Nobunagun Episode 1 | TFP Review
Buckeye: Now for the other show about Oda Nobunaga, this time the one with the name is a seemingly ordinary Japanese schoolgirl who is a reincarnation of daimyo, Sio Ogura. She has all those visions about her past life that come into full circle once she goes to Taiwan on a class trip, and monsters attack the place. Seeing that her friend is about to become mincemeat for the aliens, and with the one called Jack the Ripper down, she becomes an E-Gene warrior, and a sadistic one at that under the name Nobunagun.
Well, this is much different from Nobunaga the Fool that I watched earlier today, but instead of a conquest to unite a warring world, it’s a battle against alien invaders. It’s a rather silly concept here. At least I will tune into next week’s episode just to see where things go since if anything, only one Nobunaga show will make it at most.
Alphanega: Wasn’t quite sure what to expect coming in but that was more fun than I was expecting. Seems rather than a Nobunaga specific show we’re getting all kinds of historical figures with a Nobunaga incarnation as the lead. Definently a much fresher concept. As for the episode itself the first half was kinda weird though I guess that was sort of introduce us to the lead, but that second half was all kinds of crazy awesome and the ending even more so. Not too sure where it’ll go but I like the style of it so far so I’ll keep with it.
Nork22: After watching this I think I’m hard press to care about this show. While the powers given to reincarnation of famous people was neat, the whole setup was just meh. Doesn’t help that Sio is just dumb. Well I’ll give it a couple more episodes to see if it’s going to at least entertain me.
GingaDaiuchuu: Okay, so both of the completely new, completely unrelated, full-length shows that Crunchyroll has this season for Sundays starting today (back to back for me, since I work all day) both have titles that start with “Nobunaga” (in katakana, no less), with first episodes that start with no opening, a scene of Mitsuhide’s fiery betrayal of Nobunaga, which ends up being a dream that our protagonist, a foolish version of Nobunaga far in the future from the original, has. This Nobunaga’s peaceful life is then suddenly interrupted by the explosions of war, and a science fiction plot full of similar incarnations of many other figures from throughout history around the world, and our protagonist then ends up face to face with a futuristic weapon that draws out the powers within, opening up the story to be ripped apart by Nobunaga with the power that the name would imply. They then cut to the ending for the first episode, which actually is the opening theme over a plain black credit scroll. Some seiyuu are also in both, although that can be said about nearly any two new shows in a given season.
I mean… what are the chances?
Also, neither are jumping out at me as things I really want to stick with, but this one significantly less. I appreciate some of the experimentation with an unusual and interesting aesthetic and like its unrelated counterpart the main appeal would be camp, but the fact that this seemed to take itself so seriously and insist that you feel sad for what was happening after being thrust into a story that started out like silly slice-of-life and just got incredibly ridiculous makes the potential for fun in that seem less promising.
EyeOfPain: Same here [for neither show jumping out at me], though I slightly preferred this show for various reasons. In addition to what I stated in the other thread, this didn’t feel like it dragged quite as much for me. While the use of historical European figures feels a bit tiresome, but I like that it Nobunagun seems to be taking it’s Nobunaga Character in a more psychopathic direction, rather than making him a valiant hero in Fool.
And the girls help…
EmperorBrandon: Yeah, I guess that may be part of the reason I prefer this one so far. Nobunaga the Fool seemed to be more fujoshi-oriented (not to say that in a negative light, as I like some of that stuff, but my interest tends to be low to start out with in Sengoku-based series). Neither of them seem like anything I’m going to strongly stick with, at least so far, though.
bctaris: You’re right, [GingaDaiuchuu,] about the camp, and the silly ridiculousness, crossed with interesting character design (Jack the Ripper had some retro going on) and color/effect design, appealed to me. But I didn’t get the impression at all that this was taking itself too seriously, or making me feel anything but the normal tension of fleeting concern for innocent characters in an action piece. The whole manic gun fetish thing with Nobunaga/Sio certainly plays against that.
The other Nobunaga show just ground to a halt with me as it introduced more and more ridiculous “historical” names and characters, all mashed up in a 16th century world with mecha. I’m sure it’s campy, too, but it felt more sincere to me, and so, less credible. (Or maybe it just made me flashback to the disappointing Galilei Donna last season.) So I flipped to this one, and really enjoyed it. And Sio’s pretty fun. (But that could be the wicked influence of introducing her with a crotch shot. 
GingaDaiuchuu: You know, I gave it another look and it actually did work a lot better on me after I knew what was coming, and more than that other Nobunaga show. I don’t think it was taking itself entirely seriously, but to present that scene as it did, any sincerity honestly seemed a bit out of place. With a little more time to develop itself, I’m sure I wouldn’t have taken issue at all, but it all came across as so abrupt that a sympathy plea, however minor, felt too unearned to work on me.
At least neither are as bad as Galilei Donna yet! But then, neither was Galilei Donna at this point.
