Nobunaga the Fool

Guided by her visions revealing the location of the King of Salvation, Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc flees with the polymath Leonardo da Vinci from the West Star to the East Star. There, she encounters Nobunaga Oda—the son of a local feudal lord who, following a brutal defeat dealt by an enemy clan, has sworn to conquer the world with his friends.

Quickly convinced that Nobunaga is indeed the King of Salvation, Jeanne pledges allegiance to the Oda clan. Meanwhile, King Arthur, the ruler of the West Star, sends his ruthless general Gaius Julius Caesar and his combat machine army to conquer Nobunaga's planet and seize the Holy Grail. Although Kaguya believes that Arthur is the King of Destruction, the reckless behavior of Nobunaga "The Fool"—who named his own combat suit after his nickname—on the battlefield sows doubt in his capability as a leader.

With the help of Himiko, the Yamato Queen, Nobunaga and his clan must unify in order to overcome tragedies, recover from betrayals, and eventually save the world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oda, Nobunaga Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

d'Arc, Jeanne Kaguya Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Ichihime Supporting

Chihara, Minori Japanese

Caesar, Gaius Julius Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Himiko Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Akechi, Mitsuhide Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

da Vinci, Leonardo Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Alexander Supporting

Nakai, Kazuya Japanese

Uesugi, Kenshin Supporting

Nanami, Hiroki Japanese

Kagome Supporting

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Yoshie, Terushige Producer

Okamura, Takema Producer

Reviews

Apr 14, 2014

miwars

Recommended

"It was inevitable!" - Oda Nobunaga.

Nobunaga The Fool is a pleasant surprise of this season, a very curious yet enjoyable mix of many genres : Mecha, Sengoku Period, Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Romance, which may raise many brows given the unique sense of history of this anime, but that flamboyant extravagance has many charms, just like the main protagonist, Oda Nobunaga, a foolish and persistant man who aims to conquer heavens and earth as he is said to be the Savior-King by his allies, Jeanne d'Arc and Da Vinci. His resolve and potential steadily draws other characters to him, allies and enemies alike. Gaius Julius Caesar, ... King Arthur and many other notable historical figures make their entrance, while the internal strife of the Oda clan is at its peak. Nobunaga The Fool shows us foolishness, determination, betrayal, sacrifices, hope, and love. It appeals to our emotions and keeps the suspens till the very end. The well executed overall presentation manages to catch our attention with an impredictable conquest, a rich cast of voice actors, a beautifully handled animation and a very memorable soundtrack. The fast paced story, the intense interactions between the characters, the epic battle scenes, and the subsequent plot twists make it an anime you look forward to where it would take you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 25, 2014

mechato

Mixed Feelings

Nobunaga the Fool is a jack of all genres, master of none.

It has an awesome premise—a reconstruction of Oda Nobunaga’s rise to power within a mecha-filled, pseudo-historical setting. Anachronism definitely has the potential to produce beautiful things (e.g. Gintama or Samurai Champloo), and going into this show, I was excited to see how its producers would handle a historical/mecha fusion. Now that I’ve completed it, I’m disappointed to say that it felt more like a disjointed mishmash of genres than a smooth blend.

When I say that NtF was a mishmash of genres, I don’t just mean historical and mecha. It was often fantasy, occasionally supernatural, ... sometimes shounen, sporadically romance, and towards the end, sci-fi as well. Hence the comparison to a jack of all trades, master of none. NtF essentially gave itself too much to do. It had too many themes to neatly put together and ended up spending time focusing on different subjects without really combining them. There were magical evil imp children, melodramatic love triangles, power-ups with spirit dragons and cyborg limbs (I'm not even kidding), and so on. In the end, it was hard to tell what exactly the series was supposed to be about.

My score is 5.9/10. Read below for the full review + rating breakdown.

- - -
Story = 5/10

Layout:
If you want to enjoy NtF, be ready to suspend your disbelief. The show is a war story takes place on two stars, east and west. The east star is dominated by Japanese warlords from the Sengoku period. The west star is dominated by random famous Europeans plus Chandra Gupta. (If you're a stickler for historical accuracy, you probably won't like this anime.) As you might guess, the allusions and references are all over the place. Here’s a small sample of the references made in NtF: Schrodinger’s cat, Excalibur, and Hercules—and that’s only in one episode.

The topic for each episode is set by tarot cards. At some point in each ep, a new card is revealed (like Hanged Man or Empress), and the card signifies a character or event during that episode. It's generally predictable, but it does make the anime more entertaining. The idea is admittedly clever.

Characters spend a lot of time fighting over regalia, which are mystical pendants that grant physics-defying upgrades to giant war armors (NtF's mechas). When activated, they draw from the power of ley lines and cause extra weapons to immediately materialize. Yeah...just roll with it.

Plot:
There's a prophecy that two kings will be born—a Savior King and a Destroyer King whose destinies are to save and destroy the world, respectively. The higher-ups on the west star believe that Arthur, an enigmatic and seemingly faceless man, is the Savior King. After Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc has premonitions of an east star warrior named Oda Nobunaga, she and Leonardo da Vinci defect to the east star to see if he's the actual Savior King. They join the Oda clan, and Jeanne goes into disguise as a page named Ranmaru. Nobunaga and co. then continue their efforts to unite heaven and earth. Or conquer the world. Whichever sounds better.

The plot isn't too hard to follow, but it's still unnecessarily contrived. Things get especially confusing during the last few episodes.
- - -
Characterization = 3/10

Warning: characters' personalities don't necessarily reflect those of their historical counterparts. (Don't expect Jeanne to be a badass warrior. You will be disappointed.) The names are just there for the sake of making characters look cooler. The east star warlords at least bear some resemblance to the figures on whom they're based, but the west star knights of the round table (which include members like Hannibal Barca and Alexander the Great, and are not to be confused with King Arthur’s other knights of the round table) show little to no evidence of historical context. Caesar says “veni, vidi, vici.” Cool. Hannibal and Charlemagne speak to each other in French. Nifty. That's all you really get, in terms of historical influence. You won't be getting any Fate/Zero sort of background info on the characters, either.

Historical inaccuracy aside (Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc...really? I know she's supposed to be a pseudo-Mori Ranmaru and have ties to the east star, but come on), the characters at least have interesting, distinct personalities. The reason why I'm giving a 3 instead of a 1 or 2 is because the character types aren't any less than what you'd get from your average action anime. A lot of the supporting chars may be one-dimensional, but they're rarely boring.

Moving on, the biggest qualm I have regarding characterization is that the main characters have these little tics and habits, and the show abuses the heck out of them. Mitsuhide flips his hair. Hideyoshi rubs his nose. Nobunaga adjusts his shirt sleeves. I've seen each of these happen at least once per episode. Why do I say they're abused? Habits are supposed to reflect a character's personality, not define it. The habits shown in NtF are extremely overstated and, for the most part, not special. Among other things, the issue with the habits highlights how static the characters are. Their most obvious traits are literally tiny habits.

Quick note about development: the main characters do go through changes in their ambitions and temperaments, but the changes are often sudden and not sufficiently explained.
- - -
Art = 8/10

You can tell a LOT of the animation budget went into the giant war armors, which are the only things that are CG. They look gorgeous, and fight scenes look amazing. Unfortunately, although the art is very good overall, the discrepancy between quality for giant war armors and everything else is pretty noticeable. The CG animation = 10, the rest = 7.

Interesting thing I noticed: in the Owari setting, you see the same looped animation of this dude ringing a bell for every invasion scene. The only explanation is that the guy is secretly immortal and never rests, eats, or gets hurt even when his city is being attacked by laser beams.
- - -
Voice Acting = 9/10

The voice acting is great overall, though a little over-the-top at times. (The “over-the-top” part applies mostly to Hideyoshi. As much as I love Kaji Yuki, I think I've heard him make enough monkey noises to last a lifetime.)

Additional props to Miyano Mamoru, Sugita Tomokazu, and Nakamura Yuichi for pulling off Nobunaga, da Vinci, and Caesar so well.
- - -
Music 6/10

The BGM is a mix of traditional and orchestral music. It fits the series well, but isn't exceptionally good. The most memorable tracks are the ones played during the more intense scenes; they're one of the things I like most about NtF.
- - -

Story (25%) = 50
Characterization (25%) = 30
Art (20%) = 80
Voice Acting (15%) = 90
Music (15%) = 60

Total = 59/100 = 5.9/10 —> 6

Thanks for reading!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 8, 2014

HolyMushroom

Not Recommended

*Spoiler free*

There are generally two kinds of anime that are difficult to follow. The first is the likes of classics such as Texhnolyze or Serial experiments Lain, where the show was intentionally made convoluted by the authors in order to leave interpretation up to the viewer. These are shows that are purposefully made with the assumption that the viewer must decipher the plot for a philosophical reason.

The second type are shows that are convoluted not in order to convey anything special, but because the writers of the show have absolutely no idea what they are doing and couldn't write a good story to save their ... pathetic behinds.

This anime is unfortunately the second type. It's actually kinda sad, because when watching it you can really see that the POTENTIAL for a good show is there, but it just isn't well written enough in any respect to be enjoyable. I found myself watching it to the end, hoping it would eventually get its act together, but it just never did.

The problem here is this anime tried tossing far too many concepts into the story without paying attention to the quality of any of them. There is a hint of romance, but it is never well done enough to be interesting. There are many characters that seem engaging at first, but are never fleshed out enough or developed to grab your attention. More than half the characters motives for their involvement in the overall story are never even explained. The plot itself is a mess, going through far too many changes with never enough details for any of them to matter. There is no sense of wonder or suspense whatsoever. It throws in historical references, but all of them turned out to be excuses for poor writing and few of them were accurate. The action scenes are decent, but because it's hard to care about the overarching plot behind them they aren't interesting either.

Nobunaga the Fool is like the Action-52 of anime. Tons of genres, tons of ideas, but none of them well done.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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