Raising Heart

Raising Heart (レイジングハート) is Nanoha Takamachi's Intelligent Device, and is upgraded to Raising Heart Exelion (レイジングハート・エクセリオン) in A's. She refers to Nanoha as "master" and only speaks English. Her magical color is magenta. As an intelligent device, she provides assistance and advice in the processing of magical attacks and fire control.

Name
Early fansubs rendered Raising Heart's name as "Raging Heart". The official spelling has since been confirmed as "Raising Heart" in the bonus information card that accompanied the anime DVDs. While the English release started out using "Raging Heart", it switched to "Raising Heart" later on; with the subtitles, only the first disc (containing the first five episodes) uses "Raging", but the dub only changes to the correct terminology upon the beginning of A's.

The different spellings exist because the character "ジ" is treated differently in different systems of romanizing Japanese. The seldom-used renders it as zi, while the more common  renders it as ji. However, the consonant at the beginning of the syllable is neither English z, nor English j but a sound that does not occur in English; the closest English sound is that of j. Thus the English pronunciation of "Raging Heart" is probably the closest to the original Japanese pronunciation of the name. It is possible that the creators intended it to be the Device's name, and the final official English spelling is an.

The word "heart" in her name stems from the fact that the original design of Raising Heart, as seen in the Lyrical Toy Box, did include a large heart-shaped crystal, which was replaced with a red sphere in the MGLN version.

Appearances
So far, Raising Heart appeared in the original series, the A's manga, A's, StrikerS manga, StrikerS, and ViVid, and Force.

Raising Heart first appears in the first episode of the original series, carried by Yuuno Scrya (though it remains in Standby Mode and displays little power in his hands) before he gives it to Nanoha. In The MOVIE 1st, Yuuno is explained to be only a "Guest" user (外部使用者) instead of registering as her Master. For a Guest, only the searching and sealing functions could be used.

The exact origins of Raising Heart are a mystery. She was obtained by Yuuno by chance while exploring some ruins. No other users have been registered to her before Yuuno, and her AI could not be activated fully before her acquisition by Nanoha.

Raising Heart Exelion is the upgraded form of Raising Heart. In A's, after being badly damaged in the first engagement against Vita and Graf Eisen, she insisted on being retrofitted with the Belkan cartridge system. She is capable of a larger range of attacks with cartridges (loaded in magazines akin to those used in modern automatic weapons), and was officially renamed, though Nanoha still only addresses her informally as Raising Heart. When in battle Nanoha will generally call out her full name with the added Exelion.

In Force, Raising Heart Exelion is further upgraded to be able to assume the Standalone Flight Mode, since Nanoha needs both hands to control her Fortress and Strike Cannon simultaneously.

Primary continuity
Raising Heart has assumed following forms/modes in the primary continuity:

The Exelion Mode may have been named after either a battleship from  or from. Supporting the latter, Nanoha's Barrier Jacket resembles Excellen's mech the, and after the airing of A's, Super Robot Wars introduced a character named in a possible reference to Bardiche's Haken Form.

Blaster System's Blaster Bits are based on the bits and funnels used in . As the weapons of 's, this would seem the logical extension of Nanoha's "Gundam-like" design.

Movie continuity
The available forms/modes have been altered slightly in the movie continuity:

Functions
Raising Heart's special attack is Starlight Breaker. In the manga, Nanoha comments that Raising Heart is "so finely tuned in her functions that the TSAB maintenance staff has a hard time with her."