Tsuruko Sejren/Tropes

A-G

 * Adorkable: As cute and endearing as Gary is hammy.
 * Always With You: When Rosa dies, she reminds Tsuruko one last time that she will always be with her. That allows Tsuruko to use Perfect Infinity Style without Rosa—as Rosa is with her in her heart.
 * Aloof Dark Haired Girl: In her past.
 * Armor of Invincibility: What Tsuruko's Infinity Style is described as; oddly enough, this is included in the story itself.
 * Badass: It's Vittoria with Gai-level powers, what did you expect? Tsuruko is the physical embodiment of awesome in the series. She even defeats Crux at his strongest at the time and fights Vritra/E to a standstill. However, Tsuruko's greatest feat of badassery has to be defeating and killing the omnipotent creator of the universe.
 * Badass Adorable: Is overall a sweet-natured, shy, live-and-let-live, utterly endearing person who's sweet, shy, and dedicated to making friends. She can kick your ass up and down the metaphorical street if she feels she needs to; being terrifyingly intelligent and a pretty handy fighter.
 * Badass Bookworm: Very smart (in her own unconventional way), quite learned, and a capable fighter.
 * Berserk Button: Don't you dare make anyone cry in Tsuruko's presence. In particular, the sight of someone crying has lead her to threaten E to never make the children of the city cry and also to attempt a suicidal Double Giga Scan when Kaguya breaks down in tears after Psyga gives her "The Reason You Suck" Speech about why she is too weak and pathetic to ever defeat him.
 * Be Yourself: Once she learns, with the help of her friends, to accept herself as she is and recognize that it's okay for her to be a very different person from what she pretends to be, Tsuruko's Character Development takes a massive turn for the better.
 * Boobs of Steel: Quite endowed, and possibly the most powerful female character in the series.
 * Chrome Champion: Her regular armours are already covered in gemstones, but Infinity Style takes the cake by being composed of sparkling silver and glittering diamonds.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: Tsuruko's inability to turn people down when they ask for help worries her friends and colleagues. She also tends to jump headfirst into any situation whenever she feels it's the 'right' thing to do.
 * Determinator: Put someone's life in danger and there's nothing she won't do to protect them.
 * The Ditherer: Tsuruko spends many a chapter wondering if she can really be helpful to anyone.
 * The Ditz: Tsuruko isn't a ditz, exactly, but she is certainly naive and altruistic to a fault.
 * Expressive Hair Decorations: Her ribbons wiggle on their own when she is excited. Or hungry.
 * Extreme Doormat: Tsuruko's often subscribed to magazines she doesn't want and buys things that she doesn't need because she doesn't like refusing others. Of course, Character Development has helped her for the better.
 * Extremity Extremist: Tsuruko favours her legs in combat. She avoids punching so as not to bust up her rings.
 * Foil: Tsuruko and Kaguya are this to each other. Kaguya is talented and remarked to be an extremely powerful magic knight, while Tsuruko lacks any kind of talent and is remarked to be rather stupid. Kaguya is a Manipulate Bastard Rich Bitch, Tsuruko is a Shrinking Violet Nice Girl. Tsuruko is impulsive and governs with her heart, while Kaguya is always more in control and strongly favors cold logic. The fact that Tsuruko seems to transform into a Kamen Rider while Kaguya becomes a Magical Girl largely reflects that.
 * For Happiness: Tsuruko wants everyone to be happy. Deconstructed, as unlike normal people who can somewhat create their own happiness, Tsuruko, thanks to her lack of any self-worth always places the need of others before her own and is completely unable to create her own happiness and has to live through others.

H-P

 * The Hero
 * Heroic Self-Deprecation: Subtly, but still present. At one point Tsuruko says the following about herself: "I thought I had nothing good going for me. I thought I would continue on living until I died, never helping anyone, never being useful. That made me frustrated, and it made me feel alone. But I thought I couldn't do anything about it." And yet her actions over the series often contradict this self-characterization.
 * Hikikomori: After being torn from Gary and being saved by the Phoenix Knight, Tsuruko's been living as a recluse for five years, emerging from her home only to save people with her powers, with little to no agitation about it on the part of those who know her. This is a major part of her initial character, and it particularly sets off her relationship with Rosa in that she has absolutely no intention of letting her remain one.
 * Idiot Hero: Subverted; others consider Tsuruko to be this, but she does very little without logical consideration, and in fact points out reasonable flaws in other people's arguments. "The white-winged bird is not among you because it is lost."
 * Intergenerational Friendship: It goes both ways: the ones closest to her are Hikari, Giselle, Zanma, and Rosa. Apparently, having the social skills of a ten-year-old works out pretty well when you're interacting with actual ten-year-olds; and adults will treat you just like a kid.
 * Magic Knight: Seems to be the motif of Infinity Style, both in functionality and design.
 * Mid-Season Upgrade: Survive Style.
 * Multiform Balance
 * Paper Ram: Tsuruko herself. As befitting the previous protagonists of the author, Tsuruko can do a lot of damage and is very fast, but she can't take a hit.
 * Glass Cannon: Flame Style. Flame Style is very powerful and is capable of dishing out some serious damage. But, it can't take it or tank its own attacks in return.
 * Mighty Glacier: Land Style
 * Fragile Speedster: Hurricane Style
 * Squishy Wizard: Water Style. It does have a bit of a speed boost over Flame Style, but is otherwise weaker and the form mainly relies on special tricks like the Liquid Ring.
 * Jack Of All Stats: Fusion Style
 * Lightning Bruiser: Survive Style
 * Super Mode: Regular Infinity Style
 * Serial Escalation: Perfect Infinity Style
 * Nice Girl
 * No Social Skills: Tsuruko is completely oblivious to social cues; and due to her initial Jerkass-ness in her childhood, the only person she could get along with was Gary. After she was torn from him, Tsuruko herself shut off her emotions for a short while as to not be hurt again from others leaving her—however, her grandfather's dying words convinced her to try and make friends with everyone once more. However, Tsuruko herself is socially awkward, clumsy, shy, and rather submissive, only standing up for herself when somebody slams on her Berserk Button; in fact, she attempts to emulate the "Hot-Blooded Shōnen Hero" stereotype in public in order to put up a brave face; with very little success. This contrasts greatly with her confidence in battle, which is the point; at one point Kaguya believes that the Tsuruko in battle and the Tsuruko at downtimes are completely different people. She even admits to Kaguya she's not great with people.
 * Love Freak: Friendship this, friendship that...it seems to work to her advantage, though.
 * Official Couple: Tsuruko and Gary.
 * The Power of Friendship and Trust: Tsuruko learns to stand by them, and has a fairly good in-universe reason for doing so, rather than just a gratuitous Aesop: as a Lunarian, Tsuruko is able to actually derive physical power from the bonds that she forms with others.
 * Purple Is Powerful

Q-V

 * Shrinking Violet: Not an immediately obvious example, but Tsuruko is nervous about meeting new people, and after meeting Rosa, Tsuruko relies on her for support; not to mention how she can be easily cowed by interpersonal conflict—and she easily gives in to others' demands.
 * Smarter Than You Look: Despite her bubbly personality, she catches on to things extremely fast.
 * Split Personality: Hot-Blooded!Tsuruko is this to the regular Tsuruko. Unlike most Split Personalities in fiction, this one actually was developed for reasons that are tenable in psychology: taking on another identity to spare yourself from trauma. However, it back into artistic liberty, as people with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) cannot communicate directly with their other personalities; but this is the entire premise between Tsuruko and Star Phoenix—this is somewhat justified as Star Phoenix became supernatural, and thus can talk to Tsuruko whenever he pleases. Eventually the Star Phoenix disappears after Tsuruko accepts herself, allowing Tsuruko to confront Excellen for the finale.
 * Shown Their Work: Hot-Blooded!Tsuruko is a secondary personality created to protect Tsuruko from psychological harm during a childhood incident. This is, in fact, one of the only reasons split personalities are developed in real life.
 * Static Character: Despite being the main character, Tsuruko's characterization has actually evolved the least out of everyone else in Daybreak. This is due to how most of the Character Development of most of the cast generally plays off of her by her influencing their decisions, such as Gary going from overly dependent on Tsuruko to being an independent hero in his own right, or Kaguya making friends with her and allowing herself to open up more. In terms of actual depth, she's just as much of a Rounded Character as most anyone in Daybreak.
 * Survivor Guilt: Tsuruko has signs of this from being one of the only survivors of the ritual that created the Phantoms and surviving the crash that killed her family. While she doesn't say it was all her fault, it clearly affected her deeply.
 * Technical Pacifist: Tsuruko refuses to kill anyone as she believes her enemies are generally good people who deserve to live but she'll continue to fight in order to put an end to the conflict. She disables her opponents rather than killing them. And given the combination of her skills and her powers, she's very good at that, sometimes disarming many dozens of mooks in a matter of seconds.
 * Took A Level In Badass: Tsuruko rises from a cowardly, shy girl overshadowed by her own split personality, to the ultimate Badass Adorable by the end of the story.

W-Z

 * Weak, but Skilled: Surprisingly, this is one of Tsuruko's greatest strengths, if not the greatest. When fighting Excellen/The Exalted One, the most powerful being in the universe, she gets kicked all the way down to losing her magic, only wielding Dragredder. When fighting the creator of the universe, instead of overwhelming her with strength, she uses her sheer speed and agility to outmaneuver and redirect The Exalted One's attacks.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: All of Tsuruko's knowledge of social interactions comes from fiction. As a result she ends up applying anime clichés to Real Life, with little success.