Nobunaga the Fool Ep. 11: Perfunctory war scenes

Eh, this episode is not particularly interesting to me either.

Episode summary: Even though Nobunaga now has three war armors at his disposal, Caesar is just ripping through his territories with ease. Eventually, Caesar and his army has Owari surrounded. Hoping to win it all in one final battle, Nobunaga and company hatch a plan to take down Caesar once and for all. But on the brink of defeat, a dragon(?) comes out of nowhere and lends its strength to Caesar. Caesar is thus able to turn the tides of battle, leaving our heroes broken and defeated. But soon, even Caesar starts to lose control of his newfound powers, and this results in the death of Nobunaga’s people. Still, Caesar doesn’t finish Nobunaga and Jeanne off because… because Jeanne is a woman.

Notes:

• Uh oh:

Caesar: “I am leaving my territory in your care, Brutus.”
Brutus: “My liege. Are you certain you do not need me by your side?”
Caesar: “You are the only one I can trust.”

All we need now are Marc Anthony and Cleopatra romping around like idiots. But could you imagine what this anime’s portrayal of Cleopatra would be like? Yeesh, better yet, let’s just not touch the subject.

• Some more dry exposition at the start of the episode. To make it even better, it’s done over a scrolling map, ’cause maps are always fun to look at.

• Nobunaga speculates that Caesar will strike soon because Caesar wouldn’t want Oda to gain invaluable experience should this war drag on. It’s not even a particularly astute observation; it sounds like something you might find out of Sun Tzu’s Art of Common Sense War. But despite this, everyone around Nobunaga gasps as though our hero’s a military genius. As they say, in the land of the blind…

• Nobunaga stutters as he tries to pronounce the word ‘overheat.’ Is there no Japanese equivalent? I’m pretty sure there is, so I have no clue why da Vinci would use a foreign word instead. Not only that, he used an English word…

• Well, that was quick: the two disloyal subjects in Nobunaga’s War Council have died in battle as Caesar and his forces rampage across Oda territory. Mitsuhide even says, “They died with honor as warriors.” Yes, they died with honor despite the fact that they were cowards and constantly schemed against Nobunaga. But hey, as long as you die in a manly way on the battlefield, all crimes are apparently forgiven.

• Eventually, Caesar and his army begin to lay siege upon Owari itself. But hey, three Regalia-enhanced war armors are equivalent to 3,000 regular war armors, right? So after all this standing around and staring at colorful maps, Nobunaga’s complex strategy is to just charge into battle with Ranmaru and Monkey behind him.

• Have we ever discussed how Jeanne has gone from living in some quaint village on the Star of the West to suddenly putting her life on the line in order to protect a foreign country to which she has no ethnic, emotional, or familial ties to? No? Oh well, I’m sure it’s no big deal. She is the Japanese Foreign Legion!

• More military planning, more maps, blah blah blah… obviously, charging headfirst into battle isn’t working. As da Vinci had predicted, the war armors are overheating. So what to do, what to do…?

• Mitsuhide’s plan is to basically draw out Caesar’s Spear of Light since, like every powerful attack ever, he can’t use the skill often. With Jeanne’s invulnerability shield, Nobunaga will be safe, and both he and Monkey can thus launch a counterattack. Somehow, the plan works because Caesar has completely forgotten about the fact that Jeanne exists. I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t been defeated before by her shielding capabilities, so I’m not even sure why a military genius like himself would fall to such a simple strategy.

• But naturally, you haven’t seen Caesar’s final form yet! So like every villain ever, Caesar saves himself from the brink of defeat by transforming his mecha in the middle of a battle. Basically, he gets a bigger gun, and instead of shooting out white beams, he now shoots out purplish-black beams. Truly innovative. Unfortunately, Caesar’s classic quote, “Veni, vidi, vici,” doesn’t sound very cool in a Japanese accent.

• Jeanne tries to shield Caesar’s newest attack, but it causes her mind to, uh, break? It then becomes Nobunaga’s turn to shield her by using is own body instead. Oh ho ho, how the tables have turned. But why didn’t his war armor just blow up or something if it was such a powerful attack?

• Dead children and skeletons everywhere.

• Snicker:

• With victory apparently ensured, Caesar demands that Nobunaga submits to him. In response, the latter invites Caesar to a tea party. And that’s it. The episode is over. It looks like in next week’s episode, Nobunaga will make his manly return to the waterfall, but he’ll be joined by a second party. Oh boy!

• Anyway, as this episode was mostly action and light on the dialogue, I didn’t really have much to say. The battle scenes were just standard mecha fare. As such, nothing particularly notable.