By Kianni Keys ‘19, Arts and Entertainment Writer

Show: Girl from Nowhere

Where to Watch: Netflix

What makes a great television character? Usually, the first answer would be “development”. Even if you didn’t think the exact word, a character ‘growing’ or ‘learning more about themselves’ would do just as well.  

I used to think the same way: “The only good characters are ones that have an arc.”

Well, I was recently proven wrong.

Enter ‘Girl from Nowhere’— a Thai Netflix original that popped up on my spotlight page. I was searching for a new show to watch so I let the trailer run… and then I let the pilot run… and then I finished the series in a couple of days, something I hadn’t done in years.

For a quick summary, Girl from Nowhere is an anthology show. An anthology show is a show where the episodes are self-contained stories, a popular one being Black Mirror, a show that I’m actually quite a fan of.

Now, Girl from Nowhere breaks the rules of the anthology series by having the main character, a girl named Nanno, who is the “new girl” at school at each episode. With a thirty-five to fifty minute runtime per episode for thirteen episodes, the story focused mostly on Nanno’s interactions with one other person, whether that be a teacher or student, sometimes both. Based off of thirteen news articles, each episode tackles a pretty relatable teen issue without it being cheesy, then usually wraps up with a moral lesson we can all learn from. That probably sounds pretty mediocre, but I have yet to reveal what shoots this into my all-time favorites.

Girl from Nowhere does something most shows are scared of doing.  The “new girl” I just talked about, Nanno? Well, she doesn’t develop. At all. Nanno just stays Nanno and doesn’t bat an eyelash by the season finale credits.

So why is this a genius move and not a stupid one?

Whenever Nanno is introduced at her new school, she doesn’t just interact with the students by chance: she targets them.You see, Nanno comes to each school and searches for someone with an evil inside them.  That person can be completely innocent: a team manager with a crush, a moron at a school for geniuses, a girl who wants to be the prettiest at her school, things like that.  

Nanno finds what that person wants, then tempts them with something they want: their crush’s love, the key to being a genius, the title of the prettiest girl, and so on. But she doesn’t offer it to them like usual “I’m obviously the Devil. Here’s the apple. Eat it”. She takes what they want and gives it to herself, making the person go after her.  She also makes something very clear throughout each episode and states it in some variation at the end: “You had every chance to say no but you didn’t.  Now you have to suffer from what you did.” Something along those lines.

When I first watched this show, I thought Nanno was just evil. Like, plain evil. She never blinked at another person’s suffering that she herself prompted. But then I realized how clever and genuine a character Nanno is. If you look closer at what she actually does, you can tell that she’s doing it for a good reason. Obviously, really bad things happen to the main target of each episode. But Nanno has a very stable moral compass: she punishes people who are hurting others or themselves without realizing, whether it’s because of greed, pride, just not knowing, etc. When Nanno finishes the job, the person learns a lesson.  

So what Nanno does is put the target on her own back, getting beaten, slandered, even murdered, in order for her subject of interest to realize that, if Nanno wasn’t there and someone else had what they wanted, instead of attacking them and then getting a restart to check themselves like what Nanno gives them, they’d actually suffer real-life consequences: expulsion, shunning, jail, things like that.

That doesn’t mean the episodes are happy: it is a psychological thriller and karma does have a nasty side. Sometimes Nanno barely speaks in an episode and the chaos ensues without her having to do a thing, showing how things can get out of hand without an outside instigator.  But overall I would say that Nanno is a teacher more than the Devil, though she does have some prominent demon-like qualities.

So that leads into the whole “development” thing. I just described what I think is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever seen. She has a haunting image: a piercing gaze, a smile that’s inviting one minute then terrifying the next, and a laugh that literally made me shake. Her presence is imposing and powerful, you can’t miss her. Every word that comes out of her mouth is entrancing like you’re becoming her next target. That’s a flawless character build.

What you don’t get is her “learning lessons”, “growing”, and definitely not “becoming a better person”. That’s just not what Nanno is.

What you do get are slight reveals each episode, slowly taking a peek into Nanno’s opinions. Whenever she says “I like —” or “I hate —” those phrases stick out like a giraffe in a field of hamsters. You hold onto what she says, and it pays off in the end.  

So it all makes sense: Nanno can’t learn lessons or develop because she’s the one teaching the lessons and making her targets look at how evil they can be when tempted by the right thing, leading to their development. It’s an expert formula. And, like any show, the formula varies (extremely) throughout the episodes, a few of them actually surprised me with the turns they took. So Nanno remains ambiguous enough for another season, and the audience is intrigued enough to wait. So what do you say? Will you see if a character like Nanno can steal your heart?  Because she sure stole mine.