It has an awesome premise—a reconstruction of Oda Nobunaga’s rise to power within a mecha-filled, pseudo-historical setting. Anachronism definitely has the potential to produce beautiful things (e.g. Gintama or Samurai Champloo), and going into this show, I was excited to see how its producers would handle a historical/mecha fusion. Now that I’ve completed it, I’m disappointed to say that it felt more like a disjointed mishmash of genres than a smooth blend.
When I say that NtF was a mishmash of genres, I don’t just mean historical and mecha. It was often fantasy, occasionally supernatural, sometimes shounen, sporadically romance, and towards the end, sci-fi as well. Hence the comparison to a jack of all trades, master of none. NtF essentially gave itself too much to do. It had too many themes to neatly put together and ended up spending time focusing on different subjects without really combining them. There were magical evil imp children, melodramatic love triangles, power-ups with spirit dragons and cyborg limbs (I'm not even kidding), and so on. In the end, it was hard to tell what exactly the series was supposed to be about.
My score is 5.9/10. Read below for the full review + rating breakdown.
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Story = 5/10
Layout:
If you want to enjoy NtF, be ready to suspend your disbelief. The show is a war story takes place on two stars, east and west. The east star is dominated by Japanese warlords from the Sengoku period. The west star is dominated by random famous Europeans plus Chandra Gupta. (If you're a stickler for historical accuracy, you probably won't like this anime.) As you might guess, the allusions and references are all over the place. Here’s a small sample of the references made in NtF: Schrodinger’s cat, Excalibur, and Hercules—and that’s only in one episode.
The topic for each episode is set by tarot cards. At some point in each ep, a new card is revealed (like Hanged Man or Empress), and the card signifies a character or event during that episode. It's generally predictable, but it does make the anime more entertaining. The idea is admittedly clever.
Characters spend a lot of time fighting over regalia, which are mystical pendants that grant physics-defying upgrades to giant war armors (NtF's mechas). When activated, they draw from the power of ley lines and cause extra weapons to immediately materialize. Yeah...just roll with it.
Plot:
There's a prophecy that two kings will be born—a Savior King and a Destroyer King whose destinies are to save and destroy the world, respectively. The higher-ups on the west star believe that Arthur, an enigmatic and seemingly faceless man, is the Savior King. After Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc has premonitions of an east star warrior named Oda Nobunaga, she and Leonardo da Vinci defect to the east star to see if he's the actual Savior King. They join the Oda clan, and Jeanne goes into disguise as a page named Ranmaru. Nobunaga and co. then continue their efforts to unite heaven and earth. Or conquer the world. Whichever sounds better.
The plot isn't too hard to follow, but it's still unnecessarily contrived. Things get especially confusing during the last few episodes.
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Characterization = 3/10
Warning: characters' personalities don't necessarily reflect those of their historical counterparts. (Don't expect Jeanne to be a badass warrior. You will be disappointed.) The names are just there for the sake of making characters look cooler. The east star warlords at least bear some resemblance to the figures on whom they're based, but the west star knights of the round table (which include members like Hannibal Barca and Alexander the Great, and are not to be confused with King Arthur’s other knights of the round table) show little to no evidence of historical context. Caesar says “veni, vidi, vici.” Cool. Hannibal and Charlemagne speak to each other in French. Nifty. That's all you really get, in terms of historical influence. You won't be getting any Fate/Zero sort of background info on the characters, either.
Historical inaccuracy aside (Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc...really? I know she's supposed to be a pseudo-Mori Ranmaru and have ties to the east star, but come on), the characters at least have interesting, distinct personalities. The reason why I'm giving a 3 instead of a 1 or 2 is because the character types aren't any less than what you'd get from your average action anime. A lot of the supporting chars may be one-dimensional, but they're rarely boring.
Moving on, the biggest qualm I have regarding characterization is that the main characters have these little tics and habits, and the show abuses the heck out of them. Mitsuhide flips his hair. Hideyoshi rubs his nose. Nobunaga adjusts his shirt sleeves. I've seen each of these happen at least once per episode. Why do I say they're abused? Habits are supposed to reflect a character's personality, not define it. The habits shown in NtF are extremely overstated and, for the most part, not special. Among other things, the issue with the habits highlights how static the characters are. Their most obvious traits are literally tiny habits.
Quick note about development: the main characters do go through changes in their ambitions and temperaments, but the changes are often sudden and not sufficiently explained.
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Art = 8/10
You can tell a LOT of the animation budget went into the giant war armors, which are the only things that are CG. They look gorgeous, and fight scenes look amazing. Unfortunately, although the art is very good overall, the discrepancy between quality for giant war armors and everything else is pretty noticeable. The CG animation = 10, the rest = 7.
Interesting thing I noticed: in the Owari setting, you see the same looped animation of this dude ringing a bell for every invasion scene. The only explanation is that the guy is secretly immortal and never rests, eats, or gets hurt even when his city is being attacked by laser beams.
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Voice Acting = 9/10
The voice acting is great overall, though a little over-the-top at times. (The “over-the-top” part applies mostly to Hideyoshi. As much as I love Kaji Yuki, I think I've heard him make enough monkey noises to last a lifetime.)
Additional props to Miyano Mamoru, Sugita Tomokazu, and Nakamura Yuichi for pulling off Nobunaga, da Vinci, and Caesar so well.
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Music 6/10
The BGM is a mix of traditional and orchestral music. It fits the series well, but isn't exceptionally good. The most memorable tracks are the ones played during the more intense scenes; they're one of the things I like most about NtF.
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Story (25%) = 50
Characterization (25%) = 30
Art (20%) = 80
Voice Acting (15%) = 90
Music (15%) = 60
Total = 59/100 = 5.9/10 —> 6
Thanks for reading!
