10-year old Nanoha finds a magical mascot character (Yuno in ferret form) and agrees to help him on his quest to collect numerous dangerous artifacts known as the Jewel Seeds. Nanoha starts off like any typical magical girl, but she quickly shows signs of being a combat genius, improvising and improving on what she's taught - starting with eradicating that lengthy incantation to get battle ready and showing she has a talent for long-range magic.
Like other magical girls, Nanoha is a caring magic user - a warm heart that desires to help and save people. Very unlike most other magical girls, who go by "Peace through Love", Nanoha goes by the philosophy of "Peace through Superior Firepower". Fate Testarossa, her rival in collecting Jewel Seeds, was befriended by earnest words which slowly touched her heart... and by blasting her with an unhealthily impossible magnitude of magical destruction. This hardly means Nanoha is a trigger happy monster; merely, she tries to talk first, and if words fail, she puts her feelings in her (non-lethal, no matter what the collateral damage looks like) firepower - i.e. the martial artist's way of communicating. Nanoha is strong-willed and hard-working, but she is also a sweet girl who is easy to get along with provided you aren't doing something highly disagreeable to her sense of morals. Normally such an attitude is associated with evil villains. Even when called a devil by an opponent trying to hold back tears, Nanoha does not back down. "Call me a devil if you want. If that's what it takes, I will use my hellish power to make you listen to my words."
In Nanoha
As the series opens, Nanoha Takamachi is presented as a regular little girl, living with her family, taking the subway to school and playing the gold-hearted average girl to her multimillionaire best friends
Alisa Bannings and
Suzuka Tsukimura. However, she always felt like a third wheel. Her parents had each other, so did her siblings, and so did her best friends, while Nanoha had no such close companion. Additionally, she says she feels her life has no direction, as she has no plans for what she wants to do with herself. When she finds the injured Yūno in ferret form in the park, she brings him to a nearby veterinarian for care. Yūno later calls to Nanoha telepathically as he is attacked by a monster, and he gives her the jewel around his neck. With his instructions, Nanoha activates Raising Heart, and discovers her own magical ability. Her power blows Yūno away as she is able to create attacks quickly, transform and attack without using the incantations generally required to do so, and sense Jewel Seeds more easily than he can. Even with all this power, she is still learning and must fight off her rival
Fate Testarossa, although Nanoha is more interested in reforming her.
Nanoha lives at her home above Midori-ya, the cafe owned by her family, with her mother Momoko, her father Shirō, her brother
Kyōya and her sister
Miyuki, the latter two of which served as the main characters of Triangle Heart. Nanoha balances cram school, regular school and hunting for Jewel Seeds with ease, although Yūno fears that it may be too much for her in the long run. Although she tries to hide her identity from her friends and family, in contrast to many
mahou shoujo series, she blatantly advertises it to Fate.
Later on, the series focuses not on the collection of Jewel Seeds but on the eventual teamup of Nanoha and Fate, which does happen in the second-to-last episode as Fate comes to terms with her and her mother's identities. Nanoha and Fate must part as Fate is arrested for the work she did for Precia, but they part as friends and promise to reunite as Fate will likely be acquitted of all charges.
In A's
In A's, Nanoha may be living in peacetime, but she has not let her work slide. She goes out and trains with Raising Heart, hitting a can of cola repeatedly in the air and being disappointed when the can doesn't go into the trash. In the manga, Nanoha says that she sharpens her skills by solving homework problems two at a time and that she can use Raising Heart to create a virtual combat in her own mind even while she studies. Soon, she teams up with Fate,
Arf, Yūno, and the Time-Space Administration Bureau once again. Their new mission is to prevent the Wolkenritter from stealing mages' Linker Cores (power source) for their Book of Darkness. Nanoha introduces Fate to her friends as a transfer student, and resumes her life as a magical girl. Early on in the season, Raising Heart is upgraded to be able to compete with the Wolkenritter's weapons, and is renamed "Raising Heart Excelion". She is often pitted against
Vita, who refuses to call her by her name, always saying things like "Takamachi Nantoka", which could be roughly translated as "Takamachi Something-Or-Other". Nanoha and Fate meet a sickly girl, Hayate, whom both they and the Wolkenritter wish to save. At this point, Suzuka and Alisa discover Nanoha's true identity. With the help of the Wolkenritter and Hayate herself, they cure both Hayate and the Book of Darkness, which transforms into
Reinforce, Hayate's partner and weapon.
In an epilogue taking place six years later, Nanoha at age 15, is working for the TSAB along with Fate, Hayate, Yūno, and Chrono.
In STRIKERS
In
StrikerS, Nanoha is 19 years old and the primary Combat Instructor for the 6th Mobile Division of Time-Space Administration Bureau's Special Management, and also the commander of record for the "Stars" squad in the field, she has grown more mature over the 4 year time gap between A's epilogue and StrikerS. Nanoha, like
Fate, is a S+ class mage without limiters, which is the third highest rank possible to be achieved by a mage, and she is a AA class mage with the limiters, 3 ranks down from what she should be.
She is first seen in the season with Raising Heart Excellion, and checking the field for Subaru and Teana's examination. After the pair reach their goal Nanoha comes in transformed so as to stop Subaru and Teana from crashing. After gathering the members of the newly formed Riot Force 6, Nanoha begins to train the new recruits, Subaru, Teana, Caro and Erio (who have both taken in by
Fate). Later in the season, Nanoha becomes Vivio's guardian or as Vivio calls her; Mama, and looks after Vivio along with Fate who is her godmother (though Nanoha later officially adopts Vivio). Near the end of the season, Nanoha along with the rest of Riot 6, besides the forwards, Signum and Fate, deal with the Saint's Cradle going into orbit. Nanoha enters the cradle, along with Vita, and they split up, with Nanoha going to the Throne Room and Vita going to the engine room. Nanoha quickly deals with one of the Numbers, using her Blaster System, before entering the Throne Room, where Vivio is being held. Quattro manipulates Vivio, forcing Nanoha and Vivio to fight each other, during the fight, however, Nanoha uses a wide area search and finds the place where Quattro is hiding and, using her Divine Buster and her Blaster System at level 3, knocks her out by blasting a hole through the cradle. However Vivio still does not revert back to her normal self and continues to fight Nanoha until Vivio manages to begin to regain control, but still cannot gain complete control, and Nanoha is forced to use her Blaster System at Full Power, firing five Starlight Breakers at the same time, which then reverts Vivio back to her normal self. Later, Subaru and Teana come in to save Nanoha and Hayate (who came to save Nanoha). In the epilogue of StrikerS, Nanoha was offered many promotions, all of which were turned down in favour of her current position as a combat instructor. She now also lives with Vivio, and checks up on her every so often, even when she is in class.
Before StrikerS, it is apparent that Nanoha's magical ability has increased at an accelerated rate via intensive self-training, in addition to the strain resulting from repeatedly channeling the additional magical energy from the cartridge system added to Raising Heart in A's, it eventually resulted in Nanoha's body suffering very severe internal damage that revealed itself during a near-fatal incident which was depicted in the manga. Nanoha was hospitalized for some time as a result of it, and her doctors originally feared she would never be able to fly or even walk again. Eventually, however, she did recover enough to resume active duty with the TSAB. As a result of this, she has intentionally designed the 6th Mobile's training regimen to ensure the same thing will not happen to the members of the StarS and Lightning squads.
Powers
Nanoha, despite her lack of experience, has demonstrated considerable magical talent. Many of her techniques are taught by Yūno or improvised from already learned abilities. She specializes in shooting skills, but has a balanced set of abilities, with variations in both her defensive and offensive powers. Although she isn't as fast as Fate, she has higher defensive power and guided projectiles. Her
command phrase for her shooting abilities is "Shoot!".
- Raising Heart Activation — Nanoha changes Raising Heart into Device Mode, and usually her Barrier Jacket is activated as well. The transformation was intended to be performed with a long passphrase,, but Nanoha only uses this incantation in its entirety once before discarding it. replacing it with "Raising Heart onegai!" (Raising Heart, please!).
- Lyrical! Magical! — This is Nanoha's personal incantation for using Raising Heart. Although she calls this out to unlock abilities more complex than simple force fields (such as Raising Heart's Sealing Mode), once the ability is unlocked she seldom needs to use the incantation, except to seal Jewel Seeds. In A's she uses the phrase to kick off a training exercise.
- Jewel Seed Seal — Used to seal the Jewel Seeds so that they will not fuse with anything.
- Area Search — This extends Nanoha's magical senses, helping her to find disturbances, such as Jewel Seeds.
- Restrict Lock — This is Nanoha's binding-type magic, analogous to Fate's Lightning Bind ability.
Defensive Abilities
- Barrier Jacket — Nanoha's Jacket is a blue and white school uniform-styled dress with a metal waist guard. Upon activation, she dons this costume, which is either shown as instantaneous or through a minute-long segment of stock footage. This Barrier Jacket is not just the flashy costume, but it also refers to an invisible defensive field generated by the costume, reducing or eliminating any serious injury from events such as an impact with a building.
- Sacred Mode — An improved version of Nanoha's Barrier Jacket, including field generators on the shoulders, gloves, and other defensive enhancements. She can now use the Jacket with Raising Heart in Standby Mode.
- Aggressor Mode — The new improvement of Nanoha's Barrier Jacket, seen in StrikerS. Design changes include the replacement of the long skirt with a mini-skirt, a waist-attached cape and the inclusion of long white socks and gems (probably field generators) on the shoes.
- Exceed Mode — Debuted in the episode 12 of StrikerS. Nanoha used this variation in set with the Raging Heart in Excelion Mode. Its design is similar to the Sacred Mode's, although it is bulkier.
- Protection — Nanoha's first spell, and Raising Heart's auto-guard magic. It can guard in every direction, but can be penetrated relatively easily.
- Protection Powered — A more powerful version of Protection, which Vita and Nanoha both discovered can resist an attack from a cartridge-enhanced Graf Eisen.
- Round Shield — A powerful shield that can withstand a prolonged attack, such as Bardiche's Arc Saber. Unlike other barrier-type magics such as Protection, it can only guard in one direction.
- Flier Fin — Gives Nanoha the ability to fly and increases her movement speed.
- Axel Fin — This is the upgrade to Flier Fin. It grants even greater speed at the cost of some maneuverability.
- Flash Move — Temporarily increases Nanoha's movement speed, similar to Fate's Blitz Action. If Nanoha uses this in conjunction with a melee attack, the resulting explosion is technically called a Flash Impact.
- Reactor Purge — This ability "detonates" Nanoha's outer Barrier Jacket to counteract an attack, similar in principle to reactive armor on modern tanks.
- Bind Break — This attempts to deactivate a binding spell. The time required to do this depends on the complexity of the target magic.
- Active Guard— Similarly to the spells "Reactor Purge" and "Barrier Burst", this magic makes use of the reactive armor's principle to repel a different type of energy. Unlike the other two however, it can be casted upon an area away from the mage's location. In the episode 1 of StrikerS, it was used to decrease the kinetic force of Subaru's mad rush.
- Holding Net — This creates a net that can catch almost anything. It was used in the first episode of StrikerS along with the Active Guard to prevent Subaru from crashing into a wall.
Offensive Abilities
- Divine Shooter — Nanoha's rapid-reaction attack magic. Creates a small number of magical energy balls which can be guided through the air. Sometimes, Nanoha will use this magic to attack the target from the rear.[11]
- Axel Shooter — This is the upgraded version of Divine Shooter, allowing Nanoha to guide about a dozen high-speed magic missiles.
- Snipe Shot - Seen in StrikerS, this is a variation on Axel Shooter, where Nanoha controls two missiles with great accuraccy.
- Crossfire Shoot - Identical to Teana's move of the same name, though Nanoha uses it without a device. Superficially similar to Axel Shooter.
- Divine Buster — Raising Heart's first attack. It is best described as an anime-stereotypical particle beam shot.
- Divine Buster Extension — The same as Divine Buster, but with a longer range and a targeting reticle/scope.
- Excelion Buster — Available only in Raising Heart Excelion's less stable Excelion Mode, this is arguably Nanoha's most powerful ability to date, second only to the Starlight Breaker ex. Excelion Buster involves a few supporting magics, but is itself similar in principle to her Divine Buster with far more attack power. Unlike her Starlight Breaker ability, this does not require residual magic to be in the vicinity. The command phrase for Excelion Buster is "Break shoot!"
- Force Burst — This attack requires four cartridges, and she fires the shot much like the Divine Buster. Two variations exist for Force Burst: she may fire all arms of the shot at once, or delay the last one until after the others weaken the target's defenses.
- Barrel Shot — Nanoha may precede an attack in Excelion Mode with an invisible binding field to prevent the target from moving.
- Axel Charge System (ACS) Mode — Nanoha combines the energy bayonet on the tip of Raising Heart along with a burst of speed from the energy wings on the device to penetrate the target's magic defenses. Then, she unleashes a massive burst of energy inside the defenses. Two cartridges are spent for the first phase, three for the second.
- Starlight Breaker — Nanoha's own "variation" of Divine Buster and her ultimate attack, but in reality a very different magic. It involves collecting and reusing the magical energy left over by previous attacks dispersed in the combat airspace for a new attack, creating the "light beam converging" effect seen in the anime. Two additional variants are recognized in the DVD booklets, but not explicitly named in the anime dialogue.
- Starlight Breaker Plus — This variant simply extends the time spent collecting magical energy, thereby increasing the overall attack power. Nanoha used this at episode 2 in A's (despite the damage to her Linker Core midway) to break the force field deployed by the Wolkenritter and alert the TSAB.
- Starlight Breaker ex — This variant is used in Excelion Mode, and uses a full magazine of cartridges, thus meeting or exceeding the attack power of the "Plus" variant with less time.
- Barrier Burst — This detonates an active barrier (such as Protection). This is useful for countering a melee attack.
- Strike Flame — The energy bayonet that Nanoha produces from the tip of Raising Heart when in Excelion mode's ACS Mode.
- Stardust Fall — Classified as an accelerated material type shooting magic, Nanoha uses her magic to lift many rocks into the air and send them crashing down onto her enemies. First used in chapter 1 of the StrikerS manga to physically break through a group of Gadget Drones' AMF.
Blaster System
In StrikerS, Nanoha utilizes power-up system named Blaster. The cyborg Quattro explains it is an experimental booster that far surpasses the physical limits of the user's body. It greatly enhances Nanoha's offensive and defensive powers, at the cost of her and Raising Heart's lives. Each progressive increase in power causes physical damage to Nanoha and Raising Heart - Blaster One and Two appear to be relatively safe if used for short periods of time, though Raising Heart steams afterwards and Nanoha's weapon hand bleeds. Blaster Three on the other hand causes visible cracks to form on Raising Heart and leaves Nanoha unable to walk without using Raising Heart as a crutch. It appears that unlike Excelion Mode, damage from Blaster Mode is treatable afterward, as Nanoha is fine by the end of the next episode. It is unknown if the Blaster modes must be activated in order or if Nanoha can skip directly to the final mode as needed.
The Blaster Bits created by Blaster Two and Blaster Three seem to be a literal multiplication of power, as they will execute the same moves as Raising Heart with equal force. There are the three levels of Blaster:
- Blaster One — A temporary booster for the next or the current attack. It gives Divine Buster enough power to overcome Dieci's S-class energy bullets with far less time than it takes her IS: Enormous Cannon to even charge up. also may be maintained for a increase in speed (Used in episodes 23 of StrikerS)
- Blaster Two — Also known as Blaster Second. Used to create two Blaster Bits, and hold Vivio within Nanoha's Crystal Cage attack. However this only lasted for a short while as Vivio managed to break the cage in a matter of seconds. (Used in episode 25 of StrikerS)
- Blaster Three — Used by Nanoha and four Blaster Bits to fire the Divine Buster attack with enough power to blast through all the walls from the Saint's Cradle's throne room to its deepest area (StrikerS episode 25) despite the presence of an extremely potent Anti Magic Field (AMF). Later used to fire five Starlight Breakers at once (StrikerS episode 26) and finally end Vivio's struggle. Although Nanoha exclaims Zenryoku Zenkai (Japanese for Full Power) before performing the Starlight Breaker(s), this is not indicative of the Blaster System's mode, as she uses that phrase in Nanoha A's during the final battle as well.
