Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"If the bird does not sing, kill it."
Credited as being one of the Three Unifiers of modern Japan, Nobunaga was one of Japan's most successful warlords. He started as a son of a minor daimyo (and earned the nickname "The Fool of Owari" due to his childhood and teenage antics), with a number of factions within his own province opposing him, eventually he would not only crush those factions but also proceed to conquer over a third of Japan, with the rest well positioned to fall to him. That ended on June 21, 1582, when his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide attacked him at Honno temple; Nobunaga, his bodyguards and his wakashu Mori Ranmaru died that night.
Although noted for many things, including a mastery of tactics, (most famously, at the Battle of Okehazama, Nobunaga's forces, numbering at most 3000, defeated an army of around 25,000 through a combination of daring, misdirection, a brilliant surprise attack, and more than a little luck) revolutionizing the ways Japanese armies used firearms, and completely changing the economic system of and the way wealth was counted in Japan, Nobunaga is chiefly remembered for his ruthless and brutal nature, and it is these traits that dominate most depictions of him in any period pieces or games. Nobunaga's actions leave him ripe for playing the part of the villain, as his most infamous deeds include the burning of powerful Buddhist temples critical of him, and the slaughter of the thousands of men, women and children that lived in them. Even the kinder portrayals of him tend to show him as a man fueled by ambition and greed, in many others it is either speculated or explicitly said that he has either become a demon or made a literal Deal With The Devil to carry out his ambitions.
Although he did not live to see the conquest of all Japan finalized, Nobunaga's actions all but ended over a century of near-constant civil war among the lords of Japan for dominance. After his death, his general Hashiba Hideyoshi (later known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi) finished the conquest, and another general, Tokugawa Ieyasu, founded the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1600 until 1868.
Amusingly enough, his most famous descendant, Oda Nobunari, is one of Japan's top male figure skaters, and is most known for crying at the drop of a hat, and getting caught driving his moped drunk.
Compare with other historical figures Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Jubei. Almost always a Big Bad, Evil Overlord and Zero Percent Approval Rating dictator. And a Magnificent Bastard as well.
A good western comparison would be Vlad Tepes aka Dracula.
Tropes associated with the historical Nobunaga:
- Ambition Is Evil (Nobunaga is the most ambitious of the unifiers, and is the most ruthless. Of course this is one source of his villainization)
- Badass (Admit it. Evil or not, this man is badass)
- Badass Creed (Tenka Fubu. "Spread militarism all over the land.")
- Bad Boss (Nobunaga did not treat even his inner circle well, being notably cold and full of petty cruelties to several of his highest ranking generals. Perhaps he was paranoid about betrayal or disloyalty, but if so Nobonaga might have turned it into a Self Fulfilling Prophecy).
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass, Obfuscating Stupidity (His early life, which he's called "The Fool of Owari". Then Okehazama happens, then Nobunaga shed the 'Moron' part and becomes a complete Badass)
- Determinator
- Driven To Suicide
- Kill It With Fire (Nobunaga had a rather disturbing tendency to burn and raze the strongholds of his enemies... with his enemies still inside them)
- Lucky Bastard (Not one but two lords and tremendously skilled generals [Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin] died under mysterious circumstances soon after having initial success in their campaigns against Nobunaga. Needless to say, conspiracy theories about these deaths abound)
- Magnificent Bastard
- Kick The Dog (The burning of the temples on Mount Hiei. Buddhist warrior monks from this and other sects had been meddling in politics for centuries, and soon became vocal critics and enemies of Nobunaga. Nobonuaga responded by surrounding the culturally significant temple at and attacking from all sides, working upwards. By the next day the sprawling temple complex was ashes and thousands lay dead, with not even innocent women or children safe from Nobunaga's wrath. Becomes a Moral Event Horizon to many historians, which kickstarted his long run of villainization in fiction)
- (Less famous but arguably more horrifying than the destruction of Mt. Hiei was the burning of Nagashima, a fortress of another warrior monk sect. The group resisted a siege by Nobunaga for several years, but were eventually forced back within their entirely wooden inner fortifications. Nobunaga built a wall around the building, then set it on fire. With nowhere to run, not a single one of the 20,000 inhabitants survived. Note that once again, many of these inhabitants were noncombatants, including both women and children)
- Well Intentioned Extremist (Maybe. It seems he did want to unite Japan to stop the in-fighting, and in the long run may have been successful. Your Milage May Vary,though.)
Examples
- In Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, Takeda Shingen, a powerful rival of Nobunaga's, (and perhaps a better general) uses a lookalike thief to pretend to be healthy instead of dead in an attempt to discourage an attack on his clan.
- In the Onimusha game series Nobunaga is mortally wounded by an arrow during his great victory at Okehazama, but makes a deal with the demon king to return to life as a demon and conquer Japan on behalf of the demons.
- In the first game, you kill said demon king, but guess what? Nobunaga takes over the demonic realm for most of the series. Incidentally, he does pull a One Winged Angel into a demonic form as well.
- Thrice. He goes One Winged Angel thrice. Twice in the second game, once in the third.
- If this Troper is not mistaken, Nobunaga did actually take an arrow to the neck during the battle, which is part of the origin for his unsavory reputation. Surviving a seemingly lethal wound is apparently unnerving to most people.
- Capcom loves Evil Nobunaga. So in Sengoku Basara, he's once again an evil S.O.B with a sword, a mean shotgun and a nasty cape that can attack enemies. When you had Norio Wakamoto as the voice actor, of course that is to be expected.
- In Kessen 3 Nobunaga does a rare turn as the protagonist, depicted in much more idealized fashion, making the traitor whose attack would kill him the antagonist, while using relatively conventional depictions of the rest of the cast. (Unlike Samurai Warriors however it actually deals with the shogunate at the time.) This game surprisingly contains a lot of Take That to treatments toward Nobunaga in general fiction...
- He appears in the first Kessen in a cutscene, also in a non-evil depiction, as a vision of the idealistic Tokugawa Ieyasu speaking of his dream of a unified Japan. Well Intentioned Extremist of sorts?
- Inu Yasha almost subverts the usual depiction of Nobunaga. Kagome is startled in one of the first episodes of the series when a handsome, idealistic young samurai gives his name as Nobunaga. She eagerly asks for his autograph, only to see in disappointment that it's a different man with the name Nobunaga. When she asks about the Nobunaga, the one she's talking to derides him (although he could have been lying about his identity). This has been used by fans to put a date to the Inuyasha story, since there's a very limited period of time when Oda Nobunaga was known, but considered not to be a big deal.
- Samurai Warriors has Nobunaga as one of many playable characters. He has a reputation for brutality and is called "The Demon King"; however, perhaps uniquely to the Samurai Warriors (1st game) depiction, his wife wavers between wanting to kill for him and wanting to kill him (their marriage was a setup for his assassination, but she hasn't completely adhered to this nor turned away from that), and at the same time he has a relationship with his page Mori Ranmaru; as he was also noted in Japan for this relationship, this perhaps is one of the few instances if any of a male video game character being openly bisexual, even if not overtly.
- He also gets paired up ironically in the second game with Akechi Mitsuhide, his future killer. However, in his ending he actually survives, killing Mitsuhide instead and shows that he is in fact capable of feelings of remorse and regret.
- Koei also really, really likes to show off his evilness by having him shed pitch black feathers all over the place despite having no visible wings.
- It really should be noted that the Koei games in general tend to portray Nobunaga as a pragmatist and a Magnificent Bastard more than anything else. Sure, he still has the 'evil feather' thing going, but this portrayal of him really shines in the Warriors Orochi Spin Off. There, Nobunaga sheds most of the 'evil demon' crap that surrounds him even in the Koei games and is more of a Magnificent Bastard... with a heart of gold. It somehow makes sense in the game.
- One shouldn't take the Dynasty Warrior series as Koei's only game, or in fact, their trademark game. Most of the time, he is just a Magnificent Bastard.
- Nobunaga does not appear onscreen in Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma, but the story takes place at the height of his conquests, and the main character thinks about his brutality and wonders if he is a demon.
- In Wrath Of The Ninja Nobunaga appears to be the chief antagonist for the 3 heroes, conquering Japan with demonic help and seeking to be transformed into a demon himself. This time, however, there's a Man Behind The Man, a demon looking to use the bloodshed of war and Nobunaga's cruelty to power the demons themselves, and Nobunaga is just his patsy.
- Nobunaga is a major antagonist in Samurai Deeper Kyo.
- The historical novel Taiko Ki traces the rise of Nobunaga's general Toyotomi Hideyoshi from peasant to general and regent for the Emperor. Nobunaga, as Toyotomi's lord for much of his life, plays a large role. His defining characteristics are ambition and constant fury.
- Nobunaga is a target of the ninjas in Shinobi No Mono.
- Nobunaga is the final boss of the Neo-Geo fighting game Ninja Master's, complete with a pair of flaming swords and a posessed demonic cape.
- In Inindo, Nobunaga is, naturally, the Big Bad. But through careful play, he can die when historically supposed to (Shocks!) and be replaced by a random guy who appears for no reason with his demon-pet. Woowee!
- A rare case of a non-evil Oda Nobunaga: the ancient Koei strategy video game Nobunaga's Ambition, which lets you play as Nobunaga or any of three dozen other daimyo trying to claim the Japanese crown. Nobunaga generally has the best attributes of all of them, though.
- Of course, only the original is ancient. It has spawned a rather sprawling series, albeit many aren't released in North America.
- The series (5 games thus far) where Hideyoshi is the main character has Nobunaga shown as an magnificent lord defying the norm by trusting a peasant born warrior.
- Shogun: Total War has a non-evil Nobunaga, in the linear campaign the player gets to command several of his more famous battles.
- Nobunaga makes a very brief appearance at the beginning of a historical campaign mission in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, in which he is assassinated. The player then receives control of Hideyoshi's troops and the goal is to destroy three castles in Kyoto to avenge Nobunaga's death.
- In the (rather old) Black LionOVA, he is actually possessed by alien invaders who equip his armies with high-tech armaments so he can conquer Japan as a beachhead (probably; the backstory isn't covered much).
- Another non-evil version in the Kamen No Ninja Akakage (Red Shadow) live action Japanese TV series. (Three Compilation Movies were released in English as "Watari".)
- Toshiie To Matsu gives a largely sympathetic portrayal, though it doesn't shy away from Nobunaga's worse moments, either. (It helps that the actor portraying him is quite handsome.)
- In Drifters by Kouta Hirano (creator of Hellsing) he is portrayed as the Cool Old Guy. The protagonist Shimazu Toyohisa (another historical figure) meets him and Nasu no Yoichi in another world.
- Even the Cthulhu Mythos is up against Nobunaga. In the supplement Secrets of Japan, it's revealed that Nobunaga is but one of Nyarlathotep's thousand masks, and that the Outer God still occasionally pulls him out for, of all things, business meetings.
- In the erotic game Sengoku Rance, Nobunaga is shown to be a very compassionate leader and loves his sister dearly. His genocidal tendency are caused by being possessed by a literal demon.
- Nobunaga gets referenced in Soul Calibur as the one who cut off Yoshimitsu's arm, or at least was there when it happened, and is the one responsible for Yoshimitsu's Doomed Hometown.
- The Adventures of Samurai Cat tells the epic tale of Miawaro Tomokato's quest to avenge the death of his Lord, Odo Nobunaga, who true to form had irritated a lot of people in his youth.
|
|
