What They Say:
Shio Ogura, a seemingly normal Japanese high school student, who, while visiting Taiwan on a school trip, is suddenly attacked by monsters. Agents known as “E-Gene Holders” from the government agency DOGOO also arrive, who wield weapons infused with the spirits of historical figures. However in the midst of it all, Shio is revealed to also be an E-Gene Holder when the soul of Oda Nobunaga awakens after she tries to rescue a friend.
Episode #01 – “Oda Nobunaga”
Weapon otaku Ogura Sio is on a school trip to Taiwan when she and her classmates get caught up in an Evolutionary Invasion Object attack, not that she has any idea what is going on. And who is the guy with the knives?
Episode #02 – “Evolutionary Invasion Objects”
The incident in Taiwan draws to a close, and Sio gets a chance to have a heart-to-heart with recovering Asao before deciding whether she will join the monster-fighting team or not.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We start Nogunagun with a weapon otaku, Ogura, having a dream about being Oda Nobunaga himself. The direction is quite interesting, because it keeps labeling everything that passes by the camera, from a replica gun to her booty. When I watched it the first time, I found it quite peculiar. Honestly, it has not gotten less peculiar. Unfortunately for Ogura, the teacher doesn’t even remember that she’s in the class.
Things don’t stay so relatively normal in good old Japan though. A fishing boat is attacked by a monster underwater, leading to the events of the later part of the episode where Ogura pilot the circle-ball thing. But everything that shows Ogura is quite good at characterizing her, even without the little bits of helper text. She’s lazy and sort of forgetful, but tragically isolated from the rest of her class—largely her own doing, though about 1,000 times better than Tomoko of Watamote fame. Her isolation is mostly due to her own weirdness than a social disorder. In fact, she’s so normal by herself, the others in her class think that she likes being alone.
It’s when (of course) the most popular girl in the class walks up and tries to talk to her that Ogura really comes out of her shell. They even take a cute picture together, foreshadowing for the popular girl’s impending doom. “She’s like a different species,” Ogura says to herself, which is another nice little bit of foreshadowing.
This is when the shit hits the fan, and tanks literally start flying at her, the result of the same alien things that attacked the fishing boat earlier. With this, Ogura, as she should be, is completely lost and spouting out names and numbers of the things flying before her eyes—a result of her shock. The color palette also changes here, from the normal colors to a darker palette. Her body and the art of everything else around her is highly contrasted. As Tom says in his episode one review, it is stunning. Seeing it a second time is still stunning.
Ogura runs into the battlefield willy nilly for the sake of Asao, the popular girl. She’s only near the device to protect the only friend she has. But she doesn’t say that outright. Instead, she says she’s saving Asao because “I haven’t given her my email address yet.” For such a mundane thing, she’s saving her friend and that makes it all the more human.
We’ve got Gandhi, Newton, Jack the Ripper, and Oda Nobunaga. And it seems that, with the device that gave Ogura the gun, she’s taken on a new persona. The persona is closer to Nobunaga than Ogura, but clearly a combination of the two and more of a change in demeanor than in the person. I hate to make this analogy, but think Yugi and Yami from Yu-Gi-Oh! Memories and intent are retained in the new “Nobunagun” persona, but she’s rougher.
Jack the Ripper’s device turns into a giant sword, Nobunaga’s turns into the gun, and Newton’s turns into a giant boot that can up the gravity (get it? Because Newton and gravity). Ghandi’s creates a barrier, so it’s clear that these powers represent what their past lives did.
But Nobunagun’s got a plan. Newton pushes her boot against Nobunagun’s back, suppressing the recoil. In a move straight out of an anime, if the one gun wasn’t enough, then better use three! (For a more contemporary, American-ish example, remember that Mako Mori still has a sword.) But she’s wiped after that. Like all things in anime, you need training to be able to use a device like that for a sustained amount of time. But she did kill 202 of those creatures, so she’s pretty decent.
The invaders are called Evolutionary Invasion Objects. An the device? It’s made out of E-gene, which is the only thing that can hurt the EIOs. All of this is known and controlled by Dogoo, or DG. It’s all over the news since the old lady from Dogoo announced it all, as any alien invasion would have been. When Ogura and Asao are in the hospital, Asao even hints at Pacific Rim. So there’s no way my earlier comparison is coincidental. Hopefully, Nobunagun will pull out a sword when she runs out of bullets one of these episodes.
The hardest decision is still up in the air, though. Does Ogura go and fight with Dogoo? Of course, she’s going to. But you can see her struggle. She finally mad a friend and she has to leave now. She killed 202 of the monsters (she even says kaiju! But that IS Japanese for monster…), but when it mattered to Ogura, she couldn’t do anything and its hurting her inside. But after talking with Asao, she knows what the right thing to do is. And even though we knew it was coming, the show lets us go through the journey naturally instead of having her jump right in.
In Summary:
Know this: Nobunagun is nothing to write home about. There’s nothing spectacular about it and a lot of the tropes and stories they’re doing have been done before and probably done better. But Nobunagun is incredibly fun and the visuals of fighting against the EIOs are incredible. Surprisingly, too, characterization is really good and rather natural. It never feels forced and we’re allowed to learn about the characters (well, just Ogura right now) as they grow and mature. Spectacularly, there also isn’t an awkward explanation scene where everything about the EIOs and the E-gene are told to us; it’s done through a news program, which allows it to be told while not feeling unnatural. Execution is key in Nobunagun, and it is above average here.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: PS3, 32 in. Olevia 720p TV
