「能力者VS無能力者 PART 2」 (Nouryoku-sha VS Munouryoku-sha PART 2)
“Talented vs. Talentless Part 2”

Oh now that went from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye. As though indulging in Sherlock shenanigans wasn’t enough, Munou na Nana decided to (finally) throw caution to the wind and give Nana her first legitimate challenge. Is the girl going to make it through the latest round of circumstances gone awry? Undeniably, but that doesn’t mean the process won’t be one hell of a ride.

Given the nature of Tsunekichi’s ability and the manner of its reveal, I’m not too shocked his motivation was entirely self-serving. Obviously a budding hedonist is going to take potential blackmail as far as it’ll go, especially when it happens to trap a cutie pie and leave her no room for maneuver. Or so you’d imagine. Deceiving the believer with evidence just real enough to diffuse any major suspicion? Now that’s playing dirty, although much like with Nana’s earlier victims Tsunekichi brought the results upon himself. When endowed with special powers it always pays to know its weaknesses—and know how you can be fooled by someone on those same weaknesses.

As usual, however, the real fun lies with Kyouya and (surprisingly) Michiru. While Kyouya is still in the artificial distraction phase—i.e. being led away from the truth thanks to mental roundabouts and convenient distractions—he’s very quickly picking up on key aspects that will eventually catch Nana out. Stuff like the curiosities in Nana’s fake photograph staging for example are the sort of things you’d never expect to come up because they are esoteric knowledge; Nana may be shrewd in her planning, but not even she can fully account for this level of detail. Every time Kyouya enters the picture (heh) there’s the real risk that he’ll spot something strange she forgot to account for, which in turn will force her to plan better and act more cautiously. That in turn though will give greater room for mistakes which Nana will eventually be unable to talk her way out of as the lies build up and the inconsistencies grow.

Case in point being Michiru stumbling across the one picture Nana wanted to keep hidden. She may have a way or two to convince (or silence) Michiru before Kyouya comes knocking again, but you can bet the stakes from this point onwards just got a whole lot higher for our little pink haired murder machine.

 

Preview

12 Comments

  1. I don’t know why I’m watching this absurd, but it’s somehow enjoyable. Kyoya is like “This pink-haired lady is extremely suspicious and a potential serial killer,” and the next second “Ah, forget that! I don’t have any evidence or motive. Let’s be friends.”

    nixx
    1. Kyouya wants answers about his sister so the evidence and motive are what he is looking for. Although he is letting Nana get away with murder to see what happens if Kyouya fakes his death and Nana wins he would be about to see Nana report to her handlers or whatever cleanup crew they have.

      memi
      1. Not sure he’s letting her get away with murder as much as being unsure who specifically is doing the murdering. Nana is suspicious, but Kyouya doesn’t have enough evidence to wholly pin the blame on her – until he finally gets that missing piece logic forces him to also suspect the Enemies of Humanity. After he settles on Nana we could then see such a strategy play out.

    2. It’s why I mentioned artificial distraction, Kyouya has to eventually settle on Nana being responsible, but if it happens too quickly then a lot of the tension and suspense is eliminated. The challenge is making that gradual shift in belief entertaining because there’s only so much mental wrangling and contrivance possible before it gets really annoying. At least it’s currently staying on the right side of entertaining as you mention.

    3. Kyouya is clearly certain that Nana is the killer. However, he needs strong proof for others and… he doesn’t seem to care that people are dying all around, so he isn’t in any real rush (especially since he himself is immortal). Just like L, he does not seem to be a truly good guy.

      Nayrael
  2. Well 5 episodes in, and I still can’t tell if this series is good or bad. It’s ridiculous yes, and it seems like Nana is just able to get through with her shenanigans up to this time because the rest of the characters apart from Kyoya are dumb. Well, even kyoya can be annoyingly frustrating. I don’t know if they can drag this sort of mind game further because while this is still entertaining up to this point, it’s already starting to annoy and somehow bore me. Of course, I’m sure several surprises are still on the way, so I do hope they can maintain this level of entertainment until the very end.

    MMX3
    1. Yupp that’s the only real problem with this sort of setup and it’s one of the issues I’ve heard about the source material. Personally I suspect things will be fine considering the show isn’t really resting on its laurels and is trying to one-up earlier stuff (alongside decent pacing), but there’s always the risk this winds up hitting a serious rut. As usual we’ll just have to wait and see!

    1. Personally I expect an accomplice, or at least an unwillingly blackmailed one. Nana cannot kill her right now as that would be too suspicious even for Kyouya’s whiplash mind, so that only leaves a few other options.

      Also I am half-expecting Michiru to be outed as a trap because her appearance and personality just scream it to me.

Leave a Reply to Pancakes Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *