Maid-chan no Anime: Oda Nobuna no Yabou (The Ambition of Oda Nobuna)

Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!

Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Every Japanese knows those three names. They are the founders of the unified Japan after more then a century of nearly constant fighting – the senguko jidai, the “Age of Warring States”, which should probably better named Age of Warring Clans.

But this has not much to do with the anime Oda Nobuna no Yabou. In fact none of the three men have anything to do with it, since it is A) 30 years earlier and B) a lot of the famous figures of that time are young girls.

Yes, Maid-chan knows what you want to say: another harem anime? But keep reading! It is not that bad!

In the middle of all is Yoshiharu Sagara, who suddenly finds himself dropped between a bunch of fighting Samurais and gets saved from a gun shot by a man who turns out to be Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who dies instead.

Sagara, a big fan of the Warring States games is extremely surprised, but even more when he meets this girl.

Oda Nobuna, not Nobunaga.

The two safe each others life and Nobuna, being a nice girl (and also tsundere), grants Sagara the title of Shoe Carrier to allow Sagara to be in her court (instead of history’s dead Hideyoshi). Why Shoe Carrier? Because it was fun stepping on Sagara. Maid-chan understands that feeling!

Maid-chan also knows, if in an anime, a young man and a young girl get intimate in such a way, they later want to get intimate in a different way too. But at the start Nobuna is not sure what she should think of someone who looks so strange as Sagara and says he is from the future.

But when Nobuna tests him, Sagara turns out to not only understand what Nobuna means, but also talks as if turning her dreams into reality is totally doable!

Oda Nobuna has a big dream. She wants to unite Japan and create a country where there is no war and everyone can live happy. Sagara’s moral support helps Nobuna getting over her own doubts and finally she accepts Sagara (whom she gives the name Saru, monkey). She allows him to pledge his loyalty to her – in the western way of course.

Isn’t that cute? It is good that Maid-chan does not have tears, or she could have gotten into serious trouble there with her electricity!

But of course Sagara cannot do everything alone. Always on his side is this cute Ninja-Boss who only has one little problem.

Of course it is not only Sagara who helps Nobuna getting her dream and ambition fulfilled. There are other supporters, like the stalwart fighter Shibata Katsuie or the classical beauty Niwa Nagahide, who likes to gives points for everything.

From time to time others join Oda Nobuna, like Saitou Dousan, called The Snake. Nobuna sees him as the good father she never had (typical tragic childhood, Maid-chan assures you).

Another early joiner is Akechi Mitsuhide. She is always on full power supporting Nobuna, but her inability to read the mood sometimes cause problems between her and Nobuna. (In real history this person later killed Oda Nobunaga.)

Maid-chan will not tell you about the story. It would be very hard to not spoiler interesting things, and if you want to get the basics, you can always read up the real history. Most things and places in the anime follow the real events.
(Maid-chan was ordered to do more for her reader’s education, so please take up that chance!)

Conclusion

Oda Nobuna no Yabou can best be summarized as a historical love comedy, and really delivers on that, including a lot of bishoujos. But there are also a lot of “serious” topics, which is not a surprise in a war-ridden setting.
It is a lot of fun to see the relationship of Nobuna and Sagara grow between the ups and downs of battles and betrayals. This is especially true in the few moments when Nobuna-chan can show her girlish side. She really likes festivals and happy people!

Maid-chan cannot help but to root for this little girl at the start of doing something incredible.
However, that also means that Maid-chan is very disappointed about the shortness of the anime. It only has 12 episodes, and stops at a very early point in history. And Sagara does not even get the agreed on price.
That only happens in the 20 Light Novels.

Maid-chan wishes for more episodes, but that dream may be harder to achieve than the unification of Japan. That has already been done once, after all.
Speaking of already been done before: Maid-chan knows that humans get easily attracted to wrong “facts”. You can learn quite a lot about Japanese history in this fun anime, but don't take everything it shows you as true, okay?

All in all Maid-chan gives this anime a 8/10 on the totally objective Maid-chan scale, only missing the 9 points by the depth of a smartphone.

Congratulations, Nobuna-chan, this is the result of your hard work and dedication!

See you next time!