EDIT: (A few things I wanted to bring up. One is that I should thank the user who gave me the idea in the first place when lurking on here. I give credit to you. Next is that there that I don't view Hachi, the Head Angel or any of the angels in a positive light so my analysis might come off as being bias because of how I see them completely differently. Other than that this is just how I view Nanael, one of my favorite angel characters).
Nanael and the Symbolism of Perfection (or The Lack of)
When you first watch Queen’s Blade, the first thing that comes to mind is that Queen’s Blade is an action series with a lot of fanservice to go along with the battle scenes. While the plot is simplistic at least for the first two seasons, the characters are what make up the franchise. All the competitors who are in the Queen’s Blade tournament have a reason to win. Some want the title to prove their self-worth while others want the title itself to be able to save or destroy The Continent (or at least a section of it). There is one character though who has an unusual reason to enter the Queen’s Blade tournament though out of the entire cast and that is Nanael, the Angel of Glory. Her stated reason to enter the Queen’s Blade tournament is to allow her to have the power to create a male harem and banish beautiful woman from the human world so all men would love her for her title. That comes off as incredibly selfish (as well as pinning her as a whore) but digging down on her reasons, you realize that Nanael’s reason for the title is simpler than wanting to have a harem.
To put it simply, Nanael was the only character forced into the Queen’s Blade tournament by the Head Angel. In all continuities, Nanael’s defining feature is that she’s a clumsy angel (despite multiple scenes proving that Nanael is good at memorization and is rather intelligent or at least cunning). This is because she has one big wing and one small wing effectively making her the equivalent to a handicap individual in real life. The anime shows that after Nanael has failed to start the Queen’s Blade correctly going as far as to force a battle between two combatants that did not want to fight, she is then punished by being forced to gather information on the Swamp Witch and her minions.1 However the Head Angel pulls a fast one on Nanael and then forces Nanael on another task after completing this one where if she spills the holy milk while she’s traveling with the human Leina (the girl that Nanael has tried to force into battle so many times). This journey was supposed to redeem Nanael but almost immediately Nanael fails her mission and decides to trick the Head Angel by using goat milk instead of the holy milk. Only when the tournament starts does the Head Angel find out that she had been deceived and forces Nanael to join the Queen’s Blade tournament. The Head Angel handicaps Nanael where if she spills the holy milk recklessly she will lose her powers and will have to rely on her skills rather than the magic power she has as an angel. The Head Angel also states that if Nanael loses the Queen’s Blade tournament, she’ll send her straight to hell for her misdeeds as an angel.2 At the end of the day though, Nanael is fighting for her life unlike the other characters. If she doesn’t win, she doesn’t get to live as an angel anymore.
The series constantly reminds the reader/viewer that Nanael is in this situation because of her arrogance. From Nanael’s point of view though, that is far from the case. In a series where God exists, it is implied that he was the creator of the angels meant to watch over humanity. However the only angel that is different from the rest of them is Nanael. She was given one small wing and one big wing. Nanael has been isolated from other angels because of this physical difference. Episode seven of season one shows the viewer that angels are talking behind Nanael’s back right in front of her. They laugh at the idea that Nanael will finally fall because she’s not like them and then happily state that if they speak too loud Nanael who is flying overhead will hear them. Nanael who is normally a very cocky angel always wearing a smile on her face frowns when she hears these insistences of her falling from heaven followed by the bluenette mumbling “I can hear you…” This is further shown in a dream sequence later in the episode where Nanael is unable to catch up with the other angels due to her small wing. The other angels leave her behind as they taunt her eating her favorite food, the sacred grapes in front of her reminding the bluenette that if she doesn’t fly faster, they will all be eaten. Nanael swears that she’ll eat her share of grapes one day before she wakes up in the presence. This scene is enough for the viewers to know that the angel society that is supposed to be the perfect race is no different from the human world. Angels are selfish, hypocritical beings that put themselves above humans (even when told they are to be fascinated at them). Nanael who acts the most like a human and looks different from other angels is shunned and ridiculed. This drives the poor girl into a corner enough to change her personality to match that of a human. An angel that is not afraid to cheat, lie and take advantage of other people’s kindness. Only Nanael is called out on this multiple times yet the other angels are shown to be no different.
In the anime Nanael has one friend in all of heaven: Hachiel, the pink haired angel. Hachiel is described as being by the book and follows orders even though she tries to get Nanael out of trouble. The angels have already demonstrated that they are anything but righteous beings and Hachi is the definition of a back stabbing friend. She insists that all she does is make sure that Nanael stays out of trouble but while the series in general has Nanael screw up on her own and get in trouble by the Head Angel, Hachi is shown to actually make things worse for the bluenette. She tattles on Nanael when her friend does anything un-angel-like such as trading information with the Swamp Witch Trio to get information. At the beginning of episode seven, Hachi was clearly ordered to watch over her friend and not only did she fail to do that because she was too weak to handle the swamp area and almost gets eaten/drowns by a marshland monster, but she only tells the Head Angels all the negative things that Nanael had accomplished the entire episode. Yes Nanael sold Leina out to the Swamp Witch Trio but regretting her action, Nanael battles the Swamp Witch Trio to give Leina enough time to actually get out of the area. Does Hachi bring this up? No. Instead she tells the Head Angel that Nanael sinned…in other words she told the Head Angel that Nanael was being prideful as well as state that Nanael made a deal with the demons. This is enough for Nanael to become a fallen angel. Would a true friend only talk about the negatives of your mission and not bring up the good things you did? This adds another layer of hypocrisy when Hachiel had to be saved by Leina. Hachi is shown to praise Leina for her courage and power and Leina being the modest girl she is tells her to think nothing of it. A couple of minutes later after Nanael is seen making the deal with the Swamp Witch Trio, it is HACHI who is the one that openly insults Leina saying how ungrateful Leina is for looking down on angels like that. She openly declares that humans need to learn their place since humans are just pawns to angel. Nanael reluctantly agrees before she decides to save Leina. Yet only Nanael is punished for actually owning up to her mistake with trusting the demons and is forced to travel with Leina who continues to treat Nanael like a pest because she’s unaware of the heroism that went behind her back. Hachi makes it obvious that she’s only using Nanael to get into the good graces of the Head Angel. Nanael grumbles about this in the final episode of season two where after losing the Queen’s Blade tournament, Hachi ends up hosting the match that Nanael has been tasked to do for the entire series.3 Hachi would not have gotten that position if she did not interfere with Nanael’s duties. The only reason why Nanael was not banished from heaven after losing was because of being able to gather information on Queen Aldra.
For most of season two, Nanael takes advantage of Melpha the nun/priestess after Melpha sees her as a divine messenger. In exchange for being taken care of and being worshipped (thus feeding her ego), Nanael is forced to learn the Holy Poses from Melpha. Nanael gets both of them in trouble going as far as to gamble the money that Melpha had to bet on herself when men in the slums were accusing Nanael of being a weak fighter by proxy of being an angel (Nanael was supposed to fight Melona but Melona decided to cheat the tournament and assassinate the queen, which not only got her eliminated but also turned to stone until episode eight.) However when Nanael ends up fighting Airi (who is considered her “evil” counterpart since Airi ironically acts more like an angel than a demon and has been mistaken as an angel on a couple of occasions despite not having angel wings) she unexpectedly causes problems for Aldra and the fallen angel possessing her by bringing her holy milk into battle (and spilling it over the many statues in the room. Not once does Nanael even think of looking at them though like Airi did when she found Melona and Menace). Nanael only wins the match because not only is Airi sidetracked by the evil intentions Aldra has but after Airi won against Cattleya, she took Rana in temporary but the young boy insisted that she did not feed on anymore human souls. Foolishly Airi accepts because she doesn’t want Rana to be sad…but by not eating, she ends up disappearing and loses because she’s unable to feast on Nanael’s soul on time. The damage is still done though as Airi being able to spill the bottle handicaps Nanael severely costing her the match with Leina by proxy of Nanael couldn’t even fly or hold her sword correctly by the amount of holy milk split.4 Melona escapes from captivity and teams up with Nanael so Melona could get revenge on Aldra (not save her comrades). Nanael only agrees to work with Melona thinking she could get off the hook from the Head Angel…and she does because Hachi is not there to monitor Nanael when she makes the deal.
Hachi is shown to be a bad friend even after the tournament. The fifth OVA episode starts out with Nanael who apparently fell for some strange reason and Hachi attempting to end her life. The episode then switches to what lead to this moment and we see Nanael pouring her heart out to Hachi about her issues with the human world and her dream of wanting a male harem. Hachi listens intently and then Nanael tells her not to say anything to the Head Angel since this is between friends. Shortly afterward, Nanael starts getting hungry and flies off to pick off grapes from the “Sacred Tree of the Gods”. Immediately Hachi is seen stalking her and yells at Nanael for even attempting to take grapes from the Gods. Again this comes off as hypocritical when the series already establishes that angels do eat the grapes and its only Nanael that is yelled at for wanting the same thing they do. Nanael plucks one of the grapes and by dumb luck it ends up in between her breasts (which she’ll end up finding later). She is then lectured by the Head Angel and is accused of committing a serious crime against the Gods, but to rub salt on the wounds Hachi went and tattled on Nanael’s dream of wanting a male harem that is deemed as a grave sin of greed (even though it would be lust). This immediately casts Nanael to the swamp area where the witches are as “punishment” but Nanael doesn’t even have her powers as the Head Angel stole them all. From here though, Nanael slowly starts descending getting negative thoughts about betrayal and the need for her male harem that when she escapes the Swamp Witches (there are only two of them now: Melona and Airi as Menace at this point swore off allegiance to the Swamp Witch). The tipping point for Nanael isn’t that Hachi betrayed her; it's the misunderstanding that Melpha the human woman gave up on her when she doesn’t respond to Nanael upon seeing her wings dyed black. As fallen angel Nanael intends to get revenge on everyone who has bullied her (and again we see those angels that were praying for Nanael to fall were already wondering around the swamp area in the first place when they had no reason to be there and is already stated that unless the Head Angel assigns you to that area, you are not allowed to be there). The Head Angel then orders Hachi to kill Nanael. Hachi fails to do so because Nanael shows no mercy toward her “friend” and the only reason Hachi wasn’t killed was because Melpha stops Nanael. Here we see Melpha’s dedication is toward Nanael, not God. Melpha admits that they’re friends and even though Nanael has fallen, she had decided to follow her and if God were to cast a faithful follower of his aside because of her, then she would allow it to happen. Nanael can’t believe this declaration and ends up losing the battle of holy/dark poses. Nanael’s friendship with Melpha allows Nanael to come back as a regular angel though and the Head Angel doesn’t cast her aside because Nanael achieved a friendship with Melpha…something that angels have yet to accomplish. While its written off as Nanael taking advantage of Melpha’s kindness, the fact that Melpha’s opinion of her was more important than Hachi who is supposed to be her friend says otherwise. In the ending they’re even seen practicing the holy pose together. At the beginning, Nanael would complain about these poses because of how suggestive they are and how she couldn’t hold some poses for that long but over time she actually enjoyed them and does these holy poses in heaven during her spare time to remember Melpha when she can’t see her.5 The novel also proclaims that this friendship allows Nanael to promote to archangel thus effectively putting her higher than all the angels that have insulted the bluenette her entire life.
The archangel achievement was said to be possible for Nanael because the Head Angel was testing her. However to me, it feels like the Head Angel hates Nanael more than any other angel because of her imperfect character. She has to focus more on Nanael and loses patience when Nanael does not grasp that she needs to act more like an angel. The sole focus comes off as favoritism to the other angels but I see this as her being nitpicky toward the one angel that stands out from everyone else. Nanael is able to achieve things the other angels are incapable of doing when treated the same way humans are seen as by the angels themselves. When Nanael became a fallen angel, it was not a test. The Head Angel intended to get rid of Nanael once and for all but when Hachi proved to not be able to do the job and Nanael was going to take her powers and direct them at heaven, the Head Angel changed her mind and promoted her because an arrogant angel with high authority is better than a fallen angel capable of ripping the heavens due to all the torment she had suffered from their hands.
As archangel, Nanael’s ego reached its peaked and for good reasons. Nanael aims high now wanting to impress the higher ups in heaven. She has pretty much abandoned Hachi at this point (since we don’t see her in the anime) and has taken an apprentice under her wings…the half angel Lalia who appears to be cool headed but is really a dumb blonde. Nanael’s treatment of Lalia who is everything like her: physically handicapped by being half angel and having to rely on machinery to fly and being isolated by angels because she has human blood comes off as tragically ironic. Nanael projects her insecurities on her apprentice to the point that it comes off as abuse but unlike Nanael, Lalia has friends in the human world to run to. She is close friends with the gem princess Eilin of The Continent (and by proxy The Steel Princess Ymir) and when Nanael proves to be too abusive, she quits trying to impress the heavens and live like a normal human would instead…something Nanael is incapable of doing. In fact during the Vanquished Queen’s OVA6, Nanael is seen treating Lalia horribly and while it comes off as her trying to toughen her apprentice up, its clear that Nanael really couldn’t care less for Lalia unlike Lalia who cares a lot about her boss during this timeframe. What makes this more depressing is that Nanael still doesn’t have the respect she wanted from the other angels that mocked her. She is still seen as the failure angel that got lucky in the human world to get promoted and as archangel she is assigned difficult tasks because if she fails them, she’ll be at risk for being thrown into hell again.
Even though I went on a tangent more about the summary of a couple of episodes that focused on Nanael, my point still stands that despite this being an ecchi series that Nanael has a lot of depth in her character. Nanael stands as one of the most popular characters in the franchise because of her fans wanting to give Nanael a hug but she’s such a jerk that she’ll probably push you away for even trying to sympathize with her. Nanael is so popular that when her Japanese voice actor Aya Hirano was involved in a sex scandal7 (in the exact same fashion that Nanael fantasized over) and was apparently blacklisted from returning to the Queen’s Blade franchise, Nanael was apparently kicked out of the franchise along with her voice actor causing uproar in the fanbase. Nanael disappeared for most of the Rebellion season replaced by Lalia who didn’t even get to join the Rebellion army in the anime because she was just there for fanservice and to threaten Claudette that if she continued to abuse her power, the Queen’s Blade tournament would come back. Nanael would not return until the Vanquished Queen’s OVA episode two where she appears in a new archangel outfit that looks identical to Leina’s except customized for Nanael. Her reappearance brought joy to her fans even though Rebellion was done before she could achieve anything in the plot. Overall though out of all the more popular characters of the main cast Nanael stands right up there with Airi, Cattleya and Shizuka. You will never find an angel with a complicated backstory (beside Pit from Kid Icarus and Flonne, Sicily and Artina from the Disgaea franchise) as her and more than anything, Nanael demonstrates that despite being a divine being, she is more human than many of the human characters in the series. She suffers from discrimination, she yearns for friends that will not betray her, she strives for the approval of the higher ups to avoid instant death and she has dreams (though a selfish one but a dream is a dream and none of the angels are incapable of thinking for themselves). To me, Nanael is the most symbolic character because she’s not perfect like the angels want her to be and despite screwing up constantly, she manages to achieve her goal and live on because she is the most human of the angels, like Hachi mocked Leina for: she is nothing but a pawn to the angels and has no choice but to obey. If one were to question God though when he made the angels, one has to ask again, “Why would make a perfect species and then make one of the perfect species incredibly flawed?” The answer? To prove a point about racial superiority and how its possible for an angel and a human to look past a person’s difference based on species and get along. Nanael did what no other angel could do and that was making a life long friend despite her handicap.
1. Episode 7 summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Advent:_Angel_of_Light
2 Season 2 episode 1 (or episode 13) summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Assemble:_Queen%27s_Blade
3 Season 2 episode 12 summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Ambition:_The_Successor_to_the_Throne
4 Season two episode eight summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Disgrace:_The_Battle_Angel
5 First OVA episode 5 summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Fallen_Angel:_The_Nanael_of_Pleasure
6 Queen’s Blade Vanquished Queens episode 2 summary. http://queensblade.wikia.com/wiki/Holy_Ghost_Violation
7 The article is missing online but on this website (not the most reliable website) brings up the sex scandal as well as Nanael’s page on TV Tropes. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/QueensBlade