless Nana director will be focused on the Edens Zero anime, which will likely run for multiple cours. Other team members are moving on to Shaman King, Log Horizon, etc. in 2021.
The studio itself is big enough to work on several projects concurrently, but Shaman King will be their primary focus in 2021 and likely part of 2022. Plus, they’re also planning an original work called Pon Qiao Booth that will feature original characters created by the studio.
It’s always possible that Munou na Nana Season 2 could be produced by a different studio or at least a different main staff. But if the second season is greenlit for production and it’s planned for the main staff to return at Studio Bridge, then the Talentless Nana Season 2 release date would need to wait several years.
The secondary issue is whether the financial numbers justify renewing a second season. Unfortunately, the Talentless Nana Blu-Ray/DVD disc sales in Japan were a total flop, with the first volume only selling 163 copies in the first week (3,000 copies is considered to be a good sign).
However, that doesn’t mean the anime’s fate is sealed since income from streaming revenue is now the most important factor in the modern anime industry, so it’s possible that international popularity could be cause to greenlight Talentless Nana Season 2.
Talentless Nana manga compared to the anime
The anime is based on the Talentless Nana manga series by writer Looseboy and illustrator Iori Furuya. Serialized in Square Enix’s Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine since May 2016, the Munou na Nana manga is up to Volume 7 as of October 12, 2020.
Starting in September 2020, Crunchyroll began digitally publishing the Talentless Nana manga’s English translation. It’s a Simulpub so Crunchyroll subscribers can keep up with the latest chapters.
Figuring out which manga chapters were adapted by the anime is easy since the titles for each episode are based on the manga chapter titles.
Sometimes when manga series are adapted into an anime, some of the monologues will be cut and certain panels skipped due to the time constraints of the episodic format.
Thankfully, the Talentless Nana anime was largely faithful to the source material. Arguably, Studio Bridge could have improved on the manga by adding foreshadowing that also bettered Nana’s character development, but such changes would have impacted the pacing.
Overall, the anime is well-paced, with Episode 1 adapting Chapter 1. The pacing picked up with later episodes, but any skipped content was minor, which isn’t surprising considering the interconnected nature of the manga’s plot and how each scene connects to the other.
Some of the episodes skipped the OP and the ED in order to ensure that the story could be told properly.
As an example of the pacing, Episode 6 adapted 2.5 chapters from Chapters 10 through 12. Episode 7 then finished the second half of the Necromancer story arc, which corresponds to Chapter 14.
Episode 8 adapted the Talented vs Talentless story arc continuation (Chapters 15 – 17), Episode 9 was Survival of the Fittest (Chapters 18 – 20), and Episodes 10 through 12 adapted most of The Invisible Blade arc (Chapters 21 – 25).
The finale’s title is named after Chapter 28: Revival. The ending of Talentless Nana Episode 13 corresponded to the final panel of manga Volume 4 Chapter 28.
Unfortunately, this ending probably feels unfulfilling to anime-only audiences since it offers limited plot resolution and several story threads were left hanging.
Astral boy Rentaro Tsurumigawa was revealed as the killer, but the anime never explained why Ryuji Ishii’s girlfriend Fuko Sorano had blood on her tracksuit, nor what happens to Rentaro. Nana does make her very first true friend, but other major character developments are left unfinished including Tatsumi Tsuruoka’s first visit to the island.
Later manga chapters have Nana’s character evolving significantly and there are several interesting plot twists to come. Thus, the second season transforms the anime into a more compelling story based on Nana’s redemption.
The good news is that there is plenty of manga source material for creating the Talentless Nana Season 2 anime. Better yet, English-only fans who wish to read ahead of the anime can jump straight to Crunchyroll to read Volume 5: Chapter 29.
The bad news is that the anime ended too soon. It should have been two cours from the outset since a longer first season would have greatly impacted the storytelling and thus the resulting reviews.
The main issue with the anime’s length of only 13 episodes is that it only has a chance to adapt the manga chapters that relied on a predictable formula of Nana murdering people only to escape suspicion using a combination of charisma (blame the invisible enemies of humanity!), deductive reasoning (fake mind reading that her classmates rarely question!), and plot armor (deus ex machina!). The story often comes off as feeling silly since Nana will get close to being busted just for some contrivance to exonerate her actions and keep the core premise intact.
The problems with the first season’s storytelling run deeper. Episode 1 hooks us with the premise of a boring generic shonen protagonist being murdered for shock value, but then the worldbuilding justifies Nana’s mission with a flimsy explanation about war and Talented becoming monsters. The government has convinced the general population that Talented children must be moved to a remote island to be trained as heroes against the alien “enemies of humanity”, but secretly they’re sending in a child assassin.
The training academy only serves to isolate the Talented from the rest of the world. It’s not made clear whether the entire government or just this mysterious Council really intends for all of them to die, but the fact that there are enough bodies on the island for making a zombie hoard definitely seems to imply the entire government is in on the conspiracy.
It sounds illogical and silly on the face of it. Such a largescale conspiracy would never work in reality, which makes it hard for audiences to hold onto their suspension of disbelief. If the goal is to kill the Talented in extermination camps disguised as schools there is no reason to train and deploy a teenage Talentless assassin.
If anything, the worldbuilding feels like it’s vainly trying to justify a scenario where a sociopathic serial killer schoolgirl goes on a killing spree against superhero opponents without being caught. While many of Nana’s classmates were secret psychos (and some not), it seems as if audiences were told the Talented are destined to evolve into monsters simply so we’d have sympathy for the anti-hero and not be immediately repulsed by her actions.
As such, some anime audiences may be quick to dismiss the plot as contrived. While that reaction is understandable, it’d also be too quick to judge since the story will become more compelling in Talentless Nana Season 2.
Unfortunately, explaining why this is the case requires spoilers.
Talentless Nana Season 2 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
The worldbuilding feels off because it really is. It turns out Nana is an unreliable narrator since her beliefs, and thus what the audience has been told about the way the world works, are based on childhood trauma combined with lies.
In the wake of all the first season’s events, Nana finds herself questioning her own worldview because she realizes what she’s been doing doesn’t make any sense. She was raised by her father figure Tatsumi Tsuruoka to believe that all Talented were really monsters in disguise, but that belief was challenged by the existence of good-natured Talented.
She became genuine friends with Michiru only to have that friend die for her sake. And then Tsuruoka secretly ensures Michiru is dead with a double-tap to the head so it becomes pretty obvious who the true villain is in this story.
Manipulated by Tsuruoka once again, Nana is motivated for a time to go back on the Talented hunt based on the false belief that the Council will save Michiru’s life if Nana continues to follow orders. Nana will be facing off against a student who can control gravity and some superpowered twins.
But those creeping doubts simply won’t leave Nana alone. As a child, Nana was manipulated into believing she might have been at fault for her parents’ deaths. The young Nana was regularly told that her parents’ killer was able to break in because she left her window open.
Eventually, Nana demands that Tsuruoka tell her the true purpose and intention of the Council. Nana is shocked when Tsuruoka confesses to the murder of Nana’s parents and how her window was locked tight.
Worse, Tsuruoka’s manipulative actions were out of spite for her father, who opposed the Council and desired to expose their heinous actions to the world. Desiring that her father’s death be as cruel as possible, the cold-hearted leader framed the Talented for the murder and indoctrinated his broken-hearted daughter with brainwashing.
Tsuruoka even likened Nana to disposable child soldiers who are used to clear minefields. The Council never took Nana’s mission too seriously since they bet their golf club memberships on how long they expected her to survive before being caught and killed.
The Council only sent Nana to the island in hopes that she would trigger infighting between the Talented, which is how everyone in the first class of the island died 5 years ago.
With the truth revealed, Nana is a wreck and on the verge of suicide thinking that she’d killed innocents who could have become friends. But the emotional whiplash is not quite over.
The shapeshifting Jin Tachibana is the only survivor from the events 5 years ago. He reveals his power’s weakness, that he can only transform into people who are still alive. But then he transforms into Nanao Nakajima, “proving” that Nana’s first innocent victim was still alive.
Jin convinces Nana that she shouldn’t give up now so she can find Nanao and apologize.
Having started off as a merciless assassin in the first season, by the middle of Talent Nana Season 2 Nana has completed her transformation from a hesitant killer into a person who genuinely wants to help the Talented survive. She wants to tell everyone the complete truth but she’s having trouble finding the perfect moment to do so.
Problem is, all of her previous actions have rightfully made her way too suspicious to the other students, especially after she is publicly accused of being a murderer and her reputation among her classmates is damaged.
But Tsuruoka is not done with his plotting. While he left Nana alive after revealing the truth to her, the only reason he did so was to make it easier to control someone who suffered at Nana’s hands: Nanao!
Nana desires to make amends but Nanao only desires revenge against anyone who ever wronged him. And he’s only grown more powerful since the last time they’ve met, capable of using his nullification powers in new murderous ways that truly make him an enemy of humanity.
Crazy enough, Nana is even framed for a murder she didn’t actually commit this time. How will Nana find peace and avoid another revenge tragedy?
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Talentless Nana Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!