Oda Nobuna no Yabou – 02

The ambition of The Ambition of Oda Nobuna continues to to be pretty modest, but that’s working out fairly well so far.

I’m still very much on the fence about whether I can find enough to say about this show to blog it, but I enjoyed the second ep just about as much as the first – maybe a touch more, truth be told, as it ventured into slightly darker and more interesting territory plot-wise.  Most of that involved the appearance of Nobuna’s younger brother Nobukatsu (Katou Emiri), a shota amongst the lolis.  Like the real Oda’s younger brother he’s rebellious, and Sagara manages to cross him by defending Nobuna against his petulant verbal attacks and giving him a little love tap on the head that turns into a major diplomatic brouhaha.

There’s nothing special about the follow-up story of Sagara needing to raise 80,000 koku worth of rice to save his head, but it benefits from being told quite competently, as well as very solid animation.  The most interesting element of the story is the notion that by changing events, Sagara is helping to create an Oda quite different from the historical one, as well as the general dilemma of his advanced knowledge of historical events.  One suspects that his knowledge will prove less and less valuable as the Butterfly Effect intensifies, but that in itself could prove interesting, and there was genuine tension at the moment it appeared Nobuna really might kill little Nobukatsu.  A lot of liberties are already being taken with the notion that it was in killing his brother that Nobunaga started the path to monstrosity, but given the way other recent anime have mangled the Sengoku era I can certainly live with what’s happening here.