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In a world largely reminiscent of Harry Potter, young witches and wizards train at the Tristain Academy of Magic. One of these students is Louise, who's so terrible at magic she's earned the nickname "Zero". When the time comes for students to summon their familiars, she ends up summoning Saito Hiraga, a normal teengaer from modern Japan. Even though he's being treated like a dog and forced to do menial labor, Saito stays to protect his mistress. This means dealing with incoming advances from other women around him and getting involved in a war between Tristain's neighboring countries...

Three seasons of the anime have aired: Zero no Tsukaima, Knight of the Twin Moons and The Princess' Rondo. The anime has been released in English as The Familiar of Zero.

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This anime contains examples of:

• The Abridged Series - Has one or two on You Tube.
• Adaptation Decay - The second series onwards tends towards this, and only the plot, which is actually quite good and which basically came prepackaged with the script, prevents it from totally collapsing into a fanservice-addled piece of junk. But even then, ever more precious frames per episode are spent filled by Tiffania's enormous...tits.
• Alien Sky - The world the show takes place in has two moons, thus everyone assumes Saito's lying when he says his world has one.
• And Zoidberg - Happens to Saito after he becomes a knight
• The Atoner - Mr. Colbert
• Badass Bookworm - Tabitha
• Baka - Louise constantly refers to Saito as "Baka-inu" (literally "Stupid dog"), usually when she´s about to beat him senseless.
• Beach Episode - The recent OVA: octopus ensues.
• Big Damn Gunship - End of season 1. Well, Big Damn Zero Fighter, anyway.
  • That thing packs a couple 20 mm cannons and two 7.7 mm (.303 in) machine guns and can hit speeds upwards of 400mph. If it's not a gunship, it's darn near good enough.
• Big Eater - In the manga, at least, Tabitha can put it away with the best of them.
  • Maybe she has some sort of disorder or has the metabolism of a hummingbird (it's a magical world). On the personality side it could be a leftover from her happier days. Reminds me of Lina Inverse. Wasn't Tabby supposed to get her own short flick? I bet it was cancelled. :(
  • Not just limited to the manga, though more prevelant there. that´s a lot of meat for such a delicate girl.
• Bishie Sparkle - Guiche, as well as his familiar
• Blow You Away - Wind mages
• Boat Lights - Julio, in the second season.
• Bodyguard Crush - Familiars are summoned to protect their masters. Saito is a familiar and Louise is his master. Do the math.
• Bottle Fairy - Kirche
• Broken Bird - Tabitha; more on Rags To Royalty
• Cannot Stand Them Cannot Live Without Them - Pretty much the premise of the series.
• Casanova - Guiche, and possibly Julio, though he tends to have girls running after him instead.
• Censor Steam
• Chains Of Love - The second season ending theme, in lyrics and imagery.
• Crowning Moment Of Awesome - Saitou goes alone against up against an army of 70,000 bloodthirsty, berserk soldiers, and dies heroically. Big damn hero, even if he was fighting them for his girlfriend and not Tristain.
• Cry Cute - Louise, who's absolutely adorable when she actually allows herself to be honest with her feelings.
• Dark Skinned Redhead — Kirche
• Defeat Means Friendship - Episode ten of second two, an enemy dragon-rider Saito shoots down helps him and Louise escape enemy territory.
• Dirty Old Man - Headmaster Osmond
• Dismissed Gender / Double Standard - If Louise was Saito's familiar and he whipped her, this would NOT be a comedy.
• Dude Not Funny - Never mind Dismissed Gender: in chapter 2 of the second light novel, it wouldn't be comedy anyway — Louise whips him (not with a riding crop, but a real whip) until he passes out from the pain, after a previous beating from the night before. That's physical abuse, plain and simple. Abandon Ship!
• Elemental Powers - Magic is divided into the classical elements of fire, water, wind, earth and the lost element of void.
• Emotionless Girl - Tabitha. However, she has a VERY good reason to be like that.
• Empathic Weapon - Derflinger
• Even The Girls Want Her - Louise has been kissed more than once by ladies, and is often victim to Marshmallow Hell as well.
  • Tiffania as well, at least in the anime. If there is a character, they have stared at her breasts at least once.
  • Even The Guys Want Him - Saito. Both Marto and Julio act rather suspiciously around him. Oh and Scarron, the Hard Gay inn manager, said that Saito's just his type as well.
• Expy - Louise and Saito strongly resemble Shana and Yuji and have the same voice actors to boot.
  • Tabithia and Yuki Nagato. Seriously, what difference is there except for hair and background?
    • Tabitha is more an expy of Rei, which is also who Yuki is an expy of.
• Eye Catch - Usually of a female character(s) in the show with a tiny animation of Saito and Louise on the bottom part of the screen.
• Familiar
• Fantastic Racism - Tiffania hides her ears because of this toward elves. This may have something to do with religion, as evidenced by the inquisition Tiffania has to endure. This is probably expanded upon in the light novels.
  • References in the light novels indicate the elves hold the "Holy Land," and are resented for this as well as being feared for having unusually powerful magic. Montmorency said at one point that even a Square Mage is at a disadvantage against an elf.
• Fan Nickname - "Titania" for Tiffania. Bonus points for Stealth Pun.
• Fanservice - It's trowelled on in very thick amounts, especially in the later seasons, to the point where it can be distracting to the actual plot.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture - Most of the country and several of the character names are actual historical names, such as Prince Wales Tudor of Albion, Henriette Anne of England (Louis XIV's mistress, 'cuz her husband, Prince Philipe was busy with Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche) and her maidservant Louise de La Valierre (also Louis' mistress; the real Guiche was, prior to this, trying to get into her pants too, but Louis was...persuasive). At times, Real Life is far more depraved and interesting than fiction, namely Julio Cesar (just translate a little in your head). Maricorn isn't exactly historical, but has a rather...interesting...Spanish meaning.
  • Julio arrogantly named himself after the Fantasy Counterpart of Caesar, who apparently lived centuries ago in the history of the setting. So he's not actually a fantasy counterpart of a historical figure, just a fanboy of the fantasy counterpart of a historical figure.
• Fake Out Make Out - Times two.
• Fish Out Of Water - Saito
• Floating Continent - Albion's called "the White Country" because of the clouds that gather around its underside.
• Foreign Sounding Gibberish - When he first arrives, Saito couldn't understand their language: French. It's indeed strange, since Louise and everyone around her was speaking Japanese before Saito ever showed up...
  • Translation Convention
• Gainaxing Tons and tons.
• Gag Boobs - Tiffania. Actually, pretty much everyone with a chest that's not Louise's (Tabitha gets derided because she's flatter than Louise).
• Gratuitous English - Rather oddly considering they're supposed to be French-speaking, Queen Henrietta at least once clearly addresses Colbert as "Mister Colbert." Sheffield also uses the term "Miss" at one point to address Louise, although Sheffield is an English name, so she's got an excuse.
• Hair Colors - Pink, blue, purple, white, you name it! There are several black-haired characters, but it turns out they're all descendants of an earlier visitor from our world.
• Happiness In Slavery - Even after all the whipping and explosions Saito has suffered under Louise, he still loves her and steadfastly remains loyal and protective. Quite possibly best exemplified in the last episode of season one, where instead of going home to his world, Saito throws away his only chance to help/save/stay with Louise, and the first episode of season three, when the runes disappear from Saito's hand, meaning he is no longer Louise's familiar. Despite this, he promises to never leave, suggesting they can now live as a regular couple. Of course, Louise, being the tsundere she is, promptly blows him up.
• Hard Gay — Inn manager Scarron.
• Heroic Sacrifice - Last episode of season two.
• Heroic Resolve - In the last episode of season two, even as Saito's worn out and nearing his limit, he thinks of Louise and regains the will to fight an army of 70,000 diehard soldiers.
• Hes Just Hiding - Inverted! Colbert comes back from the dead with the kind of flimsy excuse so common in fanspec, it's borderline ridiculous.
• Hot Chick With A Sword - Agnes
• It Gets Easier - Lampshaded by Colbert
• It Works Better With Bullets - The Staff of Destruction works better with a rocket inside.
• Joshikousei - In one of the light novels, Saito has a seifuku made and persuades Siesta to wear it. Guiche and Malicorn loudly express outrage at how "indecent" it looks, but they're clearly fascinated - and then Guiche asks where he can get one, implying he's going to try and talk Montmorency into wearing it ... in private.
• Kick The Dog - Louise regularly calls Saito a dog. She treats him much, much worse.
• Law Of Inverse Recoil - Surprisingly done correctly: Saito fires off a rocket launcher with no recoil.
• Les Yay - Siesta remarks that some think Agnes is into girls. There was that one time...
  • And of course there's Tiffania "inspecting" Louise's chest in the bath. Poor Louise: she's kissed more girls than boys, so far.
  • Let's not forget all the stuff that happened with the Love Potion. Poor Louise indeed...
• Limp And Livid - Guaranteed with Louise every time her and Saito's relationship gets rocky.
• Loads And Loads Of Characters - There's all the students, a couple of teachers, the familiars, the Big Bad, the Queen...
• Lost In Imitation - Tabitha owes a lot to Rei (from Evangelion). So at first glance her mother's story looks like a tie in to Rei's Red Oni counterpart. Actually the reason for her mother's maddness is directly taken from Princess Kushana's story in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (which is also where Eva adapted it from).
• Love Potion - Not that it doesn't work as intended. In fact, it works TOO well.
  • Love Potions return again in the third season. Siesta plans to use one on Saito, but by Finagles Law, it ends up spreading to a good amount of the women at the academy.
• Luminescent Blush - Louise. and it comes with the whole "tsundere" package.
• Magic A Is Magic A - Void magic can decimate entire armies! How? It's void magic, baby!
• Magic Wand - Most of the mages use these, while some, like Tabitha and the headmaster, use staves instead.
• Marshmallow Hell - Kirche is fond of using this to seduce Saito.
• Meaningful Echo - As the Nakama makes its way toward rescuing Tabitha, she's reading a story about a girl being rescued from a dragon. Saito admits to Louise (in the light novel, at least) that he's trembling with fear of the elf they have to fight; the story Tabitha's reading mentions that the hero who rescues the girl trembles with fear of the dragon. And the overcoming of the elf's shields parallels the dragon's defeat as, both times, the sword suddenly glows (in Derflinger's case, with Louise's Void "Dispell") before striking the final blow.
• Meaningful Name - A mage´s "runic name" is chosen to reflect his or her elemental affinity and abilities. For example, Tabitha´s runic name is "Blizzard", implying she´s skilled with wind and water spells, while Guiche´s is "Bronze" because he prefers to summon bronze golems that fight for him.
• Meido - Siesta
• Mistress And Servant Boy
• Moe Tabitha, so very much. To quote someone from animeblogger:

• The Mole - Ms. Longueville Foquet Matilda
• Mood Whiplash - Again, the last episode of season two where Saito comes back alive, embracing a tearful Louise, but ruining the moment by telling he was saved by an elf. He makes this worse by talking about her breasts and staring at Siesta's. My god, Saito, just shut your mouth for once.
  • This troper feels that Saito is almost - no, wait. Never actually in the wrong, so shutting his face would likely be a waste, as Louise would be her normal self and find a way to be angry anyways.
• Mons - All familiars besides Saito.
• Most Common Super Power - Making Louise "rare" for not possessing it.
• New Transfer Student - Julio in the second season, Tiffania in the third.
• Not What It Looks Like - Often followed by magical explosions, whips or a combination of both.
  • And whips were involved in at least one Not What It Looks Like.
• Ordinary High School Student - Saito
• Our Elves Are Better - Tiffania Westwood in the third season has all the traits of a Wood Elf (while technically a Half-Elf), along with another set of "traits".
• Overly Long Name - Montmorency's full name is Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency.
  • Long names, given the medieval setting, is common:
    • Louise's full name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, named after a real-life French courtesan.
    • Kirche's full name is Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst.
• Pettanko - Louise
• Possession Implies Mastery - Saito temporarily gains mastery of any weapon he holds, though there's actually a reason for this.
• Power Of Love - The Light Novels make it very clear that Saito's powers as a Gandalfr increase when feeling strong emotions. Anger, sadness, happiness, any will do, but Saito most frequently fuels his powers via his love for Louise.
• Princess Curls - Montmorency.
• Rape As Comedy - Louise's mistreatment of Saito occasionally leans dangerously towards S&M...◊
• Rags To Royalty - Depending on how you look at it, Tabitha might qualify as either a Snow White or Goose Girl style version as she's actually Charlotte Helene Orléans, the rightful heir to the Gallian throne but was denied her position after her father got murdered during a duel with his own brother and her mother became mad after drinking a potent poison actually meant for Tabitha. She was then sent to Tristain to keep her out of the way and adopted the alias Tabitha, the name of a doll given to her by her mother. The conspirators then arranged for her to become a knight so they could use her magical talent as an excuse to send her on dangerous missions.
• Ready For Lovemaking
• Relationship Voice Actor: Satoshi Hino and Rie Kugimiya. Saito and Louise. This speaks for itself.
• Reset Button Ending - At least, the second season.
• Schizo Tech - Magic is the norm, but occasionally technology from our world crosses the border by fluke.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend - More on the opposite end of the spectrum, as Saito's quite fine with expressing his love for Louise, while she gets into a blushing fit in the same situation. Even after they get "married" in the last episode of the second season, she's still embarrassed to even think of such things.
  • In the light novels, at least, she tried to commit suicide after Saito's heroic death, in distress not just because he was dead, but because even in a dream she couldn't say aloud that she loved him.
• Shout Out - Hard to say if it's this or Theme Naming, but Guiche's giant mole-critter familiar is named Verthandi, the original (Norse) spelling of Belldandy's name from Ah My Goddess.
  • And some of the translations actually render the familiar's name as Belldandy — which may just mean the translator didn't realize that's not the Norn's original name.
• Status Quo Is God - No matter what happens to Luise and Saito you can rest assured that she'll be right back to blowing him up by the end of the episode.
• Subordinate Excuse - Used ineffectually by Louise and Saito.
• Suck My Rose - Guiche uses a rose as his wand and has the right personality to wield it.
• Summon Everyman Hero
• Stripperiffic - Last quarter of season 3...yeah...
• Takahashi Couple - Probably one of the best examples since the Takahashi originals.
• The Glomp - In the last episode of the second season, where Saito returns from the dead to Louise, who flies through the air into his arms.
• The Magocracy
• Theme Naming - In this case, it involves swords: Saito's talking sword is Derflinger while the display sword was said to have been made by a Count Spee. Derflinger was a WWI German Battlecruiser (named for a 30 Years War General), while Graf (Count) Spee would be a WWI German Admiral or the WWII pocket battleship named for him.
• This Is My Boomstick - The M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon is probably a play on this.
• Trademark Favorite Food - Tabitha is fond of hashibami leaf salad which according to other characters has a bitter and awful taste.
• Trapped In Another World - Not entirely true: even though Saito is "trapped" in Louise's world, he can still leave by flying into a solar eclipse. Yet, the trope is averted, as Saito decides to help Louise in battle instead of returning home.
  • Played straight in the novels, one of his main motivations is getting back to his own world.
• Tsundere - Louise, with heavy emphasis on "tsun".
• Twelve Episode Anime
• Unwanted Harem - While Louise is the obvious winner, most of the women in the show have expressed interest in Saito at one time or another, including newcomer the quiet one Tabitha, who seals his lips with a kiss.
• Unusual Ears - Tiffania's very nervous about her ears, and wears something to cover them most of the time.
• What An Idiot - This troper wants to know when Saito will clock on that commenting about large breasts (or her lack thereof) around Louise (our resident Tsundere. With a whip.) is a very bad idea.
• The Woobie - You really can´t help but feel sorry for Saito because of the abuse heaped upon him by Louise. Tabitha qualifies too, once you learn of what happened to her parents.
• What Measure Is A Non Human - Louise reasons that since Saito was summoned through her familiar-summoning ritual, he's a familiar, despite being blatantly obviously a walking, talking, thinking, feeling human being. She subsequently decides this means she doesn't have to treat him like a human and proceeds to treat him in a way that would have her arrested for animal cruelty in our world if it wasn't being played for laughs.
• Whip It Good - Louise and her sister Eleonore. Dealing pain must run in the family.
• Wizarding School
• Yamato Nadeshiko - Louise's other sister Cattleya.
• Zettai Ryouiki

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