Naru Nanao is a female Japanese artist from Okinawa, Japan. Nanao's choice of her pseudonym stems from the Circus' game "Aries"; one of the characters was named "Runa Nanao" (七尾 留奈, Nanao Runa?).
She is a free illustrator and thus is not affiliated with one single company; she is primarily a character designer. She began working with video game developers in 2000, but she is most well known for providing original character design for three heroines in the original D.C.: Da Capo visual novel by Circus released in 2002.
At one point, she only went by her given name Naru. She is the supervisor of her dōjinshi circle known as "Ice & Chocolate" (あいすとちょこ, Aisu to Choko?). She often collaborates with another circle named "Poteneko" (ぽてねこ?). She even provided the front-cover illustration for the Comiket 70 catalog for August 2006