Nobunaga the Fool Ep 5: The Reversed Tower

Wow what a crazy episode! For the past few episodes I have been worrying about how the pacing was going to be because I was expecting this fight to happen this soon. The problem here is that I felt this episode could have been better in a lot of ways. Yes there were very good moments, such as how smoothly Mitsuhide had pulled off the assassination bluff plot, but unfortunately the positive elements ended up being overshadowed by the flaws. First of all, Nobunaga’s character design inconstancy is driving me nuts. The minute I think to myself, “Oh good, it looks like they finally figured it out”, it freaking  changes all over again. There aren’t too many animes I remember watching that had this kind of a problem. Sure, there are some with lazy simple character designs like Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta and some others where eyes or bodies are so out of proportion, but they are usually easy to overlook- especially when the plot is good. This matter however with the inconsistency of the character designs is standing out so much, that it actually ruining my experience with the show. It is so distracting, which is a terrible thing because I end up losing track of what’s going on. Maintaining consistency for the character designs is so important because it helps you understand and learn the character’s body language, convey the emotions they are experiencing better. I just hope this problem does not pursue for much longer because I might just decide stop blogging it because of the lack of motivation. And honestly that would suck, a lot, because the plot of the battle between the stars is finally progressing.
Another thing that irked me, is that something had happened to Nobunaga when he saw his father be slayed by Caesar. Something was happening with both his unit and his body. His eyes were glowing, causing tears of blood to stream down his face, whether this is supposed to be considered as symbolism of despair, or it is something that will probably happen again some time in the future, I wish they had made it more clear about that. Only time will tell.
Production woes aside, this episode confirmed my suspicions that Da Vinci’s tarots cards don’t always apply to Nobunaga, but actually to everyone. Today Nobunaga’s card was the Reversed Tower. Right away, instead of following the character’s leads to referring to Nobunaga, I connected the card with Caesar who in the beginning of the episode declared he would attack the Oda Clan to capture Ichihime. Hard to say though whether it’s love at first sight, I have my doubts though- we don’t know enough about Caesar besides the historical aspect (which I will not elaborate on because my history memory is hazy). Caesar of course had the pleasure to be the one to take down Lord Nobuhide, thought strangely enough the man wasn’t actually killed on the spot (I mean, he stabbed through his armour, how the fuck is he still alive to say his last words?). I think the impact would have been stronger if they had  killed him off in one go. Seeing him say his last words to his sons afterwards made me go, “WTF?”. Meanwhile, we have Mitsuhide believe he is the one to blame for Lord Nobuhide’s death. But I really wonder about that. Had he not poisoned Nobunaga to end the assassination plot and set up a situation to redeem himself, I don’t think it anything would have had made a difference. Caesar was bounded to show up, and Nobunaga would have still been fighting Shingen. In short, it was fate for Lord Nobuhide to be killed by Caesar. Of course Mitsuhide doesn’t know that, but it’s definitely going to be eating him up inside. But I have to say, the way they set up that bluff was incredibly smooth. I didn’t even see it coming. It was put together really well, definitely one of the more positive aspects of this episode.
Da Vinci, Da Vinci, Da Vinci... Remember last week how I mentioned about his shady smirk. Well guess what, it popped up again when Caesar showed up. At this point, I can’t trust Da Vinci. We hear about King Arthur this, King Arthur that, but you know what? It’s really Da Vinci who is pulling the strings. He is the one in control and everyone else is just a pawn in his plan. By taking Jeanne to the Eastern Star, he set a series of events into motions.
In the end, Nobunaga was right about Takeda about making his move so soon and being prepared for battle. That will certainly give him a whole lot of credit when others had doubted his abilities to make wise decisions. The men of the war council are now no longer in the position to oppose Nobunaga, even more so when he is now the head of the Oda Clan. However I still expect them to be bitter to him.