Oda Nobunaga

[Son Goku the monkeyking]

Alright yesterday I baught onimusha 3 from gamestop for a bargain of $13.00 . When I started playing it i noticed that the main enemy is nobunaga I have heard alot about this nobunaga guy, like in games like samuri warlords, and in many historicaly based anime . Who is this guy and was he even a real person.

 

PEACE

[Mr. Mike]

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was the first individual to attempt to unify Japan at the end of the Warring States period; his ultimate goal, though he never realized it, was to bring all of Japan "under a single sword" (tenka-fubu ). Like so many others in the history of Japan, he rose from an obscure family through ruthless ambition to become one of the most powerful men in Japan. His rise to power was slow and deliberate and his use of power unforgiving. The most significant step he took in unifying the country was the destruction of the Buddhist monastery of Mt. Hiei. All throughout the medieval period in Japan, from the Heike war onwards, the monks of Mt. Hiei had played a significant role in both the political and military course of Japan. Seeing Mt. Hiei as a threat to future stability, he destroyed the monastery and hunted down every single Hiei monk and slaughtered them, regardless of their age or innocence.

 

Perhaps one of Oda's most significant contributions to Japanese history, outside of laying the groundwork for the future unification of the country, was his eager embrace of Westerners. Perhaps out of his dislike of esoteric Buddhism, he was fascinated by Christianity and welcomed Jesuit missionaries. As a result, he's the first Japanese leader to appear in Western histories. He also, very shrewdly, embraced Western technology—firearms, in particular. Firearms had been imported into Japan since the late fifteenth century; although these weapons were primarily firelocks and inherently unstable (you can't use a firelock in the rain or snow, for instance, and they have a disturbing tendency to blow up in your face), Oda Nobunaga was the first Japanese to figure out both offensive and defensive tactics with the new weapons. Besides retraining his armies for new tactics, he also built massive stone forts that would resist the new firearms. Finally, he was the first Japanese leader to employ iron-cladding on his warships, which made them virtually unbeatable.

 

Oda never succeeded in unifying the country; just as he was on the verge of success, he was assassinated by two of his generals at the age of forty-eight. Although he had eliminated the wild card of the Mt. Hiei monks, there remained much to do. The hardest task would be to restructure the country to guarantee a lasting peace among the warring feudatories. That task largely fell to the hands of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the "Wealth of the Country."

[Shorin Ryuu]

That's a good history lesson. The only thing I would add is that in much of Japanese drama/movies/anime/video games/novels/manga, Oda Nobunaga is usually portrayed as a villian or even a monster or demon because of his cruelty. Therefore you see him a lot in these kinds of roles.

[Skeptic 2004]

If you have the time and inclination, I would also suggest reading Eiji Yoshikawa's epic Taiko. At a tidy 926 pages it should make for quick reading . While Taiko actually mainly deals with the rise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Nobunaga's right hand man, and later, the leader of the Western Armies after Nobunaga's assassination at Hennoji Temple), a huge chunk of the book deals with Oda Nobunaga and actually gives an interesting characterization of Nobnuaga that differs from the typical Japanese lore (at least all the stuff I've seen) that portrays him as an outright evil man (largely due to his cruelty in real life and largely dealing with burning the temple on Mt. Hiei...that REALLY ticked off a few people back then). Yoshikawa portrays him as a zealot idealist and calculating politician/general whose public conduct and cruelty were largely measured and deliberate to elicit the responses he wanted (it also sort of paints him as being largely Machiavellian)...think Elizabeth I...only he wasn't a woman, didn't flirt with suitors, and was married among loads of other differences.

 

FYI: "Taiko" was Hideyoshi's childhood name if I remember correctly.

 

Edit: Yoshikawa's Taiko, by the way, is historical fiction. What happens in the book for the most part actually happened, but Yoshikawa took some literary liberty with some of it. Think of it as "based on a true story" and you'll be good to go. And, maybe Elizabeth I isn't the best comparison...hmm....

[Taku-Shimazu]

Good history, although I don't have time to read it all!

 

He was famous for being evil no?