Now Nobuna is a typical tsundere. She repeatedly says she doesn’t love Saru, and starts physically attacking him when the prospect of marrying him is so much as mentioned. She abandons her castle to go rescue him. Ugh. I had hoped we would avoid this. But in retrospect, that was wishful thinking. E Minor was right.

Still, I do think this is better than any other Sengoku period “adaptation”. Not that that’s saying much, when the competition is shows like Sengoku Otome and Koihime Musou.

Who are these People?

The suitor is Asai Nagamasa. Historically, he also had a conflict with Nobunaga over Miho province, and they solved it diplomatically though marriage. However, since Nobunaga was male, Nagamasa married Nobunaga’s sister. If you’re worried that this meant a bit of peace in the Sengoku era, don’t be! He ended up going to war with Nobunaga later on despite the marriage.

Next, we proceed to Saitou Dosan, the Viper. He was actually known as the Viper historically (for those keeping track, the character whose place the main character took was also known as the monkey). Nobunaga was pledged to marry his daughter. He was betrayed by his sons due to inheritance questions, and Nobunaga did not come to his aid. After Dosan died, Nobunaga was surrounded by enemies on both sides, with the Imagawa (the clan that invaded at the end of the episode) and Dosan’s traitorous sons.

Fun fact about Dosan’s death from this site:

Nagai Chuzaemon took on Dosan, laid hold of him as he was raising high his assault sword, and locked him in an embrace. Just when Nagai had almost succeeded in taking Yamashiro Dosan alive, Komaki Genta, a ferocious samurai, came running up, mowed down Dosan crosswise at the shins, and took his head as he fell prostrate. Chuzaemon, keen to get some evidence for later, sliced off Dosan’s nose and made off.

Moving on, if a character was turned into a girl, you know it’s going to be an important one. This girl is based on Akechi Mitsuhide, who did serve under the Viper. But he’s most well known for later betraying and killing Oda Nobunaga. No one really knows why he did it, either. So let’s keep an eye out for this. (By the way, I don’t consider this a spoiler since the show’s intended audience would already be fully aware.)

An important thing to note is that the monkey has once again changed history. In the last episode, he prevented Nobuna from killing her brother. In this episode, he saved the Viper’s life. But this change seems to be inducing a rippling cascade of consequences: the Imagawa wouldn’t have invaded without the main character’s actions. We’ll see how far things end up diverging from the original timeline.