Nobunaga the Fool Ep. 12: Tea party time

Are you ready for a furious battle of wits?! Well, then you’ve come to the wrong place.

• Even though Caesar just pretty much won this war after last week’s episode, he agrees to Nobunaga’s invitation to a tea party. Okay then. There must be something more to this tea party that’s just not coming across through the translation.

• Sorry but if you’re going to make a comparison to hell, I think you can do better than this:

• Nobunaga quotes his late father as he says, “Know your men well, or you will never win, even in 100 battles. … Wars are not waged by myself alone….” Sure sounds like he’s blaming his subjects for this lost war.

• The characters speculate that Caesar didn’t finish Nobunaga off because the former is looking for a great warrior that can wield all five Regalias. And gosh, who else but Nobunaga would qualify for such a prestigious position?

• Ichihime shows up with yet another bowl. These bowls are serious fucking business, man.

• Elsewhere, Caesar talks to himself and confirms the very fact that he seeks an ally in Nobunaga. I’m not sure why he thinks he can get such a prideful man to submit to him, but hey, I guess you gotta dream big! In any case, he’s doing all of this in the hopes that he can defeat Alexander.

• Jeanne’s development has been a bit weird. She’s moping because her failure ended up costing a lot of people their lives. Sure, I get that. What I don’t get is why anyone ever thought she could do more than what she did? I mean, she was never a brought up as a warrior to begin with. Secondly, she had just gotten both her Regalia and her War Armor just recently. Finally, it’s not like she’s had a lot of time to train and prepare herself for battle anyway. We never really see Nobunaga and Monkey train, but you can just sort of assume that those two have seen their fair shares of battles for years now. As for Jeanne, well… So again, why anybody ever thought she would succeed against a battle-tested warlord even with Nobunaga’s help is beyond me.

• Oh boy! Nobunaga returns to his waterfall! And who should he find there? Ichihime. So unfortunately, no manly screams this time. Just manly memories of shounen Nobunaga standing beneath said waterfall.

• Ichihime tells her brother that she’ll do everything in her power to protect her people. Nobunaga counters that this should be his responsibility. So if he’s right, what exactly would Ichihime’s responsibility be anyway? What does she even do all day? You can assume that everyone else in the episode is preparing themselves for war. What comes to mind when you think of Ichihime and her daily activities? I’m just drawing a blank, and that doesn’t speak well of her character.

• She then adds, “No matter what, I will follow you from now on.” As opposed to what? Seriously now, it’s not like she’s ever done anything contrary to her brother’s wishes.

• And again, Nobunaga tells his sister to stop trying to take an active role in the story: “Like I said, you don’t have to think that way. You should be more carefree about life.” Yeah, c’mon… our land has been devastated by war, our people have died, and I may possibly die at this tea party thing, but my imouto should always be carefree! Now go back to finding cute little bowls for this tea party…

• The day of the infamous tea party finally arrives and everyone’s naturally on edge. On some tree branch, one of the weirdo twins says, “Caesar’s being obedient, like a borrowed cat.” What exactly does that even mean?

• Our characters then talk about the beauty of a tea party. Then they talk about what the cute bowl symbolizes. Then Nobunaga sits all informally because he’s a non-conformist. Then they talk about whether or not the West has tea parties. Yawn.

• So according to Caesar, King Arthur is the Savior-King of the two worlds. He intends to use the Regalias to manifest the Holy Grail. In doing so, he’ll save the two worlds from… some unknown threat. But don’t you worry, if Arthur fails, the world will end!

• If Caesar wanted Nobunaga to be his ally so bad, why didn’t he just send the guy a message or something instead of beating him into submission? I mean, you could always beat the guy into submission after he rejects your proposal.

• Wow, these are some ugly lions:

• Caesar asserts that Nobunaga is incapable of saving this world, which really boils Jeanne’s grits. ‘Cause her vision, man, her vision. Still, Nobunaga refuses to hand over his Regalia. He then reasons that now isn’t the time for the two of them to fight because should either die, there’ll just be one less Regalia-weilder in the world. No, it would be much better if our Fool could meet Arthur face-to-face and hash out their differences instead. Caesar reluctantly agrees, and he even offers to protect Nobunaga’s land… in exchange for Ichihime. Oh boy, let’s see if another pure maiden in a Japanese story gives herself up for her country!

What a shocker. Ichihime swears she’ll end Caesar’s life if he stabs her brother in the back. She looks all serious and shit, but as someone who spends all of her days singing and picking out bowls, I’m not exactly sure how she hopes to deliver on that threat. Maybe she’ll smash his head in with a bowl…

• Meanwhile, Mitsuhide collapses to the ground probably from a broken heart or something. But a girl and her brother’s murderer…

…c’mon, it was just never meant to be.

• I don’t like this show, but I still think I prefer these episodes over the ones with the generic war scenes. By the way, how long is this series going to be anyway? I did not expect to blog this for more than a single season…