Kanno Naoe, usually just called Nao, is one of the core cast of Brave Witches. She's a witch in the 502nd Joint Fighter Wing, originally from Fuso and part of their navy, and she's partnered with Karibuchi Hikari.
Background
Kanno grew up with strict parents and was a quiet, bookish kid—she loved reading and kept journals of tanka and poetry. She had a real soft spot for Gallian culture and studied the language at naval academy. She doesn't drink, which is actually worth noting since a lot of her peers do.
Her training years were rough. She got picked on constantly, even by her instructors, and she developed this aggressive flying style where she'd push her Striker Unit right to the breaking point trying to close in on targets. It got so bad she earned the nickname "Destroyer" for all the damage she racked up. But the flip side is that this recklessness made her genuinely skilled at threading the needle—getting impossibly close to enemies and pulling away at the last second.
She got deployed to Europe pretty much as soon as she made Pilot Officer, ending up in Operation Barbarossa. She was assigned to ground support for the Petersburg Invasion, then spent time defending the city itself. On paper she bounced around to a few different units before landing in the 502nd when it was formed as part of the larger international witch cooperation effort.
Personality
In a nutshell, Kanno's Napoleonic—small but fierce, cocky in a fight, and kind of difficult socially. She's deliberately built herself to be that way. When her witch powers first kicked in, she literally conditioned herself by repeating that she needed to be ferocious to fight Neuroi. It's not great for teamwork, but Flight Lieutenant Pokryshkin seems to bring out a softer side in her, maybe because she reminds Kanno of an older sister she looked up to.
Her whole combat philosophy is reckless and escalating: no ammo? Switch to melee. Blade breaks? Use your body. She especially loves taking on big targets—the larger the enemy, the more satisfaction in bringing it down. Her signature move is a screaming dive-by, firing as she passes.
Hikari was originally Kanno's assigned partner, but Kanno rejected her at first because she wasn't like Kanno's previous partner Takami. Once Hikari proved herself smart and determined though, Kanno warmed up, and they ended up becoming genuine friends.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
