Characters / Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - Nanoha Takamachi

Main Character Index | Nanoha | Nanoha Takamachi | Fate Testarossa | A's | StrikerS | StrikerS Riot Force 6 | StrikerS Antagonists | StrikerS Others | StrikerS Sound Stage X | ViVid | ViVid Strike! | Force | A's Portable | Reflection | Detonation

Nanoha Takamachi — Ace of Aces, Ace of the Sky

Voiced by: Yukari Tamura in Japanese, Cristina Valenzuela in English

Voiced by: Donna Burke (Raising Heart)

"I'm fine with being a devil... I'll just use my hellish tools to get you to listen!"
— Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, episode 9

Nanoha, the protagonist of the series, is introduced as a sweet little Ordinary Elementary School Student with a normal life. However, this changes when she answers a psychic call for help. Finding an injured ferret, Nanoha responsibly takes it to a nearby vet. Later that night, however, she hears another call, and arrives in time to see the ferret under attack from a monster. The now-talking ferret explains that he's a mage, and gives her an Intelligent Device, Raising Heart, to fend off the attacking monster. With Raising Heart's help, Nanoha quickly learns the basics of magic, defeats the monster, and agrees to help Yuuno find and seal the remaining twenty Jewel Seeds before any more harm is done. Things proceed smoothly until another girl, Fate, appears, and attacks Nanoha with a scythe-like Device. Even while she's defending herself, Nanoha realizes that Fate looks... sad. Nanoha is no stranger to sadness, having spent most of her childhood in an empty house. She resolves to do everything she can to learn about the mysterious girl and her reasons for fighting, and if possible, to become a friend she can count on. Nanoha temporarily joins the Time Space Administration Bureau, which had been monitoring unusual activity, but takes matters into her own hands when they decide to let Fate exhaust herself to more easily capture her, a method she deems far too cruel. The two finally decide to stake everything on a final match, which Nanoha wins. Fate is taken into custody by the TSAB, but before Nanoha has a chance to speak with her, Precia interrupts, and Nanoha watches as Fate's world crumbles around her. Angry at Precia's cruel treatment of Fate, she joins the TSAB Enforcer Chrono and Fate's own familiar Arf in an attack on Precia and Fate's home: the Garden of Time. The three are outmatched, until Fate returns to settle matters with Precia. Nanoha once again encourages Fate, and the two stop Precia from her mad plan to break reality. Precia dies in the collapse, but Nanoha manages to save Fate, and the two have a chance to talk several days later. Nanoha and Fate make official their friendship, and exchange hair ribbons as parting gifts.

Nanoha was later attacked by unknown forces, the Wolkenritter, and beaten to near-unconsciousness without warning or explanation. Despite her exhaustion and wounds, Nanoha fights alongside her new friends to drive off the enemies. As she recovers, Raising Heart is upgraded with a magic cartridge system. Nanoha puts her strict training to use fighting the Book of Darkness and its four knights, ultimately saving both them and Hayate Yagami, who was at the center of the incident.

She subsequently joins the TSAB, and moves to Midchilda where she serves as a Combat Instructor for the Air Force, becoming known as 'The Ace of the Sky'. Joining an elite task force, Riot Force 6, under the command of her friend Hayate, Nanoha spends her time training four promising young recruits, the Forwards. Hoping to save them from making the same mistakes that almost cost her her life, Nanoha stresses safety over risk, although she doesn't always practice what she preaches. With two of the Forwards, Subaru Nakajima and Teana Lanster, as her subordinates as well as Vita her sub-commander, Nanoha leads the StarS unit of Riot Force 6. She inadvertently becomes attached to a young girl named Vivio, a mysterious girl her squad rescued while on a mission. Vivio, however, is captured once again, and forced to power a nigh-indestructible warship. Faced with a situation not unlike Fate's, Vivio is left questioning her own creation. As she and Nanoha are forced into combat, Nanoha goes to incredible lengths to save Vivio, and decides to officially adopt her.

Now, Nanoha's life as a mother as depicted in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid are interrupted by the rise of the the Eclipse Virus. She joins Hayate's new task force, Special Duty Section 6, dons a new weapon called the Fortress to combat the Anti-Magic threat, and ends up saving Thoma from his own power and subsequently becoming his group's trainer.

Her relationship with Fate was the subject of much debate... until the series creator and Nanoha's voice actress chimed in.

---

A-D

• Abandoned Catchphrase: Nanoha originally had the cutesy catchphrase "Lyrical Magical". This was phased out in A's, and replaced with the far more appropriate "Zenryoku Zenkai!" (Full Power! Full Throttle!)^note The latter half is also a homophone for "Total Annihilation!"
• The Ace: She's the TSAB's best combat instructor, and also their best aerial mage. She's known in the bureau as the "Ace of Aces."
• Ace Pilot: In real life, "Ace of Aces" is the title awarded to the absolute best pilot in any given military. This should tell you everything you need to know about her level of skill.
• Action Mom: Adopting Vivio did not inhibit her ability to be an inhuman force of destruction on the battlefield (her injuries from the raid on the Saint's Cradle notwithstanding). If anything, it just made her more dangerous.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the Movie 1st Manga retelling of the first season Nanoha is noticeably much angstier then her canon counterpart when it comes to being Alone in a Crowd. In the main continuity her loneliness mostly seems to manifest in wanting to befriend people that are hurting and a desire to be useful. In the manga continuity she has a Freak Out in the first chapter about hurting due to her loneliness. Then of course there's her reaction to the end of the original first seasons events where manga Nanoha felt that she couldn't save anyone (although this one is a bit more understandable since Nanoha's battle with Fate in said continuity destroyed Bardiche, put the latter girl in a coma for the final battle, and prevented her from getting any closure over Precia). Perhaps a case of Tropes Are Tools since this version of Nanoha is seemingly not as well liked as her mainstream counterpart.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Nanoha was originally just a normal little girl in Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever, who scared middle/high school girls. In Lyrical Nanoha, she's a badass Magical Girl Warrior who befriends people with superior firepower. The movie adaptations make her even more badass! In her first movie battle, she obliterate three monsters down at once with one attack. (she didn't learn Divine Buster until episode 3). Her Starlight Breaker can nuke a city now and her A.C.S. Driver can smash Reinforce through several skyscraper sized rocks!
  • Subverted in INNOCENT. Nanoha starts off far more powerful than her main series counterpart did since she actually has swordsmanship training, but the lack of magic in that continuity means that she is weaker in the long run.
• Adaptational Sexuality: She was in a relationship with Chrono back in the Lyrical Toy Box fandisc. In the Lyrical Nanoha continuity, it's heavily implied that she's in a relationship with Fate, which is confirmed by Word of God invoked and their voice actresses.
• Adoptive Peer Parent: To Vivio, with whom she has a mere 13-year age gap. This has led to a few jokes about how Nanoha's parents would react.
• All-Loving Heroine: She's very self sacrificing and will do whatever it takes to save anybody she can. She also accepts people for what they are, regardless of how they were born, and she always sees the inherent good within people.
• Almighty Janitor: One of the most powerful mages in the multiverse and she's only a captain (the StrikerS epilogue mentioned that she turned down multiple promotions).
• Alone in a Crowd: The manga of The Movie incarnation, before becoming a Magical Girl. She wonders... what's wrong? She has friends. She has family who love her. Why... does it HURT? What is it, out there, that she wants?
  • Actually, the anime version has this but in a much smaller way; Before becoming a Magical Girl, Nanoha reflects that she feels like a bit of a third wheel in her family because her mother and father have each other and her two older siblings likewise spend a lot of time together.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • During the StrikerS epilogue she sneaks into St. Hilde with Arf and Yuuno to take pictures of Vivio while she's in class.
  • She lets her inner Blood Knight shine through when meeting Einhart for the first time in ViVid, clearly itching for a match. Vivio has to drag her off to avoid further embarrassment.
  • In chapter 81 of ViVid, when Vivio returns home from her latest training camp, Nanoha runs up yelling her name, nuzzling her face, and then carries her daughter to Vivio's embarrassment. Fate even comments that Vivio might want to give up on stopping Nanoha on this one.
• Angst: See the above. Notable in that this is only present in the movie manga, otherwise Nanoha doesn't have any angst.
• An Arm and a Leg: She ends up losing her right arm during the Astral Finale of Detonation. Fortunately Midchildan medicine is able to grow her a new one with a cybernetic endoskeleton.
• Attack Drone: Exceed Mode's Blaster Bits in StrikerS and Raising Heart herself in Force.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Starlight Breaker. It requires a long charge-up time so the target must be immobile or there are other people who can distract the target/s long enough. It is also only as powerful as the amount of residual mana scattered in the field, so it is advisable to use it after a prolonged battle. Casting it is also physically taxing for both Nanoha and Raising Heart. However, it is one of the most powerful attacks in the series and practically guaranteed a victory for Nanoha.
• Ax-Crazy: Not her. Raising Heart! Being what they are, the official manga omakes portray Raising Heart as completely bonkers over Stuff Blowing Up. Unfortunately, Nanoha has somehow acquired the reputation of her Satanic Device.
• Badass Adorable: Nanoha just has a certain high-energy joie de vivre to match her high-energy weaponry.
• Badass Boast: She delivers this line to Subaru before they set off to battle.

  "The Nanoha you've always admired is an invincible ace who will not lose to anybody."

  • There's also her line from the 2nd movie ^note the show's version sounded more like she was trying to convince herself when she was in a one-on-one fight with what was a Physical God in all but name:
    "All sorrows and bad dreams... I'll end them!"
• Badass Long Coat: In Force, but she doesn't wear it often. The Aggressor Mode of her Barrier Jacket in StrikerS features a waistcoat.
• Badass Teacher: As of StrikerS, her primary role is a combat instructor rather than a front line combatant. It doesn't mean that she's gotten any less awesome; quite the opposite.
  • Even Raising Heart applies to be one. In Nanoha's early career, she taught Nanoha how to fight and some other stuff (especially in the movie), and she has also taught Vivio and Sacred Heart.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: In the "White Devil Incident" against Teana. Her hand did bleed a little, but then again it was a magical energy blade and she was holding Teana in midair by it... with her weak hand.
• Battle Couple: Subverted. While she and Fate are a couple, their being in separate branches of the TSAB means that they're rarely in the same place at the same time while on active duty. Nanoha even points out during the first battle in StrikerS that it's been a long time since they've fought side by side.
• Beam Spam: Her Divine Shooter, Axel Shooter, Sacred Cluser and Shooting Star Assault attacks. Exaggerated with the Wave Motion Spam that ends the final fight in StrikerS.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Used Cross Fire Shoot against Teana during the "White Devil Incident" to teach her a lesson about how effective her attacks could be when used properly. Teana would return the favor in ViVid when she beat Nanoha by using Starlight Breaker.
• Because You Can Cope: She spent much of her early childhood alone despite having a legitimately loving family because her father nearly died when she was young, and his recovery was a painful process that took years. Her mother and older brother had to work in the family cafe to keep the family from going broke, and her older sister spent most of her time taking care of their father, which left Nanoha to see to herself more often than not. Nanoha understands the necessity and knows that her family really does love her, but combined with the fact that she is nearly ten years younger than her older siblings, it leaves her feeling like something of a third wheel in her own family even after her father was recovered and back on his feet.
• Best Friends-in-Law: With Suzuka, though it's unknown if Shinobu and Kyoya ever got married.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • She's a polite and very friendly individual. However, get on her bad side and she will show you no mercy. Quattro found this out the hard way.
  • The manga omakes have a rumor in the TSAB that states if a person gets on Nanoha's bad side, they are basically forfeiting their life.
• BFG: An ordinary magical girl's usual equipment is a cute little magic wand. Nanoha uses a staff that can fire Wave-Motion Gun level blasts of magic and grows increasingly gun-like over time. Played straight during Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, where she wields an actual BFG in the form of the Strike Cannon, a component of the even larger Fortress System.
• Big Little Brother: In her adult years, Nanoha is a whole head taller than her older sister Miyuki, though this can only be seen by comparing their heights relative to other characters as there is no official artwork of them standing side by side post-A's. It's unknown if she's taller than Kyouya, since he's been Put on a Bus by the time she grows up.

• Blood Knight: Though greatly exaggerated by the fandom, Nanoha really loves fighting as a magical girl. Good thing she's also incredibly kindhearted. Signum is even more of a Blood Knight than her, so when these two clash, results aren't pretty.
• Boom Stick: Raising Heart, which is later upgraded to Raising Heart Exelion.
• Breakout Character: Formerly a very minor character from Triangle Heart 3. She's now one of the most recognizable Magical Girl characters in anime.
• Bridal Carry: Does this to Fate after defeating her in the original series (In the light novel, Nanoha loses and gets carried), and in a ViVid side chapter, does this to Vita, who fell asleep in her car.
• Bullying a Dragon: Quattro thought it would be a good idea to piss her off by torturing Vivio and forcing the two of them to fight each other. She responded with a Blaster 3 Divine Buster from the other side of the Saint's Cradle.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Averted. She recognized Subaru instantly when they saw each other for the first time in four years, even complementing Subaru on how much she's grown. This caused Subaru to start crying Tears of Joy.
• Career-Ending Injury: As was shown in StrikerS, Nanoha once suffered grievous injuries during what was supposed to be a simple mission for someone of her caliber. The cause was her overexertion during training and led to such injuries that Mid-childan doctors were pretty certain that it would be the end of her military career and a high possibility of her being crippled for life. Of course, Nanoha didn't let this happen and somehow willed herself into a full recovery. Her training regimen with the Forwards also ensured that they wouldn't end up like she did in the past.
• Cast from Hit Points: Her Blaster System severely taxes her stamina.
• Catchphrase:
  • In the first season, she uses "Lyrical Magical", but this is dropped altogether in A's.
  • In StrikerS, she uses "Zenryoku Zenkai" ("Full Power, Full Throttle"). Appropriately enough, Zenkai is a homophone for "total annihilation".
  • Raising Heart has its own catchphrase: "Standby, ready".
• Cheery Pink: Downplayed. Nanoha is constantly positive and is closely associated with the color pink due to it being her magic color, but in the TV series the only pink clothing she ever outwardly wore was her original hair ribbons (which she gave to Fate). However, she does tend to wear pink underwear, at least prior to StrikerS, as her transformation sequence proves. Otherwise she tends to wear white, or—in the first season—orange. In The Movie, on the other hand, her usual street clothes prominently feature pink (though it looks closer to purple in some promotional art).
• Chef of Iron: Having grown up helping out at the family bakery, Nanoha is shown to be a rather skilled chef (though not exactly to Hayate levels). She's also an incredibly capable fighter.
• Chekhov's Skill: Wide Area Search, which played a minor part in one season but reappeared in a big way in another one. Likewise, Divine Buster's ability to blast straight through walls.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She befriended Fate when they were both children and they become very close indeed as adults.
• Childhood Friends: She had already been friends with Arisa and Suzuka for years before the first season started. Fate, Hayate, and Yuuno all get promoted to this following the Time Skip.
• Code Name: StarS 1 in Riot Force 6, and Aggressor 1 in Special Duty Section 6.
• Covert Pervert: Surprisingly, yes. In one ViVid Life chapter, she's rather eager to see what's under Fate's yukata after learning that she's not wearing any underwear underneath.
• Cry into Chest: After Nanoha and Fate call each other's names at the end of season 1 Nanoha cries into Fate's chest when she realises that after finally managing to become friends with her, Fate will have to leave for a while to answer for what happened with Precia.
  • Happens again in StrikerS when Fate comforts her during her Heroic BSoD following Vivio getting kidnapped. Of note, Fate is the only one that Nanoha ever shows this vulnerable side to.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: As the Ace of Aces, Nanoha lives so far down the superhuman side of the magic power ladder, that any attempt to fight her as a relatively normal (by Midchildan standards) combat mage ends up in this. Granted, Fate defeats her relatively easily in their first two encounters, owing to Nanoha's lack of experience of fighting fellow human mages. But come StrikerS, she defeats Dieci in passing, and ViVid, she takes down Einhart with ease (even though she cannot completely knock her out). In Force, she takes down the entire Grendel family with a single shot during their escape attempt—after it took the younger protagonists several chapters to apprehend them in the first place.
  • She does suffer on the receiving end of this courtesy of Fate in the first season and Vita in the second, though she gets better and befriends them. The only character so far who has dominated Nanoha in combat is Reinforce Eins.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Blaster Mode boosts her magic so much that it allows her to go toe-to-toe with the clone of the Saint King inside an area with heavy AMF. However, it also damages her and her device while she uses it. The result of this is a loss of 8% of her overall magic power following the climax of StrikerS, and it's suggested it might take years (or possibly never) to recover it.
• David Versus Goliath: Several times. Fate: More experienced. Reinforce: More powerful. Vivio: More powerful. Thoma: ... Yeah.
• Declaration of Protection: At the climax of the battle in the Saint's Cradle, She tells Vivio that she will do her best as her mother and protect her at all times.
  Nanoha: Even though I'm not your real mother, I will try my best to be one for you.
• Declining Promotion: Nanoha regularly turns down promotions so she can stay on active combat instructor duty.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Less frequently than Memetic Mutation would have you think. However, antagonists do tend to join her side, whether or not they were defeated in one-on-one combat or even if friendship was the intent in the first place.
  • In the backstory, she became friends with Alisa and Suzuka after she hit Alisa for bullying Suzuka.
  • She and Fate become best friends after she defeats Fate in The Original Series.
  • In A's there is a downplayed version. She fights Vita a number of times but the Iron Hammer Knight doesn't become her ally until the series is over. It happens during the Time Skip. It's noteworthy that she never defeated nor hit her directly during the Book of Darkness Incident.
  • After shooting down Teana during a training match, their relationship has become closer and Teana respects her much more.
  • In StrikerS, several of the Numbers join the TSAB or Saint Church after Riot Force 6 foils their plan but averted with Quattro who remains extremely loyal to Jail Scaglietti.
  • And by far the most significant example, she fired FIVE STARLIGHT BREAKERS on Vivio to calm her down, and she ended up adopting her as her daughter.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: At the age of nine, she wondered what she should do with her life which seems to be somewhat common in the Nanoha verse.
• Determinator: Nanoha never gives up and always takes challenges head on. This trait also applies to Raising Heart
  • In the second season, she stood up and cast Starlight Breaker in order to assist her allies, who came to rescue her. This is despite suffering from a beatdown prior to this and having a hand stuck through her chest. Who suggested this course of action? Raising Heart, who at that time, is badly broken.
  • As revealed in some of the supplementary materials, she subjected herself into Training from Hell by having Raising Heart run training simulations in her mind every moment, sleeping or awake. This is not one of her Device's functions.
  • While fighting the Book of Darkness, Raising Heart elects to use the still experimental Exelion Mode, despite the risk of her breaking. When Nanoha fails to hurt the B.o.D with a point blank Exelion Buster, she simply states "I guess I have to try harder."
  • Finally, she managed to recover from injuries she suffered in the time between A's and StrikerS. Injuries even Midchildian doctors stated would end her career as a mage and possibly cripple her for life.
• The Dreaded: Not as much as Hayate, but some people really fear the "Ace of Aces". Teana and Subaru are still afraid from her if they disobey orders ever again. Those two even admit that they are feared themselves by other people because they are trained by Nanoha, and that people are terrified of Yuuno when they just learn that he trained her.
  • This actually dates all the way back to the Triangle Hearts OVA, where Akira and Houren are terrified of making her angry.
  • Played for laughs in the manga omakes. Even in the academy, Nanoha carries a reputation of using excessive firepower against foes during combat and allies during training which terrifies Tea. Making Nanoha angry is the equivalent of forfeiting one's life.
  • Also played for laughs in ViVid. Nove states that even if Vivio somehow achieved the "Baddest Brawler in the world" title, it still wouldn't compare to Nanoha's level.
• The Dulcinea Effect: After her quest for the Jewel Seeds leads her to get blasted into unconsciousness by Fate, Nanoha makes it her sole priority to help get rid of the sadness she saw in the other girl's eyes, with the Jewel Seeds becoming secondary.
• Dungeon Bypass:
  • Uses her Divine Buster to blows through half the Cradle from the inside to get Quattro in StrikerS.
  • And in INNOCENT she uses her protective shield to go through a bunch of empty buildings Flying Brick style as a shortcut during an aerial race.

E-L

• Energy Absorption: Her Starlight Breaker works by absorbing the residual energy left by magical attacks in a battlefield and firing it in a massive beam. This makes it both deadly and cost-efficient since it doesn't completely rely on a mage's own power, which is the main reason why Nanoha decided to teach it to Teana after StrikerS.
• Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: She has two high-powered battles with Signum in the StrikerS manga. Both of them end in a draw.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Either that, or she's just a magnet for lesbians. Each series has at least one case: Alisa in The Original Series, Fate from A's onwards, and Subaru in StrikerS.
  • INNOCENT has the implication that aside from Fate and Subaru, even the great "Miss Number One" Stern Starks has shown interest in Nanoha.
• Expository Hair Style Change: Since her teens, she wears a side-ponytail as her casual hairstyle. A year after the JS Incident, she completely drops her Girlish Pigtails for the side-ponytail in her Barrier Jacket outfit.
• Expy: Aside from being called Magical Girl RX-78-2 Gundam, Nanoha is an expy of Amuro Ray. She's a civilian who was thrust into a conflict, possessed extraordinary talent, and has a Char Clone rival in Fate. She also becomes a legendary figure when she becomes an adult.
• Eye Scream: The Satellite Cannon Type Iris Unit's Taking You with Me attack in Detonation ends up damaging her right eye beyond repair, something only fixed because of Yuri's life-manipulating abilities.
• Falling into the Cockpit: In keeping with the series' love of mecha tropes, Nanoha comes into the possession of Raising Heart completely by chance. The third season later implies that trained professionals with similar weapons don't even come close to what Nanoha managed to do immediately. They can't match her POWER, but as Chrono made clear, many likely outmatched her SKILL until she underwent her own brand of Training from Hell. The difference between latent-talent/power and hard-work practice/skill is one of the minor themes of the series.
• Famed In-Story: Nanoha is not only one of TSAB's best mages, she's also well known in Midchilda. Her exploits are considered legendary and there are two movies about her most famous cases. Subaru even kept a magazine clipping of Nanoha during her days at the academy. In Force, the Grendels easily give up their plans of escaping when they learned that she was one of the people guarding their prison. In INNOCENTS, she becomes one of the most famous Brave Duel players in the country only after three months of playing the aforementioned game due to her performance in the national tournament.
• Feather Motif: Despite her fan reputation as a devil, Nanoha is often portrayed with pink glowing feathers, an attribute to her All-Loving Hero nature. They always appear in her Transformation Sequences and whenever she flies. The feather motif is one of her most defining attributes, similar to Fate's lightning motif.
• Fingerpoke Of Doom: She fired Cross Fire Shoot with her index finger at Teana. Notably, it was her right and weak hand.
• Finishing Move: Starlight Breaker. Justified in that the later it's used the more effective it is. The only time it did not end the battle immediately was when it was used by The Book of Darkness Incident early on, though, it was Raising Heart who requested it and the Wolkenritter were forced to escape.
  Vivio: "Fate-mama, it looks like you fainted the instant that it hit you."
  Fate: "Anyone would go out after taking something like that. Just like turning off the lights, I lost consciousness as soon as it touched me."
  Vivio: "Ah, I know that feeling. At the very moment that you can't withstand it."
• First-Name Basis: Prefers being addressed by her first name, even by her subordinates, although she's perfectly fine with even her best friends calling her by her last name and rank to keep things professional.
• Foil: To every major character prior to ViVid, especially Fate. Nanoha doesn't have a tragic or complex backstory. She comes from a large, warm family, and the worst hardship she ever experienced before the series started was when she was left at home due to her father being in the hospital. As a result, she's a straightforward, kind, and (for lack of a better word) simple person with a single motivation (helping people because it's the right thing to do). If you pick any other character, it's a good bet that they have complex motivations and they've suffered a great deal to get where they are, normally involving the loss of a family member in one way or another. She acts as the counterbalance to what would otherwise be a Dysfunction Junction.
• Frilly Upgrade: She gets a straight example exactly once, with Exceed Mode having more frills and a longer skirt than Agressor Mode.
• From Zero to Hero: Nanoha starts off as the youngest daughter to a family of bakers growing up on an Insignificant Little Blue Planet. The revelation that she had great potential in magic (along with several years of Training from Hell) eventually resulted in her becoming a celebrated hero throughout the multiverse, with In-Universe movies having been made about her exploits.
• Gamer Chick: According to Sound Stage 1, she's into and really good at fighting games. Makes sense.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The firm hand to Fate's gentle touch. Since she was forced to grow up fast due to her family being busy all the time thanks to Shirou's hospitalisation when she was younger, Nanoha became very self sufficient as a child and she usually tries to encourage Vivio to be independent and stand up for herself rather than rushing to her aid every time she trips.
• Giant Poofy Sleeves: Part of her Barrier Jacket. They're actually the reason why the series is what it is, since they make her look like a Gundam.
• Girlish Pigtails: As a child, she has two small pigtails. In StrikerS, she wears pigtails when she wears her Barrier Jacket. A flashback shows, when Nanoha was very young, she had only one pigtail (on the left side), which would explain her side-ponytail in her adolescence and adulthood.
• Girly Bruiser: Nanoha is a very feminine girl, but can dish out asskickings comparable to a mobile suit.
• Girly Run: As a child.
• Give Him a Normal Life: This is the reason why she spent so much time trying to find a loving foster home to adopt Vivio despite everyone pointing out that she was already the perfect candidate. While she might not have any enemies, she is a front-line military officer who had already received near fatal injuries in the past, and she's all too aware that she might not be as lucky the next time. It's only after Vivio is kidnapped that she caves in and resolves to officially adopt her.
• Good Is Not Soft: Nanoha sticks to her ethics, but she won't hesitate to blast her opponents if they give her cause.
• Good Parents: Vivio thinks the world of her, and it's not that hard to see why given how well she turned out.
• Good with Numbers: Nanoha is shown as early as the first episode to be skilled at making on the spot calculations. This is part of the reason why she's such a skilled mage, since magic in the Lyrical Nanoha series runs on math.
• Growing Up Sucks: Averted. Many Magical Girls lose their powers and put aside their dreams to get married or go to college. Nanoha leaves the planet to become a combat instructor in an inter-dimensional Air Force.
• Handicapped Badass: In ViVid, where she's still recovering from Raising Heart Exelion's Blaster Mode.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: In the first episodes of the first season, Nanoha easily dispatches monsters of the week despite having only been exposed to magic in a short while before suffering her first defeat at the hands of the more experienced Dark Magical Girl Rival. Nanoha then spends the rest of the series practising and refining her magic until she was able to defeat her rival using two spells she spent considerable time practicing (bind spells and Starlight Breaker). It's shown in the second season supplementary manga and movie adaptations that she subjected herself to a training regimen that included, among other things, virtual battle simulations every waking moment of her life, leading to an exponential increase in her abilities. This is eventually deconstructed as the third season then reveals that all the accumulated stress from her training method nearly cost her her life during a mission and as such she has altered the way she trains with her students in order to avoid this problem in the future.
• Heir to the Dojo: Being the most badass Magical Girl who ever lived and coming from a family of swordsmen, you'd expect this to apply to Nanoha, right? Wrong. Nanoha sucked at sports as a child, has never been shown to use a sword, and is weak at close range (relatively speaking). She does play it straight in Nanoha INNOCENT though.
• Hero's First Rescue: Her magical girl career began with saving a talking ferret from a violent, amorphous monster.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Averted. Despite coming from a family of swordsmen, Nanoha never so much as holds a sword at any point in canon, let alone wield one as her primary weapon.
• Heroic BSoD: After Vivio is kidnapped. At first she continues to carry out her duties through sheer willpower, but when she finishes and no longer has anything to distract her, she breaks down crying in Fate's arms. Of course, being Nanoha, she ultimately doesn't let her emotions keep her down, and channels them into rescuing Vivio and kicking the crap out of her enemies.
• Heroic RRoD: A side effect of her Determinator attitude, overexerting herself has threatened her dearly at times. Between the second and third series she got into a life/career-threatening accident because of it, and it is suggested she permanently lost roughly 8% of her magic power from her actions in the StrikerS finale.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Whatever you make of Nanoha and Fate, they pretty much are life partners after StrikerS. Not so heterosexual◊ anymore.
• Hidden Eyes: Happens a few times during the "White Devil Incident".
• Homosexual Reproduction: In INNOCENTS chapter 15, she is heavily implied to be one of Vivio's biological mothers in the INNOCENT continuity judging from Einhart's reaction when she had to stop Vivio from letting it slip that Fate is her mother in addition to Vivio also nearly letting it slip that Nanoha is her mother as well later on in the same chapter.
• Humble Hero: Nanoha holds the title of the Ace of Aces, i.e. other aces acknowledge her as their better, — except she never actually uses it, or does anything else to stand out. The savior of several worlds and of countless lives resides in a small house on the outskirts of Midchilda, raising her daughter and occasionally showing up at work despite her maternal leave. The fact that her biggest role model seems to be her own mother Momoko, who is a bakery proprietor by trade, may have something to do with it.
• Hypocritical Humor: During The Movie 1st's In-Character Commentary, Nanoha complains to Fate that her Photon Lancer: Phalanx Shift is destroying the buildings. When the movie finally shows Starlight Breaker the Forward Team, Fate and Vivio are horrified by its extremely destructive power, which is obliterating the entire city.
• I Am Not Right-Handed: She has proven several times that she's someone you don't want to underestimate. In A's, it was her Exelion Mode, and since StrikerS, her Exceed Mode and Blaster System prove that she does not hold back.
  • Inverts this trope during the "White Devil Incident". She calls Raising Heart changing back to her Standby Mode, she catches Teana's stab attack with her right hand, is holding her midair and shoots her down with her right index finger.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Against a Reinforce-possessed Hayate in A's, Vivio in StrikerS, and Thoma in Force.
• I Should Have Been Better: The Reflection manga shows that Nanoha regrets the fact that she was unable to save Precia and Reinforce, which is part of the reason why she constantly subjects herself to Training from Hell. Given the fact that Reflection is set just six months before her fateful encounter with the Type IV Gadget Drone in canon, it's clearly meant to be a sign that her mindset is unhealthy.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The Dark Fragments in A's Portable are clones personifying the character at their lowest point of sadness, anxiety and hatred... except Nanoha's, which is noted by anyone who fight it to be pretty much identical to the real deal.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: In contrast to Fate's red eyes. However, Nanoha's eyes are more indigo than blue, that's why some installments portray her with purple eyes.
• Instant Expert: Subverted. Nanoha displays an immense amount of talent with magic and amazes Yuuno with her natural affinity for shooting magics in particular, but the Sound Stages show her struggling to learn other spells like Restrict Lock, and the A's manga makes a point of showing off what kind of hellish training regimen she goes through on a daily basis.
  • Played straight in INNOCENT. Nanoha learns pretty quick how to play the game if someone explain her new features she doesn't know. Or she just copies other people, which would be like copying the moves in a fighting game, without seeing the input commands.
• Improbable Age: She is a combat instructor for the TSAB Air Force at age 14.
• Improbable Weapon User: In INNOCENT, she can use a spoon like a sword to punch a perfect hole through a cup. And other people are horrified by her skills. Except Fate. In the last page of that same chapter, Nanoha is shown slicing leaves with a twig.
• Interclass Friendship: She's middle-class, while Arisa and Suzuka are both Ojous.
• Interspecies Romance: She's an Earthling and Fate's a Midchildan.
• Irony: Nanoha grew up in a family of swordsmen, so she should be very good at melee combat right? Not really. When she became a Magical Girl, the powers she acquired were all meant for ranged combat.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Nanoha's status as a Supporting Protagonist means that she is rarely the one with a personal stake in seeing the Big Bad defeated.
  • Her conflict with Fate (and her desire to befriend her) make up the bulk of her motivation in the first season. Her interactions with Precia on the other hand boil down a single conversation over a video screen (and Precia isn't even paying attention to her at the time).
  • She faces off against Quattro in the finale of StrikerS instead of Dr. Scaglietti, since she's the one who was holding Vivio hostage.
• Junior Counterpart: Nanoha is this to Gil Graham. Her backstory is very similar to Graham's. Graham was once a normal boy from England who found an injured TSAB soldier in a forest and helped him. The young Graham got contact with the world of magic for the first time and he eventually became a TSAB officer himself later.
• Just Friends: With Yuuno and Chrono.
• Kamehame Hadouken: Strike Smasher is fired from her palm, similar to Fate's Plasma Smasher and Trident Smasher.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: She starts out as a Magical Girl at age 9, continues to do so as a teen, and later decides to make a career out of it when she grows up.
• Lady of War: Polite and a very refined lady outside of the battlefield. Can and will kick enemies' asses when fighting.
• Legendary in the Sequel: By Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, the now adult Nanoha had become a legendary, celebrity-like figure in The Multiverse, complete with some people doubting the authenticity of official TSAB reports about how she was able to solve two dimensional incidents and killed an unkillable Eldritch Abomination back when she was a rookie 9-year old mage. There were even movies based off said incidents.
• Leg Focus: Her legs are the focus of several shots, and the promotional art also shows off her legs.
• Limit Break: Starlight Breaker, which is powered by residual magic in the surrounding environment, and so gets more powerful the later it is used.
  • To say nothing of Blaster Mode.
  • It's also her Full Drive Burst in A's Portable, which deals 47.5% basic damage in the second game, which is slightly above average.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: Subverted. Nanoha's status as a fighter clearly comes from her father's side of the family, but what actually defines her as a person comes from her mother.
• Little Miss Badass: She faced a planet-destroying Physical God in single combat before she had even turned ten.
• The Load: Desperately subverts this trope during the first battle with the Wolkenritter. After being injured by Vita, she spends most of the time inside a healing barrier and is forced to see how her friends are getting beaten up slowly. Then, she and Raising Heart decide to destroy the Phantom Zone of the Wolkenritter with Starlight Breaker, and she doesn't stop it even when Shamal is sticking her hand through Nanoha's chest. In fact, her success forces the Wolkenritter to retreat.
• Long-Range Fighter: Nanoha prefers taking down her opponents from a distance with binds, guided projectiles, and massive lasers. She can fight at close range if necessary, but she tends to avoid it.
• Love at First Punch: Nanoha's first encounter with Fate gets her knocked unconscious, and all she can think about are Fate's beautiful eyes.
• Loved Ones Montage: She has one after the final battle in Detonation, though for some bizzare reason her family is completely absent from it.

M-S

• Mage Born of Muggles: No other member of her biological family is known to be a mage.
• Magnetic Hero: Nanoha is apparently at her best accompanied by former foes she's thrashed to within an inch of their lives. Of course, she's very nice about it.
• Mama Bear: Do not touch Vivio. In ViVid, she's less of a mama bear because Vivio is strong enough to take care of herself.
  • The first true sign of why this is a bad idea happens when (a hologram of) Quattro taunts her by trying to stroke Vivio's cheek. Nanoha gives a Death Glare and shoots her on the spot. No warning, no attack calling, she just fires on the monster that would dare to lay a single finger on her daughter.
• Mercury's Wings: Her spell, Flier Fin, causes wings to appear on her feet. It's later upgraded to Axel Fin.
• Mighty Glacier: Nanoha isn't exactly slow in terms of agility, but her attacks are usually Wave Motion Guns that take significant time to charge and go off with a huge boom. Power and Endurance are still the things Nanoha excels at.
• More Powered Protégé: Nanoha herself has incredible natural aptitude for magic, unlike Yuuno, who is only good at shielding spells. Nevertheless, the fact that he can use magic and teach it to Nanoha is what lets her discover her talents in the first place.
• Ms. Fanservice: While her Barrier Jacket is no were near as Stripperiffic as Fate's she still has quite a few moments. For one she tends to be shown in her underwear a lot more then the other characters in the series. And her Transformation Sequences are some of the longest and most exploitive with lots of close-ups of her underwear dissolving away.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: She looks more like Vivio's older sister than her mother, heck Nanoha can practically pass herself as Vivio's younger sister when the latter is using her Older Alter Ego.
• Mundane Utility: In an inversion of Fatal Fireworks, she used Starlight Breaker for the purpose of fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of Fate and Arf's familiar contract in the first season's final Sound Stage.
• My Greatest Failure: Her disregarding a boy slipping a Jewel Seed into his pocket, one that later blossoms into a giant tree and damages the town (which might have led to worse consequences if she hadn't intervened) is Nanoha's first significant mistake, and gives her an idea of what consequences might result from simple misjudgments.
• Never Accepted in His Hometown: Nanoha is one of the most celebrated mages of the TSAB. On Earth, where most people are unaware of the existence of magic, she's a nobody.
• No Hero to His Valet: Subaru and Teana are shocked to see that her family treats her like a normal girl when they go to Earth during the first StrikerS Sound Stage. In fact, her mother and sister were apparently unaware of her reputation until Teana mentioned it.
  • Downplayed with regards to Vivio. While being fully aware of Nanoha's reputation as one of the best mages in the TSAB, Vivio always introduces Nanoha as a kind and cheerful government worker who occasionally teaches her magic. This causes people who do not know Nanoha personally (like Einhart and Irene) to picture Nanoha as a stereotypical housewife who plays light hearted games with Vivio.
• Official Couple: With Fate in the series' main canonical/primary continuity, post-A's. Heavily implied to be the case between Nanoha and Fate in the Innocent/S continuity as well.
• Oh, Crap!: Has a tendency to induce this in others before she blows them up. Including Fate, Vita, Teana, and Quattro.
  • Has this reaction in the first episode of A's, when she pushes Vita's Berserk Button and received a Death Glare from her. And then again when she sees Graf Eisen's Raketenform for the first time.
  • Happened to her in a chapter of Force thanks to DeVille of Hückebein.
  • In The Movie 2nd A's, she is absolutely terrified by the GIGANTIC drill which Reinforce summons to kill her. The situation: Nanoha is bound and helpless; she doesn't know what is going on above her, because a rock is blocking her sight, then the said drill penetrates through the rock, which immediately causes her "Oh, Crap! I'm going to die"-reaction. It lasts only for a few seconds as Fate immediately slices it in two and saves Nanoha.
• Older and Wiser: During StrikerS, she acts as a mentor to the new recruits, and tries to make sure that they don't make the same mistakes that she did.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Nanoha is famous for being a Determinator of epic proportions. So when she suffers a Heroic BSoD in StrikerS due to Vivio getting kidnapped, it holds that much more weight since it is the only time in the entire franchise that she acts that way.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Elementary school version. Aside from having a huge magical potential, she was this until she's nine years old. Not so ordinary in INNOCENT, where she has more or less Charles Atlas Superpower and is trained in the Takamachi fighting style.
• Out of the Inferno: The infamous scene in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, when she has her fourth battle with Vita, who calls her a devil.
• The Paragon: She became a combat instructor to teach young mages the skills and attitudes necessary for them to make the correct decisions with regards to their futures and help them be strong enough to realize their dreams.
• Passing the Torch: Even though Nanoha has no plans of retiring yet, she recognizes the need to train a new generation of worthy successors to herself and other Aces preemptively and spends most of StrikerS doing just that (in-between fighting the new villains, adopting/saving her daughter, etc.). As later seasons show, she did a damn good job, too: her two star students go on to become aces of the Bureau in their own right, and her favorite even takes two students of her own (though the first apprenticeship doesn't work out with her for unrelated reasons).
• Pen Pals: She and Fate regularly exchanged video mail during the six months between the first two seasons since Fate wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone in real time until her trial concluded.
• Person of Mass Destruction: A result of both her innate magical potential, and Training from Hell. The Movie 1st takes this trope up a notch with her Starlight Breaker.
• Phrase Catcher: Something associated with the You Monster! trope. Vita calls her a devil in A's, Dieci wonders if she's a human (in StrikerS), Signum calls her a monster a year after that, and Isis calls her (not directly) a demon instructor. It's Played for Drama, when Quattro tells Vivio that Nanoha is a devil who pretends to be the "real Nanoha", so she would fight her.
• Pink Heroine: Downplayed. Nanoha's magic is pink, but she is more associated with with white as a character.
• Power Gives You Wings: Not on her but on Raising Heart, who gains two wings before charging up Starlight Breaker in the first season, then six after using Exelion Mode in season 2.
• Practically Different Generations: There is a significant age gap between her and her elder siblings (8 years for Miyuki and 10 for Kyouya), which feeds into her feeling like a third wheel within her own family as a child.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  • "Zenryoku Zenkai!!!" usually said before firing Starlight Breaker.
  • StrikerS has Nanoha saying just three words to Quattro before firing a Blaster-3 Divine Buster aimed at her location through the floors and walls of the Saint's Cradle.
    Nanoha: I found you.
• Protectorate: Vita became very protective of her after she was nearly killed.
• Ramming Always Works: Raising Heart's Accelerate Charge System. Subverted with Reinforce since it failed to even inconvenience her, but played completely straight with the Gadget Drones that she plowed through (several of them even being torn apart by the shock wave when she passes them).
• Rank Up: Averted. The epilogue of StrikerS mentions that she turned down multiple promotions.
• Razor Wings: The Blade Edge of Raising Heart Excellion's stand-alone flight mode in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Subaru was not happy when Nanoha "befriended" Teana, but once Nanoha had a chance to explain her reasons she regained any respect she might have lost. The same goes to Teana when she and her have a talk.
• Recycled IN SPACE!:
  • The RX-78-2 and later RX-93 Nu Gundam AS A SCHOOLGIRL LESBIAN!
  • In Force, it's now either GP03 Dendrobium or METEOR-equipped Freedom Gundam. Talk about Serial Escalation!
  • Also, if Subaru is really GaoGaiGar, then Nanoha is King J-Der, since both are white, overpowered, unleash pink Beam Spam on a regular basis, both have a red jewel tied to their power source, and both love flying in the sky.
• Red Baron: Officially, she's known as the "Ace of Aces."
• Renowned Selective Mentor: Gives more time and individual attention to the Forwards than most of her students in StrikerS, as she trains the four of them for a year. In normal cases, she teaches entire platoons in advanced combat tactics for only a short time.
• Required Secondary Powers: A hilariously justified inversion bordering on Mundane Utility. The manga confirms that due to all her practice with Midchildan magic, which uses mathematics to cast spells, Nanoha and Fate's best subject is math. A straighter example comes from the fact that Nanoha's most powerful spells require high physical strength and endurance for dealing with the recoil of firing said spells. This was something that Nanoha possessed and also developed over time. By Force, Nanoha is shown to be strong enough to carry a BFG with one hand while also carrying the rest of the BFG's attachments on her back at the same time without having any difficulty or severely hampering her flight capabilities.
• Resigned to the Call:
  • In the beginning, Nanoha saved a psychic ferret and agreed to become a magical girl simply because no one else was capable of doing it, and she was a responsible girl who wanted to help people. She had her doubts about magic and getting into dangerous fights, but she got over those in a hurry. But it wasn't until her first slip-up with a Jewel Seed that Nanoha started taking the Jewel Seed incident personally, and resolved never again to give anything less than her all to her performance as a magical girl, a resolution that became even stronger once she met Fate and decided to try saving her from herself.
  • Her adoption of Vivio basically repeats this process in miniature. At first, she's reluctant to take the girl on, since she didn't actually want to be a mother at the time (partially influenced by her concerns that something similar to her almost being crippled would happen to her again). She compromises by deciding to look after Vivio until her real mother can be found, but regular interaction with the child acclimates her to the idea. Pretty soon, she legally declares herself Vivio's mother, and is perfectly happy with the arrangement.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The raid on the Saint's Cradle, where she destroys everything stupid enough to get between her and her daughter.
• Say My Name: In a soft-spoken and adorable example she asks Fate to do this in the last episode of season 1. Awww.... Even the name of the episode and the music that plays at this moment is "Namae wo Yonde", which more or less is Japanese for "Call my name".
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Her Barrier Jackets' designs are based on her elementary school uniform. Justified in the first season, as it was the first thing that came to her mind when asked for a design for her barrier jacket.
  • In the prototype, her Magical Girl outfit is the school uniform of the final product.
• Ship Tease: With both Fate (both in the main continuity and in INNOCENT) and Yuuno (albeit one-sided on Yuuno's part). While Nanoha and Fate are extremely private about it, Masaki Tsuzuki, Yukari Tamura, and Nana Mizuki have confirmed that the two are together.
• Signature Hair Decs: She uses a pair of ribbons to hold up her pigtails. Initially, they were large pink ones (white in the movie continuity), but she swapped them for Fate's thin black ones as a sign of their friendship at the end of the first season. She continued to wear the second set throughout A's, before switching her hair to a side tail in middle school (which she just uses a simple band for). Her Barrier Jacket features white versions of the original ribbons, though she switch that out for the side tail as well in her twenties.
• Signature Laugh: "Nyahahaha"
• Signature Move: Divine Buster and Starlight Breaker.
• Significant Birth Date: Nanoha's birthday is March 15, probably the single most ironic date possible. First, it's the Ides of March, a day associated with the antithesis of her life philosophy. Second, it's Hounen Matsuri, a Shinto fertility festival that features the procession of a giant wooden phallus, something she would have no interest in as a lesbian.
• Situational Damage Attack: Her signature spell, Starlight Breaker, is powered by residual mana scattered in the environment during battles between powerful mages. It therefore becomes more powerful when Nanoha fights against stronger opponents and waits for as long as she can before casting it. Sadly, this is not an actual gameplay mechanic in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable games.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: As if Raising Heart wasn't enough, now there's the Strike Cannon, which is itself one of the components of the ridiculously oversized Fortress system.
• So Proud of You:
  • Implied in StrikerS when she started shedding Tears of Joy at the sight of Vivio standing up on her own after Nanoha hit her with five Starlight Breakers to free her from the control of the Saint's Cradle. Though it might have simply been relief at being reunited with her daughter.
  • A more concrete example would be after Vivio fought Miura in the Inter-Middle Championship during ViVid. Vivio might have lost the fight, but she gave her all. For Nanoha, that was more than enough.
    Nanoha: You were splendid, Vivio.
• Sore Loser:
  • In The Battle of Aces, as the Final Boss in Hayate's route, she doesn't really want to accept her lost against Hayate and immediately wants revenge.
  • In ViVid after Teana beats her with her own version of Starlight Breaker Nanoha cries that she lost to the video monitors.
• Spell My Name With An S: Raising Heart vs. Raging Heart. The confusion stems from the fact that while it's written as "Raising Heart", but the Japanese voice cast pronounce it as "Raging Heart", because for all intents and purposes, Raising and Raging may as well be homonyms, and pronounced the latter way, in Japanese due to the lack of a "zi" syllable. It took until the R1 release of A's for the dubbers to realize that it's supposed to be "Raising Heart".
  • The DVD materials prove that "Exelion" is not spelled as "Excelion", and that the Aggressor Mode is not supposed to be spelled as "Agressive Mode" like in Raising Heart Exelion's gem during the Transformation Sequence.
  • Axel Shooter vs Accel Shooter. In The Movie 2nd A's, the latter variant is used.
• Spirited Competitor: She really enjoys magical combat, though not to the extent sometimes shown in fan works. Particularly evident in her battles with Signum in the StrikerS manga. She doesn't like losing either, as shown in ViVid and Battle of Aces where she uses Starlight Breaker during training matches.
• Star Power: To perform Starlight Breaker, she gathers mana from the atmosphere of the battlefield, which resemble starlights, creating a giant mana ball that is referred as a star.
  • Lord Dearche/Material D in Nanoha portable calls her "the Mage of Stars."
• Stay with the Aliens: Nanoha moves to Midchilda between A's and StrikerS. She occasionally returns to Earth to visit her family, but from StrikerS onward, nothing plot-relevant happens on Unadministered World #97.
• Stepford Smiler: Shamal says that when Nanoha was recovering from her potentially crippling injuries, she was cheerful around her friends, but this likely hid her true feelings. A dream sequence where she talks to her child self at the end of Detonation takes this one step further with the reveal that her sense of self worth is based soley on her need to help others.
  You must really not love yourself, do you?
• Student–Master Team:
  • With Yuuno as her master, even though she overshadowed him very quickly.
  • Subverted in StrikerS, where she rarely fights alongside with the Forwards on the battlefield.
  • In the first mock battle of the training camp in ViVid, she teams up with Erio to fight Fate. Even the narrate box names this situation "Riot Force 6 Instructor and Student vs. Fate". According to Lutecia, Nanoha and Erio could take anyone down with their agility and power.
  • Subverted in Force, when Nanoha fights Thoma. Her student Subaru comes to save her, but they don't actually team up and then Isis, Fate and Lily do the rest.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To her mother, especially when she lets her hair down.
• Stuff Blowing Up: This is Nanoha's solution to practically everything. Need to make friends? Blow them up. Humongous Mecha Cosmic Horror on a rampage? Blow it up. Student not following orders? Blow her up. Need to save daughter? Blow her up. Some people forgot to equip brakes? Active Guard with Holding Net. There are some things Full Power Total Destruction can't solve, but for everything else, there's Starlight Breaker.
  • In the manga omakes, this is Raising Heart's response to everything, even in situations where blowing stuff up is totally unnecesary. To wit
  Raising Heart: (After activating Active Guard and Holding Net): ...besides that, lets blast some of the rubble into the sky with magic as well. It'll be faster and rather, shall we say, Boss-like.
• Super-Cute Superpowers: Played With: at the start of the original season, the eponymous protagonist is the Token Mini-Moe of her family and her powers manifest themselves in a pink-and-gold staff with a heart-shaped jewel that shoots pink beams. It then, however, turns out that little Nanoha is a stone-cold badass and her pink beams-o-friendship are weapons of mass destruction.
• Superpower Lottery: Nanoha registers as an AAA ranked mage upon discovery of her magic, which in the first season was the highest mage rank in terms of pure magical potential. She also displayed a natural talent for shooting magic and it didn't take her long to get acclimated to flight. In INNOCENT, she is one of two people fortunate enough to get Sacred, an extremely rare kind of ranged avatar, in Brave Duel. To compare, the other person with this kind of Avatar is Japan's "Miss number one" of the Brave Duel Game and The Ace of Team Dark Materials: Stern Starks.
• Super-Strength: Although it's unclear whether this is a result of magical self-enhancement or just the result her acclimating to the recoil of her own attacks, Nanoha is incredibly strong, being able to simply Punch Catch Subaru's Power Fist and swing around the Strike Cannon like it's nothing.
• Supporting Protagonist: While her name might be in the title, the series has always been more about the people around her. She doesn't get any real focus as a character until her interactions with Vivio in the second half of StrikerS.
• Surpassed the Teacher: Within four episodes, she had already mastered everything that Yuuno had to teach her. Hilariously, most people are unaware that this trope is in effect and he often ends up being Mistaken for Badass due to Nanoha's reputation.
• Surprisingly Normal Backstory: Considering her Master Swordsmen older siblings, super rich childhood friends, Super Prototype "best friend", Clone Jesus adopted daughter, her other friend who is The Chosen One, and all the other various Living Weapons, Super Soldiers, and Cyborgs she interacts with on a regular basis, the fact that Nanoha's backstory can be summed up as "youngest daughter of two cafe owners who just happened to be born with a massive potential for magic and her father spent several months in the hospital" comes off as downright mundane by comparison.
• Surveillance Drone: The Area Search spell (and it's upgraded form Wide Area Search) has Raising Heart release small mana orbs that scan the area. This is usually followed by Nanoha blasting whatever she was looking for into oblivion.

T-Y

• Tareme Eyes: To reflect her innocent and overall good nature.
• Tears of Joy:
  • She gets misty-eyed in the first chapter of the A's manga when she found out that Fate would be able to visit her soon.
  • She starts crying near the end of StrikerS upon seeing Vivio stand up on her own.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Nanoha loves this trope. Just look at the other entries on this page. It's a good thing that in this series, purely-magical attack like hers can be set to do only "magical damage" to targets like mages and magical objects, or else she'd cause a lot of collateral damage. But she can also set her attacks to "indiscriminate" whenever she needs to blow holes through entire buildings.
  • In The Battle of Aces, if Nanoha uses her Limit Break against Hayate in the latter's route, she says that she wouldn't lose against her and then... "STARLIGHT BREAKER! FULL BURST!" It should be noted that Hayate is just a mage freshman at this time, who has only been learning magic for about a month.
  • In ViVid she used a Blaster One Starlight Breaker during a training match. In Vivio's final match against her, she uses a Blaster Two Starlight Breaker.
• Training from Hell:
  • Played straight in that it gave her incredible power and skill, allowing her to fight on the same level as artificial mages, combat cyborgs, the defense programs of the Book of Darkness, and a clone of the Sankt Kaiser. Deconstructed in that too much of it almost got her killed. Her training style as an instructor for the forward team in StrikerS also subverts this, as she carefully monitors the progress and health of her students as she slowly eases them into more intense training exercises.
  • What bits we see of Vivio's magical training shows that's it's pretty hellish and involves Nanoha firing bombardment after bombardment for Vivio to block.
• Tranquil Fury: Nanoha is calm even in situations where she should show anger, proving that one should always Beware of the Nice Ones.
  • Displays this during the mock battle with Teana and Subaru, when it becomes clear that the two of them chose to ignore all of her instructions in favor of reducing the mock battle to an all-out brawl. She never raises her voice, but her actions and demeanor make her anger and disappointment very apparent.
  • Quattro actually compliments Nanoha on being pretty calm once she meets her. Nanoha even manages to deliver the TSAB Miranda Rights speech while Quattro taunts her into attacking. The first clue of how pissed off Nanoha was when she, without another word, fired a shot at Quattro when she touched Vivio. Nanoha's final words for the bespectacled Number were a cold "I found you." before unleashing a Blaster 3 Divine Buster right through the floors and walls of the Saint's Cradle just to get to her.
• Tron Lines: Her Fortress Unit gets upgraded with Formula magic thanks to a spare Variant Core Amitie had near the end of Reflection, giving her Barrier Jacket glowing pink lines similar to the ones found on the Florian sisters' Formula Suits.
• The Unchosen One: Unlike most magical girls who were chosen to become magical girls or are bound to become one anyway, Nanoha voluntarily became a magical girl, despite being explicitly told that she did not have to.
• Understatement: "This is going to hurt a bit." Before hitting Vivio with five Starlight Breakers in order to free her from mind control. Her screams tell something different.
• Unskilled, but Strong: She registers as an AAA rank mage at nine years old, but as Shari points out in StrikerS, this was her most defining trait, not being aware of the existence of magic before meeting Yuuno. Her inexperience caused her first loss to Fate and it was not until she took learning magic seriously that she was able to win. Over the years, she has become both powerful and skilled enough to be considered one of the TSAB's elite mages.
• Veteran Instructor: As of StrikerS.
• Vocal Evolution: Raising Heart. She was Machine Monotone in the original series, but she gets more emotion in her voice in A's and StrikerS. And her voice becomes even more emotional since the the movies came out.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: The situation very early in the first arc. Nanoha ultimately has to take time off in order to work with the TSAB.
• Warrior Therapist: In the first two seasons, she starts almost every battle by asking what her opponent hopes to accomplish. She realizes that the antagonists have reasons for what they are doing, but has to fight to get them to explain themselves.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Her most powerful spells, Divine Buster and Starlight Breaker. Others are Exelion Buster, Barrel Shot, Lock-on Buster, Cross Smasher, Strike Smasher (probably an imitation to Fate's Thunder Smasher), Strike Stars, and Excellence Cannon Variable Raid.
• Weirdness Magnet: In the original series, Yuuno contacted her because of Nanoha's huge magical potential. In A's, Vita assaults her because of that huge magical potential. And in INNOCENT, Stern challenges her because of Nanoha's huge potential in Brave Duel.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Nanoha's fighting style revolves around blasting her opponents into submission, using bind spells to keep her opponents from defending or escaping her onslaughts. This is lampshaded during her battle with the Book of Darkness, who told her that attacks she's already familiar with would not work against her, and when a point blank Excellion Buster did not even faze her, Nanoha simply thought she has to try harder.
• Whole Costume Reference: An exaggerated variant: The franchise exists as we know it because Nanoha looked like a Gundam.
  • Hilariously, Nanoha now looks like the Rein Weissritter in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force. And just to make sure you know, it has an Excellen Mode.
• Wise Beyond Her Years: While other nine-year-old children are busy thinking about what should they do with their friends tomorrow, Nanoha wants to find her place in the world. She also has a good perception of people's thoughts; this skill enabling her to see through other people's outward appearances. She likely developed this due to her family being forced to work longer hours after her father ended up in hospital and thus Nanoha had to grow up faster.
• With Due Respect: Does a variant on this to Hayate when discussing her continuing to give orders despite having been stabbed in Force. While Hayate is her friend, Nanoha treats her like any other superior while on duty, and bows and apologizes after making her point.
• The Worf Effect: Suffers defeat at the hands of Fate twice in the first season to show the difference between her and Fate's skills as a mage, and a rather brutal one from Vita during the second, to demonstrate the superiority of Cartridge-based devices.
• World's Best Warrior: While not the strongest in raw power (that would be Hayate), Nanoha is the best aerial mage in the TSAB. It's reflected in her title "Ace of Aces", which in real life is only given to the fighter pilot with the most kills in any given military.
• You Won't Feel a Thing!:
  • At one point, Nanoha says "This is going to hurt a bit" to her daughter during the finale of StrikerS. That is, right before blasting her with five Starlight Breakers.
  • And in Force she says nearly the same to Thoma, before bathing him in plasma with her main Fortress cannon. He was in his Black Knight form though, so while it likely did hurt very much, it didn't do much to stop him.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: Due to her status as a Child Prodigy, Nanoha was a Veteran Instructor teaching advanced areal tactics to classes of full grown adults before she was even a teenager.
• Youngest Child Wins: She's a legendary combat instructor, famed throughout the multiverse, while her older brother and sister live far more mundane lives on an Insignificant Little Blue Planet.