Oda Nobunaga (Kichikuou Rance)

''Note: This article describes Oda Nobunaga from the non-canonical game Kichikuou Rance. The character Oda Nobunaga was heavily rewritten during the production of Sengoku Rance, so he no longer has a single clear counterpart in canon. Major aspects of him were transferred to three canon characters: the Dark Lord Xavier, Oda Nobunaga senior (the warlord who briefly united JAPAN), and Oda Nobunaga junior (the brother of Kouhime). For the canon Oda Nobunaga (both the son and his father), see Oda Nobunaga.''

About
The Oda Nobunaga who appears in Kichikuou Rance is a prominent character for his role as the Emperor of JAPAN, the father of Kouhime and, secretly, one of the Dark Lords.

Nobunaga was originally a human warlord. But just like in canon, the Dark Lord Xavier had been sealed in JAPAN for centuries by the Tenshi Sect. In this continuity, the Dark Lord tempted him into consuming his Demonic Blood Soul. Xavier had intended to take over Nobunaga in order to restore his power (not unlike what happened in Sengoku Rance). Normally, consuming a Blood Soul results in the Dark Lord being reborn after consuming the victim from within. But sometimes, the victim is strong enough to overwhelm the Dark Lord's will. When that happens, the victim absorbs the Dark Lord's essence - and then the victim actually becomes a Dark Lord instead.

Oda Nobunaga turned out to be strong enough...

Having become a Dark Lord, Oda Nobunaga eradicated all opposing JAPANese Lords after a fierce civil war, leaving himself as the only remaining Lord. He declared himself Emperor, though it is unknown if he gathered the 3 sacred treasures (or indeed, if the treasures already existed in the setting when Kichikuou Rance was written).

Nobunaga makes his first appearance in Kichikuou Rance after Leazas, under the leadership of the recently crowned King Rance, conquered all the Free Cities and reached Portugal, the City State adjacent to JAPAN. His trusted subordinate Shibata Katsuie initially wanted to wage war with Leazas, expanding their Empire towards the mainland, but Nobunaga decided to form an alliance with the larger kingdom. Shibata was sent as an emissary to negotiate with King Rance. The player's choice will influence JAPAN's actions: Rance will either accept the alliance or reject it, however, accepting will require handing over Leila Grecni to serve as Nobunaga's concubine, resulting in permanently losing her and serving as her Unhappy Ending. Additionally, Nobunaga will still declare war against Leazas soon afterwards, breaking the agreement. Rejecting the alliance will result in an immediate war against JAPAN.

When at war with Leazas, Nobunaga employs brutal tactics against the invading armies - mostly brutal to his own people. He regular spurs untrained civilians to stand against Leazas' military in hopes of gaining time for his army to regroup. Eventually, after Nagasaki is conquered by Leazas, he will appear as a Commander in the battlefield to defend the capital at Osaka, revealing his true nature as a Dark Lord. Because of his status as a Demon, Dark Lords Meglass and Satella, who had refused to fight for Leazas in wars between humans, will agree to fight for Rance upon discovering Nobunaga's real form. If Nobunaga is successfully able to defend against invasion, that night he will send his two top ninjas Gekkou and Shinobu to assassinate key figures within Leazas. Gekkou will attempt to assassinate several Generals, such as Rick Addison and Cordoba Burn, but will only succeed if they've been deployed in battle and are exhausted as a result. Shinobu will go after Rance's instead and will succeed if Rance fought on the battlefield as well. Eventually, despite his immense power, Nobunaga is killed in the battlefield. JAPAN falls and ends up annexed to Leazas after the war's end.

Despite the many rapes he committed, or that he managed to leave no fewer than 88 women pregnant, he only has one child to survive until birth - Kouhime, the princess of JAPAN. Her relationship with her father is rather complicated. It is uncertain if he has a genuine human love for her, but he has shown signs of paternal responsibility. Kouhime, unlike her father, is an incredibly compassionate and kind woman who is terrified and saddened by her father's cruelty. Nobunaga had a hard time dealing with her, as he was incapable of understanding such feelings.

Personality and Appearance
A Dark Lord with the appearance of a middle-aged man in a kimono and JAPANese armor, Nobunaga's was easily confused with a regular human. He had long brown hair tied into a ponytail and fierce red eyes. Nobunaga was a very fit and muscular man, having spent the majority of his life as a warrior on the battlefield. He had tan skin and often wore a slightly sadistic smile. He was always seen with his loyal pet monkey Toukichirou on his shoulder, who accompanied him even into battle.

His personality exhibited the ruthlessness of a Demon. Nobunaga ruled as a cruel and merciless despot, holding no feelings of empathy towards his subjects. JAPAN's bloody unification served as a time of great enjoyment for him. He is known to keep his enemies' heads on a wall in his private room and regularly drank from their skulls. By human standards, he resembled a sociopath with no compassion. He considered anyone who opposed him to be a fool deserving to be crushed. Nobunaga would sacrifice the lives of his subordinates with no hesitation, believing it to be their duty to give their lives for their lord. He's cared nothing even for civilians, having no reservations sacrificing them to give his armies a slight advantage in war. He disliked foreigners, seeing them all as possible threats that wished to take the country he built through bloodshed. He's also rather lecherous with women, having openly admitted to the sexual abuse of countless women and showed little remorse for it.

Despite all these savage traits, Nobunaga remained a rational leader. He showed a willingness to negotiate and form alliances to empower his forces. He was a smart and charismatic commander that knew how to lead his subordinates with efficiency. While willing to send any subordinate to their death with no second thought, Nobunaga had respect for his soldiers.

Abilities
Nobunaga was an experienced Warlord, having fought countless battles in a long civil war. Over the years he opposed and conquered numerous enemies. His strength and talent for warfare were tremendous, being a formidable warrior and a decisive leader. As a human, he was adorned in heavy armor that few warriors would be able to move in, which granted him a high defense against physical attacks. His wielded a spear in combat with outstanding skill, boasting a Spear Combat Lv2, a rare talent.

Upon becoming a Dark Lord his strength reached new levels, gaining an Invincibility Field that allowed him to fight against entire armies on his own and still come out victorious. After his transformation his Level Cap rose to the absurd limit of 200 and by the events of Kichikuou Rance he'd already achieved a Level as high as 89. He also gained some control over fire and was constantly surrounded by flames on the battlefield. With Nobunaga's new abilities, his already impressive strength had risen to place him as one of the strongest fighter's in the world. He was surpassed only by the world's strongest foes, such as the Four Elite Dark Lords or Rance.

Comparison to canon
Some characters that were first introduced in Kichikuou Rance remained largely the same in their later canon appearances. Characters like Yamamoto Isoroku and Toukichirou are very similar between their canon and Kichikuou Rance versions. But others were rewritten significantly - and Oda Nobunaga is one of the most heavily rewritten characters in the entire Rance series.

In canon, there is the Dark Lord Xavier, the warlord Oda Nobunaga who unified JAPAN (already deceased by the events of Sengoku Rance), and the warlord's son Oda Kazusanosuke (who took his father's name upon succeeding him). The younger Nobunaga becomes possessed by Xavier, and starts terrorizing JAPAN while controlling the younger Nobunaga's body.

But in Kichikuou Rance, the Dark Lord, the conquering warlord, and the villain who terrorizes JAPAN are all the same character. It was only during the production of Sengoku Rance that it was decided that Nobunaga was to become possessed by a Dark Lord instead of actually becoming a Dark Lord himself. Likewise, the script was changed so that the demonic Nobunaga and the warlord who conquered JAPAN were no longer the same person.

The Kichikuou Rance version of Oda Nobunaga is often compared with the canon Oda Nobunaga senior, on the account that both of them are successful warlords, the leader of Oda House, and the father of Kouhime. But even in those aspects, there are significant differences. The Kouhime from Kichikuou Rance is a human-Dark Lord hybrid who sees Ludo-Rathowm in her nightmares, and she was already a fullgrown woman when Rance encountered her. The canon Kouhime is completely different, as she's fully human and (much to Rance's dismay) underage. Most of the KR Kouhime's characteristics and design were in fact reused in the canon Kurohime, who has no relation to Oda House.

Kouhime was also Nobunaga's only child in Kichikuou Rance, as humans and Dark Lords are normally not capable of breeding with eachother. Indeed, she was his only mentioned relative at all. By contrast, the canon Nobunaga had 3 children: Oda Kazusanosuke, Oda Kou, and an unnamed eldest son. During the conflict with the youkai, Nobunaga and his unnamed first son would lose their lives, forcing Kazusanosuke to become the Head of Oda and replace him and inherit his name of Oda Nobunaga in the process.

Another major difference with canon is how and why Nobunaga unified JAPAN. In the canonical events preceding Sengoku Rance, Nobunaga successfully rallied the human forces of JAPAN behind the Oda banner to fight back Machijoten, who led the Youkai against humans in the Great Youkai War. He never interacted with Xavier and thus never took on the demonic traits or viciousness of his non-canonical counterpart.

But in the Kichikuou Rance continuity, there never was a Great Youkai War. Here, Nobunaga desires to unify JAPAN simply because he's an ambitious warlord, and it's implied that he had always been cruel and evil.

These significant differences shouldn't be very surprising, as the storylines about JAPAN were not yet well-developed when Kichikuou Rance was made. In fact, the plot and characterizations were changed significantly even between the unreleased early versions of Rance VII (which was a conventional RPG rather than a strategy game) and the published versions of Sengoku Rance.

Oda Nobunaga is oddly comparable to Pastel Kalar, both because of how much their characters were rewritten in the later canon games, and because of how they were 'split up' into different characters. The human Nobunaga was rewritten into two characters who are father and son, while Pastel's original design and characterization were reused in the canon Pastel's mother, Modern Kalar. Both ended up being reimagined as a pair of separate characters who happen to be parent and child.

Trivia

 * In the canon timeline, much of his design was reused for the Dark Lord Xavier.
 * In the early drafts and concept art of Rance VII, Oda Nobunaga's design and personality were still much closer to his Kichikuou Rance counterpart
 * He's largely based on the real-life Oda Nobunaga, who's often compared to a demon and represented as such in popular culture.
 * His monkey Toukichirou is a reference to the real-life Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was one of Nobunaga's most valuable subordinates and had the nickname "Kozaru" (meaning "little monkey").