Kanade Tachibana

Kanade Tachibana is the titular character from the Angel Beats anime and games.

Kanade is one of the students of the Afterlife school and is said school's Student Council President. She is also referred to as Angel by the Afterlife War Front, which is a nickname coined by Hideki Hinata and later used by the group's leader Yuri Nakamura to refer to Kanade after discovering her unusual abilities.

As the school's Student Council President, Kanade is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that all of the students are able to cope with their personal problems. This eventually clashes with Yuri's determination to blame God for her hardships in life, and she becomes a target of the Afterlife War Front upon its founding.

In the AWA fics, Kanade is amongs the people who were given a second chance to live another life in ZeroTopia. Kanade is a student at the AWA Academy.

Appearance
Kanade is a very beautiful girl who has long silver hair, which is often mistaken in the Light Novel to be a shade of blue, that reaches about waist length. She also has gold eyes with hints of auburn/brown in certain lighting. Her eyes appear to be slightly cat eyed and curved up to fit with her mysterious/kuudere vibe and has a very white skin.She wears the standard uniform of the Afterlife School, a skirt over a white petticoat, white knee-high socks, brown loafers and a pale blue barrette clip on the back of her head, which keeps a part of her hair up. Kanade is one of the shortest characters in the series, being only 150 cm (4'11") tall. After her seeming reincarnation, Kanade is shown with short hair tied in a ponytail.

Personality
Kanade does not appear to be any less foolish than a typical human being in physical form, but this is contrasted by her lack of detectable emotion, even in skirmishes with the SSS which usually end up with her being injured. It is difficult to understand what she is thinking due to her rarely showing any outward emotion. Her lack of expression also makes it difficult to determine whether or not she has any consciousness, but she is revealed to be rather intelligent, as she was able to make use of the Angel Player program, creating weapons and giving herself monstrous defense mechanisms, even leading the Afterlife War Front to believe she is an angel from God. In later events, she is shown to have abandoned being friendly because of the rules of the world she is in, as her newly-found friends inevitably leave her when they disappear. As the series progresses, she shows a little of her emotions, mostly to Otonashi. In Episode 13, Kanade goes as far as to give a small pout.

She is fond of eating Mapo Tofu, even going so far as to ignore school rules to eat it, she also includes it in her self-made school anthem at the close of the series. She spends portions of her free time gardening. She is actually part of the disbanded gardening club. She recently became friends with Otonashi, even though she didn't realize this until Otonashi said so. Although this did not alter her personality much, she allows him to call her by her first name, Kanade, and seems to exclusively talk to and hang around him. Kanade helped him fight Naoi and saved Otonashi and the SSS from being eaten by the River Monster.

Later on, she opens up to Otonashi, talking to him casually and even helping out in Otonashi's plans to help the SSS get over their lingering feelings. After spending more time with her, Otonashi discovers more of her personality and her startling lack of common sense. Otonashi describes her as a "Clumsy Angel". She seems to have a large amount of pain tolerance, as she has been shot several times by the SSS without any reaction or indication of suffering.

Abilities
Kanade fights with supernatural abilities, whose origin is probably artificial in nature. Her abilities are voice-activated, and can take effect almost immediately. Combined with her advanced skill in hand-to-hand combat, this makes her a formidable opponent for the members of the SSS.

In SSS's attempt to infiltrate Kanade's dormitory room, they gain information about her abilities, which are compiled in her personal computer. This discovery deeply disturbs Yuri, who wonders why Angel is not getting her abilities from God like she first assumed. This leads her to question if there is even a God, meaning that at all of their fighting has been for nothing. Later events support their earlier discovery and a manual called Angel Player is even discovered which is related to the program they discovered.

List of Guard Skills

 * Hand Sonic: Calls forth a single blade or a pair of blades, one on each hand. The blades are capable of slicing through steel or even easily dispatching Shadows. It has been shown to have many variations:
 * Hand Sonic [Version One]: Regular shape resembling a longsword. The main version she uses when fighting the SSS.
 * Hand Sonic [Version Two]: A thinner, longer version than the previous. It has a curved-diamond shape on its tip. She made this version thinner for higher speed.
 * Hand Sonic [Version Three]: Is shaped like a traditional sai. She once remarked that this version is "inelegant".
 * Hand Sonic [Version Four]: A variation which is shaped like a lotus flower with no edges other than, perhaps, its petals. Apparently more of a bludgeoning weapon than a slicing one. Kanade admits to have created it in her attempt to make her weapon "cuter".
 * Hand Sonic [Version Five]: Kanade's most recent variation of Hand Sonic. It is basically a pair of pincers secured on the arm by a violet gauntlet-like accessory that resembles a demon's head, horns and shape. She created this version due to Otonashi's advice that she should give herself a more ruthless image. She also used this version as a makeshift slingshot and for dispatching the Shadows or hitting certain targets from afar.
 * Hand Sonic [Version Twenty-Eight]: This is Kanade's latest version of Hand Sonic. However, this variation is only known to have been used in the 3rd Drama CD. Otonashi and Hinata has stated that it excels in bringing pain and that one would merely know just by looking at it
 * Distortion: Allows her to deflects bullets and other projectiles away using an invisible shield in front of her. The drawback of this skill is that she has to take it down should she want to switch from defense to offense.
 * Delay: Creates a sort of after-image for close range. It is effective in dodging melee attacks by confusing the enemy into attacking elsewhere.
 * Harmonics: Makes a clone of herself which is identical to her, except it has blood-red eyes. Clones created through this ability have their own consciousness, as well as all the abilities of the original - including Harmonics itself. The copy are forms of whatever she is feeling at the moment of their creation.
 * Absorb: A "hidden ability" which acts as the reverse of Harmonics. It allows the reintegration of clones created through Harmonics into her body. This, however, poses some risks as Harmonics clones also possess their own consciousness. This ability is connected to Harmonics using a command called timewait, which is simply a wait command which delays the execution of this ability. This ability was created by Yuri as method of dealing with the Harmonics clones.
 * Overdrive: A passive ability that gives her superhuman strength. The word "Passive" is supposed to refer to a fact that, unlike other guard skills, this skill can be used without an explicit invocation. Overdrive's passive effect is strong enough to lift both the Master of the River and nearly all of the SSS members combined into the air by jumping.
 * Howling: Emits powerful high-frequency, high-amplitude sound-waves from crossed Hand Sonic blades, meant to make an enemy faint. Created by one of the Harmonics clones.
 * Angel Wings: Sprouts wings from her back that, while they don't enable her to fly, can be used to slow her descent. They also allow her survive long drops, such as jumping from the roof of a building.
 * Sonic Rotation: This technique when activated, produces a blue aura when used. Kanade produces a Version One Hand Sonic on each arm and spins rapidly, effectively destroying everything in the vicinity. It was stated to be as powerful as a jet bomber by Naoi, after it demolished a mass of Shadows and left a circular crater in the ground.

Trivia

 * In the AWA fics, Kanade is currently Yuzuru Otonashi's girlfriend.
 * In the AWA fics, Kanade is related to Chizuru Tachibana and Renge Miyauchi.


 * Her birthday is on July 26th (Kanade, Shiina, and Yui had the same birth date)
 * Kanade's blood type is A.


 * The kanji for Kanade means "to play a tune".


 * There is a continuity in Kanade's existence; Otonashi's heart was transplanted to her so she would have been alive when he was dead yet Kanade was already in the afterlife before Otonashi (It might be that Otonashi's soul wandered around and eventually ended up in the Afterlife which may explain the time gap).


 * Some fans have theorized that Kanade's lingering feeling to thank her heart donor is what brought Otonashi to the world, even though Otonashi had lived a full life prior to his death.