Oh my god.
I must tell you that
Sengoku Basara is probably the new season's anime I'm enjoying watching more, but its random historical mess is hurting my brain at every new episode.
I MEAN, SERIOUSLY.
I know that Nobunaga was some kind of cruel fellow, famous in fiction for being a Japanese version of Satan (he was really nicknamed "Maoh" ["Devil King"] and he liked it!), but there should be a limit to devasting a character's essence like this.
Seriously, I feel like I'm watching
Ninja Turtles, sometimes D:
So I decided to offer you this humble post concerning the real historical events portrayed in the series.
Yukimura and Masamune
Yukimura and Masamune were both born in 1567, meaning that during the events of Sengoku Basara they were still
two little kids (around three years old).
It's very unlikely that they met Nobunaga during the battle of Okehazama as it is that they showed around during the other battles shown in the series.
Anyway, Date was famous for being someone who randomly jumped into other clan's battles to attack both fronts: when in the anime, it's shown that he took any chance to get in a "brawl" (he did it against Iwamoto, Hojo and in the last aired episode is about to do it against Oda), that was probably pretty accurate for his characterization.
Yukimura's father was a Takeda retainer, and after his dad's death, Yukimura kept servicing Takeda.
When Takeda died in
1573 he kept serving under his son, and when the Oda-Tokugawa alliance completely destroyed the Takeda clan, he initially surrended to the Oda.
After Oda's death (
1582), he jumped around the Uesugi and Hojo clans, and eventually joined Toyotomi (Oda's successor).
Also Date joined Toyotomi, but he wasn't as faithful as Yukimura: after Toyotomi's death (
1598) he joined Tokugawa (looks like Kojuro suggested him to do so), being loyal to him til the end.
Okehazama Battle
Despite his weird appearance and his love for temari game, Yoshimoto was
one badass warrior.
His army was considered one of the strongest, together with Takeda's, and his clan was all kind of powerful.
When Nobunaga decided to attack the Iwamoto clan (
1560), he was discouraged by ALL of his generals, from Katsuie to Hidesada, considering it as a suicide.
At the time, Tokugawa (in this period his clan name was still Matsudaira) was held hostage of the Iwamoto clan; Nobunaga hoped for him to rebel against Yoshimoto and join forces against him but he actually didn't (Tokugawa considered Yoshimoto some kind of fatherly figure), crashing Nobunaga's hope of getting a new ally against the fearful Iwamoto clan.
Nobunaga went to pray to a temple and then performed his
Atsumori dance, as to say that he was somehow ready to perish.
A surprise attack, a favourable place and a terrifying storm helped Nobunaga's attack, who managed to destroy Imagawa's troops and led to his enemy's defeat.
After Yoshimoto's death, Tokugawa joined hands with Nobunaga, finally becoming his everlasting ally.
BTW, Yoshimoto died on the battlefield while fighting against two Oda's samurai who attacked him together.
Toshiie and Keiji Maeda
Toshiie was Nobunaga's childhood friend/page(lover, too!)/general, faithful to him even after his death.
Keiji was Toshiie's nephew (actually, he was adopted into the clan by Toshiie's older brother, Toshihisa), and served under Nobunaga too.
After Nobunaga designed Toshiie as the head of the Maeda clan, Keiji started to hold a grudge against his uncle and Nobunaga and deserted the clan; during his trips, he met and befriended Naoe Kanetsugu (if you watched
Mirage of Blaze you should be familiar with him XD), and decided to join the Uesugi faction.
Both Toshiie and Keiji are portrayed wearing stravagant clothes, faithful to their delinquential youth: this style of appareal and attitude was called
Kabukimono ("Kabuki People"), and it's specular to modern "yankees" and school delinquents.
Naturally, also Nobunaga himself was one.
Matsu was Toshiie's legendary wife: she was some badass woman, an expert martial artist and bore lots of children to her beloved hubbie ♥
In the series is hinted about Toshiie's tubercolosis: he'll die very young because of it, unable to protect his best friend (Toyotomi)'s son as he swore he'd do.
--Naturally in the series it's assumed that Toshiie got sick because of his loyalty to Nobunaga >_>;
Nagamasa and Oichi
Nobunaga didn't like many people (actually, it looked like he liked Toyotomi and Ranmaru only), but Nagamasa was one of them: proof was that he gave him his beloved little sister as wife (
1564), and the two lived as a happy family until the mess in
1573.
When Oda attacked the Asakura clan, a long-time ally of the Azai's, Nagamasa decided to join forces with them, actually betraying his alliance with Oda and attacking his army from the rear.
Oda was ALL KIND OF PISSED because of it, since he considered Nagamasa as his own brother (it's said that the feeling was mutual, and Nagamasa decided to betray Nobunaga only because his relatives [see father and brothers] wanted him to keep the Asakura-Azai alliance, but there are various interpretations on this matter, included the fear that Oda would attack the Azai after the Asakura).
Nobunaga had a pretty hard time during this battle, mostly because he was worried about OIchi and mostly because of some monks warriors (the anti-Oda alliance) joining the Asakura forces against him, and managed to survive just because of Tokugawa's help.
Once the defeat was inevitable, Nagamasa told his wife to return to Oda, so he would have spared her life, but she refused, preferring to die with him.
Oda was getting impantient and so were his troopers: Toyotomi went alone to the castle, and managed to get Oichi and her four daughters out of there safely before the crash of Azai's clan.
After this accident, Oichi would kept on hating her brother, holding a grudge about it FOR EVER.
She eventually remarried with Katsuie, one of Oda's favourite generals, and after Nobunaga's death and Katsuie's lost in the succession war, she killed herself together with her husband.
Ironically, also this time Toyotomi wanted to save the woman and her daughters, but managed to save the little girls only. He would lately marry one of them, Yodo, who'll give birth to Hideyori, Toyotomi's only son and Nobunaga's grandson.
--So, just in case you're wondering, all that crap showed in this episode about Nobunaga taking Oichi as an hostage to force Nagamasa attacking the Asakura was BULLSHIT.
And we wanna talk about that sort of throne surrounded by human skulls?! SAFHVGH-- Through it's true that Nobunaga was used to seat on such a Western chair :3![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
