I’m really feeling bad for Nao. She’s going through a lot of BS. With her backstory, her ability, and not to mention, how in the second episode, that dude had a BS personality towards her, and in episode 3, she gets freaken slapped.
I was about to come into this topic to say the exact same thing!
If anything, she’s very goal-oriented. She has stuff to do and knows exactly how to react to which kind of people in order to achieve it. She knows she can’t act all high and mighty towards Yusa, but has no qualms about arguing with Misa and Sho.
The only times she loses control of that is when it comes to things she likes. Like food and ZHIEND 
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She is similiar to Yuri. But Nao doesn’t have to share her screen time whereas Yuri does. I like it
She is a master manipulator, but she doesn’t seem to be malevolent either. She manipulates others for what are actually pretty selfless goals. A bit different to the kind of keikakudoori characters we’re used to in anime and international pop culture.
As for her personality, yeah it’s loaded with different facets. At first I was a bit surprised that she was able to have such a happy-go-lucky life despite her trauma with her brother, but I guess that’s a testament to how strong she is. By working hard every day to ensure nobody has to suffer what her brother did, she must’ve been able to make peace with the past and look to the future. She’s able to laugh and have fun when she needs to, without letting her horrible past drag her down. Not many people have that kind of strength, so I find myself beginning to admire her.
Definitely one of the strongest Key females I’ve seen.
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Nao is being pretty boss in the latest episode too. I really love how she reacts all smug about being able to figure out who the power-user was before even having to go to the school. Goes to show how she really does love succeeding, and it signifies her drive to make sure that she succeeds.
I do find it a bit odd that she does her utmost to remain distant from all her other classmates. With her regular personality I think she would get along quite well with everyone else, but she chooses to remain distant. At this point, it’s something that I think they should touch up on otherwise that would leave me pretty disappointed
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Zettai’ssu! Daijoubu’ssu! Goddamnit of all the verbal tics this one has got to be one of the most disorienting >_>
Soon Papa Peeps.
I smell it, it’s happening.
Episode 5 edit: You see that? Atashi no SENSU!
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Nao definitely has a lot more depth that hasn’t been shown yet. She’s shown to be very strong and smart (she’s been very good at planning and predicting other people’s actions) and nice towards some people (the student counsel), but she acts aloof and indifferent towards most of her classmates. I’m sure she has some troubles connecting with people after the trauma with her brother, as seen be how well she connected with Yu after he liked ZHIEND’s music. We know that she has done something to piss her classmates off, and I’m just waiting to see what exactly happened.
Kinda?
But at the same time. It isn’t like this archetype hasn’t been used in Key before. Tomoya from Clannad seems to be a relevant character to bring up. And yes, the reasons for his behavour are thoroughly explored yadayada. But rather my point here is, Nao is being treated like a Key protag. Like, she’s being given an archetype(s) that we normally see in shonen protags, or indeed male protags in general. It’s pretty rare to nonexistent that we get the kind of delinquent she is as a girl character. It’s also pretty rare that we’re given that archetype at all given the kind of care that she’s been given.
Like all in all, this as a reply is probably unneccessary, Nao is a really really remarkable character. No matter how the show goes or ends up, Nao as a character is a really huge plus for it.
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I find it fascinating in a way that Nao really is a unique character in Key stories. I can’t think of a character to really compare her to in any of their visual novels.
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Is it…? Key have done it before.
Where? Closest I’ve got is Tomoyo or Kurugaya. And neither of them at all fulfil what I’ve said. One may attempt to but fails, the other wasn’t even trying to.
Off the top of my head, Mai, Tomoyo, Yuiko. Whether you believe they failed at being so or not doesn’t matter - They are of the archetype. I struggle to understand what they didn’t fulfil.
To put it bluntly, Nao has more in common with Tomoya from Clannad than Tomoyo. She isn’t being treated in the same respect as a heroine in Key works, or many works, normally is, she’s being treated far more like you’d expect from a protag. You’re looking merely at the superficial label of delinquent, not at how the character is being framed.
To put it even more bluntly, Nao is written more like a person, than like a archetype. She’s neither tied down completely in her past nor completely juxtaposed with it. She doesn’t have that ‘Key weakness that needs to be fulfilled by the protag’, or at least not yet, nor is she being shown as this collection of strong traits to be torn down later.
Blegh. All I’ve done here is repeat my stress of she’s being treated more like how Key has treated protags than how they’ve treated heroines. If you don’t even understand that’s a difference to begin with, I can’t really do much more to help you.
I’d argue that this is because Yuu is currently such a non-factor that Nao is our stand-in protag. She’s the only reason anything every happens.
This isn’t a VN structure either. We won’t get into a Nao route and find her weaknesses - It’ll come with the rest of the story.
Yeah, not really sure why you were trying to shove her into an archetype in the first place. I mean, I know you didnt mean it in a negative way, but can’t characters just be people sometimes?
From certain standpoints no. Since they’re not people.
But from a more meaningful one… Eh… Contrasting characters from more accepted archetypes is useful? Even if the work itself isn’t post modern enough to account for it - which most Key works have been. Like, even real life people are often described with respect to archetypes?
Archetypes schmarchetypes! I don’t really care about archetypes when I say that it makes me curious. All of those you have mentioned before have their own reasons for doing so and I really really want to know what Nao’s reasons are, especially after the last episode.
As you said:
Yeah, that sums it up nicely.
Despite all that being said, she still remains to be an enigma; much as how many of the people we interact with in our daily lives are an enigma. She seems to have many different faces which she shows to different crowds, which is also interesting. I can’t stress how much of an interesting character Nao is and at this point, I don’t even care about stuff like “protagonist privilege”. Good character is good, and helps the story!
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I was looking through the link @s0ewhat put in the charlotte general discussion:
and this one image really caught my attention:
The reason I was shocked is not only because of how adorable Nao looks, but of how joyful she seems.
She is normally quite serious and stern about everything so I was thinking maybe she will change now that her brother has returned. Or it could only be one of the rare moments where she shows exitement towards something.
Regardless of the reason, it is nice to see a smiling Nao.
Isn’t that already in the anime from like episode 2? When Nao was buying gyuutan for the train ride. Her adorable smile was animated in an adorable fashion, proving early on that she is a super cutie in addition to be awesome.
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