Interestingly, I initially had zero expectations of who Nanno is and what is Nanno’s background throughout the show. Because she easily represents any of our own desire to be THAT vigilante going around “righting the wrongs” with an almost-superpower ability to always end up with the upper hand. So she essentially had no significance to me as to who she actually is, as long as she continues to provide the exhilarating vicarious satisfaction that most of us don’t get to execute ourselves in real life.
Every single episode in Season 1 had her being the pivot character but not necessarily always being the main character to each plot. The magic of not exploring who she actually is does wonders to each unique story in the different high schools in Thailand. I liked how the series take on an anthology format with almost every episode having their own different story. In fact, it is strong enough to have Nanno just blend in the background for some stories and simply serve as a background tool to move the plot along. So I really thought that my zero concern for who Nanno is would span across both seasons because it really does not play a huge part in what the series do.
But finally — A new girl with her iconic red ribbon comes into the play in Season 2. While the first few episodes hinted a little with a new character strangely weaving herself into Nanno’s plans and sometimes even surprising Nanno herself, we finally got to see her in full appearance as Yuri by first unraveling her backstory. I don’t know if Yuri striked Nanno as a potential worthy opponent and/or disciple, or she simply pitied Yuri for having the appetite but not the ability to get her to Nanno’s level. Either way, Nanno finally had a human touch to her actions towards Yuri. This definitely started to pique my interest towards Nanno as an individual herself.
Yuri is finally one good potential match for Nanno with her fury and ability to challenge unexpected moves that even Nanno did not foresee. Something about this must have struck within Nanno to do the extraordinary move of giving one a second chance. We see Nanno getting revived herself multiple times after all sorts of getting whacked/murdered without any sort of repercussion, as though as she is not human. Other characters who ended up dead, however, stays dead. This is the first time one character had Nanno genuinely rooting for her and then revived by Nanno even after Yuri tried to double-cross her. This is something that we don’t see quite often in this series.
It is an understatement that Yuri is nowhere near Nanno’s level. Their relationship is interestingly peculiar. More than an underlying teacher-student dynamic between them, I would rather call it a master-disciple dynamic. Because for the most part, the ever-eager Yuri is not willing to learn from Nanno. Not to deny, Yuri definitely started out being in awe of Nanno. How does she always end up having the upper hand? Yuri thought she did cover every step but always managed to miss that one final touch to clinch that victory like Nanno. She needed that role model in her life and Nanno provided her with just that.
…
Although that did not last for long.
In a blink of an eye, Yuri thought she got the gist and Nanno’s methods slowly became a little too mild and slow for her appetite. Accelerating things up a little, she decided, is the way to go. There are times where they seemingly acted like a dream team backing each other up and there are times where their individualistic control takes the lead to one-up the other. Frenemies may be the most appropriate term to describe them. But while Yuri is the defiant new kid in town who challenges Nanno with her ideals, Nanno is the resigned and experienced veteran who quietly finishes her job with an almost exasperation to Yuri’s antics. Nothing fazed her and she dealt with each surprise calmly. So it isn’t hard to guess that Yuri‘s temporary victories always get covered over by her loopholes and inexperience, eventually to Nanno’s finishing success. It is interesting to note here that Yuri does not really hate Nanno. She is like a lion cub playfully biting her mother figure, knowing that however hard she tries to bite, Nanno will still end up surviving on her own anyway. In this case, Yuri is able to go all out with her plans and tries to one-up Nanno without fearing any guilt on her part.
But when does the teacher-student relationship end? I love the slight switch that Nanno had from exacting revenge herself to the “villains” in Season 1 to leading the oppressed to revenge against the “villains” together in Season 2. Her anti-hero status just sealed itself even more in Season 2 as her plans, funnily enough, became just a teeny bit more selfless.. While Yuri is here to ruin all that.
A good question that’s left unanswered about Yuri up to this point is whether she foils Nanno’s plans because she does not care for the oppressed and just wanted the villains to suffer as fast as possible or she simply just does not want Nanno to win. Genuine surprise is one emotion we hardly, or never even once, saw from Nanno’s face. This strategist had a winning plan in mind even before she stepped in each school. The episodes that we watched were just about her executing it. Even with Yuri springing her surprises into Nanno’s plan, there were none of the scenes where Nanno had to recalculate or even backtrack her steps. It was as though she already mapped out every possibility that might happen, including all sorts of shenanigans that Yuri might be up to.
While we thought their cat-and-mouse relationship will continue to run in circles, something out of the blue happened. Nanno started to have reservations on her work. *gently gasps* Not only that, her rapid healing does not work this time round. It’s a double whammy on this that Yuri snatches the opportunity to gloat at her. This is not even a possible stalemate situation between the frenemies that we are talking about here, it might even be Yuri’s checkmate against her in the final episode. Nanno “losing” to Yuri is one thing, is her existence safe? Is she going to truly die and stay dead the next time round?
The right to punish wrongdoers, is given to those who are in charge. But what is going to happen if the ones in charge get persecuted themselves.
Nanno’s uncertainity stretches well into the last episode. We have ourselves here an even more questionable scenario of who is the actual villain here, but Nanno is going beyond to answer more than just that. Her existence comes into question.
To briefly summarise the story of the last episode, it turns out that Waan is deliberately poisoning her own daughter, Junko, so that her daughter can stop murdering students for bullying her due to her disability. This is something Yuri takes in very personally as she identifies with Junko as being in the same pity boat.
Besides, we get a little more insight as to Nanno’s operations in these schools, as well as Yuri’s too-close connection with Nanno herself. She could apparently foresee the future with Waan stabbing her to death while Yuri knows that. The reason?
Nanno basically rejected that notion that they are the same. Yuri just wants a quick and satifying revenge that comes through killing and destruction — but mostly killing.
We’ve both been victimised. What right do they think they have to judge us? Things are going to change from here on out. Junko is a victim just like I am. All we wanted was to get revenge.
People like you and Junko can hardly call yourselves victims. If you knew Junko was a killer, why would you help her then? Don’t you want to punish people like I taught you to do? We just use different methods.
It is interesting that Nanno acts ever-so-slightly as a mother in this sense, weakly suggesting that Yuri sees the benefits of Nanno’s methods. But Yuri’s victim complex has long been taking over her sense of existence. In JennyX, she clearly wanted Jane to win by bringing her back to her normal life and as the popular influencer JennyX while Nanno’s plan was to make Jane see her own victim complex being the actual weapon causing her demise. In The Judgement, we see Yuri, yet again, rooting for Junko who got motivated by her victim complex to murder her bullies. The difference here is that Junko parallels the exact same route that Yuri took herself in her backstory episode. This is where Yuri finds it hard to distance herself from Junko and the key to her finally breaking free from Nanno.
It’s probably hard to judge who’s at fault here. Is it Waan who crippled her own daughter to stop her, or is it Junko who got her revenge for being bullied? Can you really judge who’s the worst?
Yuri cleverly plays the moral strings within Nanno to stir up her self-doubt. Her confidence is no longer present as Nanno finds herself acting out of the ordinary — intervent. This turned out to be a tragedy as Waan did not appreciate the act of saving herself from her daughter’s knife but blamed Nanno for opening the Pandora box instead. And, of course, Waan subsequently had to be removed from this picture as she serves as an obstruction to Junko’s “becoming”.
At last, Yuri no longer finds value from Nanno and it’s her time to eliminate her teacher figure from this game. To her, it is just her weeding out the weak as she found a new and stronger partner-in-crime — Junko.
Yet again, we were treated to another new tidbit of information with Yuri declaring she will give people the power to destroy one another while she fed Junko with her blood. So linking back to how Nanno saved Yuri, blood is the infectious factor that passes down the immortal power. How is the world going to turn out with Yuri’s ideals now? Is Junko going to be friend or foe?
In my opinion, there is no lasting relationship that concerns revenge. Junko is easily as volatile, if not more, as Yuri. It is an understatement that Junko enjoys quick revenge. There is no repent for her enemies or whatsoever in their terms. The only salvation is through death where she “liberates” them and find more use through their corpses’ silence and contribution by their anatomy to feed her interests.
To be honest, even without Junko in the picture, I find it hard for Yuri to have the last laugh. Now that possibility is looking even more bleak with Junko in it. With Nanno, Yuri stands in as her disciple. With Junko, Yuri is her equal at best. There is no sense of the baton being passed down where Yuri gets promoted to master while Junko enters in as her disciple. That stage is skipped completely and this makes the situation all the more nervewrecking.
In a world where everyone thinks they are free and does whatever the hell they want, am I really necessary anymore?
Then, of course, our queen Nanno did not stay permanently dead. Thank god. I will miss her sorely if she did. While Yuri and Junko walked off triumphly, this scene made me wonder if it was deliberate on her part to stage her curtain bow. Since it was virtually impossible to tame Yuri and Junko, why not let them run wild and see what they can manage to achieve by their ideals?
Parting thoughts
I normally have a clear preference to one party in usual cases of ‘the veteran vs the newcomer’ trope but it was not the case in Girl From Nowhere. Ever since Nanno’s sense of self came into play in Season 2, I find myself rooted to her team. The magic would not be there if Yuri and Junko permanently runs the show while she is permanently dead or incapacitated.
I actually would not mind if the team decides to end the series here because I am all for quality > quantity. That being said, the show continues to hold great potential should they decide to continue with a Season 3 but they definitely do need to tread carefully with the plot advancement. Junko, as of now, definitely feels like a flat character who does not exhibit that much charisma because her main motive is to exact revenge on her bullies but not so much to the world, as compared to Yuri. Her continuation is probably to finish everybody off at her school and that’s about it. If she branches off to other schools, we need a good explanation as to why she is doing that. Yuri’s main goal was to overtake Nanno, but now with Nanno seemingly out of the picture, her charisma will, too, run flat if she does not get a stronger motivation afterwards. Not going to lie though, it will be interesting to see if Yuri is able to actually surpass Nanno with her tenacity and vicious methods or she will end up coming to the realisation that she is nothing without her master.
What I do know is that they are well passed the stage of just doing different stories for each episode to satisfy the audience. A strong arc just like Season 2 needs to be in place, especially now we are invested in Nanno-Yuri-Junko. I also wonder if they will continue sticking to the school settings. It would be fun if they explore different settings like corporate offices in the outside world with their student characters still fixed — e.g. prostitution, sugar babies, shady part-time jobs that students take part outside. I will definitely be looking out for this series if they are announcing anything new about it in future.
