Girl from Nowhere (2018)

This show isn't about bullying or gossip or our main character, Nanno. I didn't watch the trailer and expected a Mean Girls sort of drama lol. The Girl from Nowhere is about social situations in schools that bring out the worst in people and lead to deep tragedy. We watch the episodic stories through the eyes of our new student "Jane Doe" aka Nanno. After each episode, you're left with characters reaping the consequences of their inner-demons getting the best of them & Nanno always conveniently getting caught in the middle. I personally LOVED this show; it wasn't afraid to go to some dark unforgivable places, plot had me hooked and the music was great. However, I could see the stories being somewhat predictable & making it easy to see who would be trashed by Nanno next. This show takes the role of "bullied girl fights back with a vengeance" to a deliciously new level. The Girl from Nowhere is badass and the fact that it knows it is the best part xx

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I don't completely know how to feel about this show. I did find it compelling; I breezed through the episodes because Nanno is a fascinating character. Chicha Amatayakul did a great job of portraying Nanno's emotional extremes; she transitions smoothly from Nanno's cute, happy-go-lucky, fragile, and innocent facade to her true dangerous and sinister self. I didn't care much for that maniacal laugh of hers (sometimes less is more), but I feel like that was more of an intentional choice that didn't work for me rather than bad acting on her part. The music was beautiful, but also appropriately unsettling, so it was effective in enhancing the emotional quality of the scenes and the tragic nature of the story.

It is never really spelled out who, or even what, Nanno is. Each episode begins with her transferring to a new school to terrorize a new set of students. The first two episodes seemed to imply that she focuses on punishing people guilty of a specific type of crime, but the crimes her victims commit actually vary quite a bit. Therefore, she doesn't appear to have a particular motive, and there's no implied catalyst for her behavior. It seems that she simply has a good eye for other characters' weaknesses and she chooses targets based on who is most likely to give into their dark impulses. Why? There probably is no particular reason, other than finding it fun.

Nanno is quite happy to tempt and lead her targets onto this path of destruction, however in many cases, she asks them more than once if they are sure that that is what they want to do - apparently giving them a chance to reconsider and back out. When they continue to act against their conscience, the rest of the episode is the subsequent unraveling of their lives as they reap what they sow.

Given this pattern of leading her prey into temptation in order to enjoy witnessing their downfall and despair, along with her obvious supernatural nature, the figure she ultimately is most reminiscent (to me) is Christianity's Satan. (Note: I'm not saying that this is what she is or that this was the actual inspiration for her character.) Often, Nanno also serves as a scapegoat, becoming a horrific visual representation of the violence and hatred of the other characters. Even when she is attacked and brutalized, Nanno laughs because she has already won by manipulating them into committing such atrocities.

Horror, and especially psychological horror, are genres I generally avoid. The trailer of this show looked intriguing, so against my better judgment, I decided to give it a try. There were a couple of episodes I was sure would push my buttons, but that never actually happened. I'm relieved that's the case, and I found that this was a tolerable level of creepy for me. However, if you're interested because you're a big fan of horror, you might be disappointed. When it does cross into gory territory, it looks pretty unrealistic. A few episodes have little to no obvious supernatural elements (such as "Ugly Truth"), while others heavily depend on it ("Wonderwall," "BFF").

"Girl From Nowhere" is somewhat reminiscent of "Black Mirror," which is a comparison I've also seen a few other people make. This show has the same relentlessly pessimistic view of humanity as being inherently corrupt and ugly - except rather than focusing on the ugly future we might create for ourselves with technology, "Girl From Nowhere" focuses on the horrors ordinary people are capable of now, with just a little push in the wrong direction.

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Nanno takes on different symbolisms and interpretations of her character, but she is definitely not human. Evident in being repeatedly killed but still made it out alive (Episode 2: Apologies) and existing in different eras without aging (Episode 12-13:BFFs). Some symbolize her as Satan, or Hellgirl, Devil, No One, God, or an experimented being. But I only see her fitting as what the title sees of her--- A girl from nowhere.

A character with a twisted ideal of justice who acts according to people's desires, pushing them to suffer stretched consequences to the extremes. And it even goes well according to her plan, deliberately ruining lives and blaming it on them for choosing to be selfish, for being a slave to hate and power. The story goes on in favor of her, always as she leads them to a path of no return.

Then when she's satisfied and had enough fun, she disappears traceless, all people remember is that she was Nanno, hated or glorified.

The series is just the worst of everything. The dark side of humans, terrified to embrace their vulnerabilities that it haunts them and destroys them. It's all about knowing what's really matters, is it riches and glory? Beauty and power? Apology and Forgiveness? More than humanity and mercy?

However, there is the slightest light in Episode 8: Lost and Found where Nanno comes across TK, a lonely thief boy, who had sincere love for her. This is a first for humanizing Nanno's soft spot for people who are empty. (Who knows maybe Nanno is the same?) or it's just plain pity.

Maybe Nanno manipulated TK or really loved him with all their similarity, who knows. But it's the only straightforward episode that was not psychotic or brutal. It was plain peace and comfort.

But I can say this for sure, Nanno acts so much like a judge who deems people respectable or disgusting, right or wrong by subjecting them to trials and observing them in dire situations in every episode's story where they are given the choice to opt out but are too drawn by the glory of desire that it traps them, making it hard for them to escape. It's like a genie's wish but with a price to pay.

I hope there's a season 2 backstory or sumthn to enrich us of the sense of it all. Beyond the rotten nature of man, what lies in the future then? And I do hope it does not anymore generalize all humans as glory greedy freaks who are cowards who can't fight back and take responsibility for their actions. The series presents too little opportunities for people to grow even if it's broken or dim.

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I just finished watching Girl from Nowhere. I really liked the series. Nanno is a trip. She is funny and creepy at the same time.

While I understand the concept of the series, I found it to be extreme at times. The crimes that most of these people committed did not always fit the punishment that they received. Most of these things are what teenagers go through. I found that although these kids had these thoughts and tendencies, if it was not for the encouragement from Nanno, most of them would not go to the extreme that they ended up with.

Some episodes I was sure they would be punished just to see nothing really bad happened. The series was a bit disturbing because most of all the episodes showed a really dark side to the kids and adults that mostly ended up with murder or extreme physical violence. It made me wonder what kind of message is this trying to portray. Is this supposed to be a depiction of what happens in these schools. If so, I would be scared to send my kids.

Nanno was a bit creepy because she had this crazy hysteria type laugh and it would come out for no reason.

I loved the intro music.

I would not re-watch only because I generally do not like to re-watch things. I hope there will be a season 2.

I would like more of a back story about Nanno. Who is she and where did she come from. Is she human or what because some of the things that happened would prove otherwise.

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May be polarising

The concept is intriguing. Nanno is a very peculiar character, whose nature is a total mystery. I liked the fact that each story was made to convey a moral message to the viewer and I think some of those messages were really important.
Nanno is absolutely unpredictable. Her behaviour is so ambivalent, but at the end of the day the protagonist of each episode is the sole person responsible for their demise.

The show explores the human mind in a very deep, mysterious and horrific way. It shows how people are often manipulated by their impulsive emotions and a little trigger is all they need to become killers, monsters, deceiving liars or criminals.

The most important thing to remember is that each episode is a story in itself. As such some episode might be better than others. I particularly liked the second and eighth episodes. If you decide to watch this, just remember that you may hate some episodes. I think this aspect makes the show strangely polarising, depending on how many episodes you actually liked.

The music was so good and when they played the Danse Macabre in the third episode, I couldn't help it but feeling over the moon. It was a big surprise for me, I love that piece.

I recommend it to everyone who loves some scary mystery.

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Hey, do you want to watch a show that is only sort of good, sometimes?

(VERY VERY MILD SPOILERS AHEAD)

Watching Girl From Nowhere is a pretty bizarre experience. Like I do like this show, a lot actually, I think many things about it are quite phenomenal but if someone asked me, if this drama is actually any good, I wouldn’t know how to answer.
How do I go about rating something like this? Since every single episode, functions as its own little story, you never know what you’re getting into. When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, oh boy, it is bad.

Okay let’s give this ramble some structure, what do I like about this show:
I think this is such a great and fun premise. I love the idea of a vengeful demon in the body of a schoolgirl who has made it its mission to expose everyone’s dark side. I think that setting has a lot of offer and most of the time this drama does, at least very original things with it.
I think the fact that this show consists of many different stories, works to its advantage and makes this drama quite addicting. You can’t really get tired of any characters, and if you really really really hate an episode, you can just skip it (which I have not done so far).
The general ambiance is probably the show’s greatest strength. I love the eerie vibe it has going on. Even when the show got ridiculous (which it does a lot), the spooky atmosphere still almost always kind of worked. Sometimes it was the plot, sometimes the cinematography, sometimes it was just Nannos cold laugh, but Girl From Nowhere managed to keep its creepy ambiance going.
The cinematography also varied in quality from episode to episode, but it definitely had its moments. In the first season, you can tell occasionally, that the production team didn’t have a lot of budget to work with, but they always were creative with it and didn’t always go with the most obvious ways of showing or conveying something, which I appreciate. I especially liked the way this show was lit, which I think contributed to the show's dark feel the most.
I enjoyed that while this show at its core, is just about people getting exposed and punished by Nanno, Nanno wasn’t presented as a force of good. In fact, I would rather compare her with the biblical devil as her main function seems to be to tempt people to do bad things. And when she does expose and punish people, she usually does it through rather unconventional or straight-up diabolical means. I thought that was a really interesting concept and blurred the lines between good and evil even more.
I like Nannos actress. It’s really difficult to say something about the other performances because of the show’s nature but at least I can confidently say that the lead actress, pretty much the show’s only constant, was pretty great, and that’s what matters I guess.

On to the show’s weaknesses:
Even in its best episodes, I never got over how God damn preachy it was. I fully get wanting to include life lessons or at least some kind of message in your material, but good god, does it always have to be so damn obvious. Do we really need characters saying out loud what the writers think? It occasionally made the whole show feel like an after-school special. Like an abundance of strict PSAs. Like at some points I was expecting Nanno to look straight into the camera and go: “And remember kids, don’t do drugs and stay in school!”
I also think that the importance of the messages this drama included also varied a lot, which sometimes gave the show an accidentally comedic feel. The premise of this show is that in every episode a new character is introduced that needs to be taught a lesson. In the very first episode, we have a pedophilic teacher who literally r*pes and threatens his female students. Basically, the worst guy ever, and watching this episode you obviously want this guy to get what he deserves. The second episode (which I actually consider to be the best one of the show) again deals with sexual assault and literal murder this time and again you feel great joy in watching Nanno screw up the perpetrator's life. And then?? The third?? Episode?? Deals?? With?? Art theft??? And you can’t help but go: Huh??? Didn’t we just take a huge step back?? Like I am not endorsing art theft here, but come on. How did we start off with characters getting punished for capital crimes only to arrive at a story about a girl lying about something pretty trivial for some extra school credit?
And then the next episode is just about a guy who has to lie about his family’s wealth to keep his social status and I was just left confused how he was depicted as the episode’s bad guy that needed to be taught a lesson when he’s really just a teenager worried about what his friends think of him. I wouldn’t have minded this so much, if some of the other episodes didn’t depict such gruesome violent themes, that made other episodes' problems in turn seem insignificant.

I have to mention episode four, Social Love, which was the first episode that I enjoyed, fully because it was just so bad. For those not familiar, this episode was about a guy who, after a cute clip of them together goes viral, gets shipped with Nanno by the entire school. To please the growing demographic of shippers, he lies about being in a relationship with Nanno despite actually having a girlfriend, who has to face more and more harassment, coming from the Nanno x main guy fanbase of the school.
This episode, I believe, was supposed to be a critique of toxic fan culture, parasocial relationships, and shipping-wars that I have actually witnessed in the Thai BL community, where actors will straight-up pretend to date for cloud. But this episode is just, and I apologize because there really is no way around it: SO DUMB. Because stuff like this simply doesn’t happen. Not on this scale.
Like I am not Thai. I have never been to a school in Thailand, so maybe this is a cultural difference (though I very much doubt that) but in my high school days, printing masks of the Highschool-sweethearts and wearing their morphed faces during all times, was not really something that just casually happened. In fact, the most common reaction towards couples being cute in school hallways together was just general annoyance and disdain, maybe mixed with a tiny bit of jealousy. As I watched this episode, and witnessed how other students straight up started selling merch of Nanno and the main guy together, I couldn’t help but go: This isn’t a real problem, right? Like this isn’t an actual issue regular high schoolers have to deal with? There, very likely, is not a growing epidemic of mindless superfans in Thai schools that worship other random high school students, right? (Again, correct me if I am wrong, those are just my presumptions). Then, when there were multiple scenes of the shippers (who again, wear masks of Nanno's and main guy's morphed faces at all times) attacking the main guy's actual girlfriend, in an angry-town-mob fashion that I can only compare to the classic novel Frankenstein’s monster, the episode started to feel even more like a fever dream. In the last fifteen minutes, I just felt like laughing uncontrollably, not because what was happening was like funny on purpose, but because I straight up felt like I was losing my mind.
I am fully willing to suspend my disbelief for entertainment. This isn’t Cinema Sins, I am not going to criticize a story everytime it includes unrealistic story beats, but again, considering the scale of problems in some other episodes, which included painfully realistic themes as r*pe culture, this almost felt insulting. As mentioned, I think this was supposed to be about mindless mob mentality and toxic fan culture, two real problems, but the setting in which this took place just didn’t fit at all and made the entire episode feel quite ridiculous.

But I still love Girl From Nowhere. The episode I just mentioned, which I think might be one of the most absurd stories I have seen on screen in the past three years, is one of my favorite episodes of this show. Because it’s so fun. It’s just straight-up insanity and it's completely sincere and unapologetic. It contains zero subtlety, it’s just straight from the heart. Whoever wrote this really felt like this was a genuine problem that needed to be addressed. And that just has a certain comedic value to me.
Still, how do I go about recommending Girl From Nowhere? “Hey, do you want to watch a show that is only sort of good, sometimes?” Because this doesn’t do this drama any justice. It’s not particularly bad, it’s not like I was disappointed by it, oftentimes it did exceed my expectations, but there’s just a certain immaturity about it, that is kind of hard to explain. Its lean towards anarchy. The very idea that justice can be served in only 40 minutes. But that might be where the charm of this show lies. Still, oftentimes the justice that Nanno serves feels hollow and that leaves the drama feeling a bit hollow as well.
Maybe a better question than “Is Girl From Nowhere any good?” would be “Is Girl From Nowhere entertaining?” To that, I could say: yes very much so. When the plot does go off the rails, which happens quite a lot, it’s almost always so bad that it’s good. Like, I was often confused but very rarely bored.

I guess that is all there is left to say. Should you watch this show? Yes, definitely, if you’re okay with the darker subject matters it explores. Many of the drama’s morals will not align with Western ideas. This is a very unapologetically Thai show, which I found charming but might be the reason why this hasn’t found mainstream success yet, so just be aware of that as you watch this.
Don’t expect this drama to change your life. This is a very ambitious series but it’s heavily, heavily flawed. Often times it felt too ambitious for its own good. Still, I guarantee that many of Nanno's tales will resonate with you and most very likely haunt you when you’re trying to sleep at night.

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When I first saw the trailer and clicked Play on the show, I came in expecting a psychological, intense school drama that would open up eyes to the dark side of Thailand school culture. That was kind of what "The Girl From Nowhere" was, though most of it is overshadowed by the black comedy and satirical elements that fill up the show.

I think what I ultimately like least about this series is just how much the show tries to trick you into believing that it would follow up the tone set in the trailer. The premiere is the absolute high-point of the show and lives up to the psychologically-intense, grounded tone set by the trailer, and most importantly felt real, like it would be possible to see in real life, and is ultimately why I committed to the end. But as each episode progresses, the story gets progressively more comedic, satirical, and most unfortunately unrealistic, which is a shame, because it detracts from the premise of the show: how can you criticize the culture / environment during the show if you give such unrealistic portrayals and scenarios into the show?

The protagonist similarly devolves from a scheming introvert with a mysteriously dark past to just a plot device the show uses to satisfy whatever narrative / storyline the show wants to take the episode.

I think the biggest problem with this show for me is that I come away at the end of each episode thinking, "What were they trying to say?" And usually, it's hard to think of much. This show is Black Mirror with less intrigue/suspense/mystery, as The Girl From Nowhere does not say anything of much importance. You are told the message/lesson of the episode five minutes in, and the rest of the episode is a waiting game to see how the storyline predictably unfolds with nothing that goes deeper than the stuff the episode premise teases.

In short, a strong start and intriguing show premise is ultimately washed away by the show's later focus on black comedy over realism, trading in depth and story for style but shallowness.

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A masterpiece

What to say... this drama was just a masterpiece !!!
It was my very first lakorn and I'm not disappointed at all, I just took a little bit of time to settle myself into the language but honestly it is perfect.

Regarding the scenario, don't expect a romance, each episode tells a different story (except the ep 6-7 & 12-13 which are connected episodes) with different characters except Nanno and the similarity is that it takes place in high schools. I absolutely loved the fact that it was several stories in one drama and the concept of punishing bad people. It shows their real themselves and give them a sanction depending on how serious their actions were. I appreciated all the episodes although there are some I loved a lot and some other a bit less.

My top 5 :
1st : ep. 2
2nd : ep. 8
3rd : ep. 11
4th : ep. 5
5th : ep. 4 and ep. 12-13

About the actors : choosing Kitty as Nanno was a very good choice, she plays magnificently this character. I heard mixed opinions about her artificial laugh but it didn't bother me because I think they asked her to laugh like this on purpose because she is not really human and we can see her ''devil's daughter'' side. All the actors of each episodes were playing well too, I had a little firm favourite for Best Ekawat Niratvorapanya who plays TK in the ep. 8.

Trivia : each episode have been made by a different director and all the stories told are miscellaneous news item that really happened in Thailand's schools.

In conclusion this a super lakorn, I recommmend it at 100% ;)

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a story that's about much more than just high school drama...

I was a bit confused watching the first couple of episodes with my friend. I didn't understand why Nanno, the FL, was mean and how she wasn't able to die/become upset.

This is because I didn't watch the trailer. Watch the trailer before trying this out!

It's about real tragedies that have occurred to 13 female victims and Nanno takes revenge for them. When you think about it that way, the episodes are fascinating as you get to see the really dark side of these events that took place, and the satisfaction when Nanno avenges the girls. I'm not exactly sure but I think Nanno plays the part of the victim and in the end, gets revenge. It's interesting to see Nanno, or the victims, also have a part in the tragedies that occur. Not everything is black and white. But eventually, the victim is the victim because the perpetrator takes it too far.

Nanno plays her character well, being satan's daughter and all, and her laugh is hilarious. It surprised me at first but you always wait for her to bring back the iconic laugh.

There were some moments that confused me though. Or I just found it ridiculous. Hence the 8.5.

I found certain stories more eventful than others, so continue watching to see different ones! Can't wait for Season 2!!

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IT WAS DARK AND GOOD BUT...

Each episode portrays humanity and Nanno there, not just exposing but making them realize a lesson and it's too late. I was bothered that there are a bunch of lessons that connect to every episode but didn't voice them out. Or it's for us to realize in the middle of the main idea without voicing it as a few episodes made me say "What was that?".

The production was an art and Nanno sweety is my btch. I don't think I have a favorite episode, neither disliked. It was great at the same time lacking some aspects because I need more xD

I heard there's Season 2 coming and I'm gladly anticipating it!

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