The premise of having a high-school kid *somehow* travel back in time to the Sengoku era as a replacement for Toyotomi Hideyoshi (a.k.a. Kinoshita Tōkichirō) and then having all the famous Samurai lords be cute girls instead makes it seem like nothing more than yet another silly romantic comedy in an original setting. However, if you’re looking for some sort of stereotypical funny ecchi harem you’re not going to find it here, rather this anime sincerely surprised me with how little fan service it had, and bar the initial premise it turned out to be an extremely good series, even from a purely objective standpoint.
Now obviously there is a fair amount of comedy and non-serious elements in it as well, but that is essentially only due to the twist made with the main characters identities; other than that it follows the actual story of Oda Nobunaga (in this case Nobuna as it’s a pretty blonde girl instead) and his… uhh her* dream of unifying Japan into a peaceful country, which of course is not something that can be done without military conquest.
I should probably also mention that while it is by no means completely necessary, I would highly recommend that you know at least a little bit about the story of the actual historical events of the Sengoku period if you are going to watch this series, as that is in the end what the entire anime is based on, and all the characters, clans, famous battles and events are essentially all ones that existed/happened in reality. You will be able to relate to the characters especially a lot more if you’re at least somewhat familiar with their actual historical counterparts, and there are a LOT of names to keep track of if you’re completely in the dark heading into this. Also even though there are a few short seconds every once in a while showing a map of who and what is where, it would still be very helpful to be familiar with at least the locations of the various major houses, as well as the names of their respective countries and lords.
All that being said though, that doesn’t mean you will literally know everything that’s going to happen in the anime in case you are very familiar with the actual story, because our resident protagonist and time traveler also happens to be an expert on the Sengoku era, and due to being able to foresee almost every event since he already knows what is going to happen (because of coming from the future from the others’ perspective), not everything goes exactly as history would tell it since his words and knowledge slowly change events compared to the ‘past’ he knew from his own time. Thus, despite being based on a real story (albeit with some obvious twists in the premise itself), it still manages to be quite unpredictable every so often.
Personally I happened to marathon this series literally the same day that I had earlier finished reading Sengoku Rance which probably increased the enjoyment value quite a lot as well, but that is definitely not a stunt I think anyone is obliged to replicate (although if you feel like it and have the time, be my guest).
Overall this isn’t an anime you should watch if you want a heavily action-filled samurai story, nor should you watch it if you’re looking solely for laughs and fuzzy feelings, but still to a certain extent, Oda Nobuna no Yabou manages to do both those things at once, which I found kind of impressive given the premise and the fact that it’s only a 1-cour series. Speaking of which though, that is probably the only real complaint I have about the anime as a whole, namely:
Where the hell is season 2??
