This is just a boring episode about Monkey. You don’t really want to watch it.

Episode summary: King Arthur is sending Caesar some giant war armors from the West. Nobunaga and gang decides to intercept the shipment and take one of the war armors for himself. During the mission, Monkey hops into a war armor to do battle with one of the bad guys. Monkey finds himself losing the battle pretty hard, so Nobunaga entrusts the Regalia of wind to his retainer. Monkey then defeats his opponent easily. The end.

Notes:

• You know, it has been a while since I’ve watch an anime where the evildoers just sit around in a circle and scheme. To Nobunaga the Fool‘s credit, at least the Knights of the Round Table aren’t sitting in complete darkness like how this trope is often played out in other shows. Then again, that’s probably because the show’s creators are proud to flaunt off the flamboyant character designs.

• Out of nowhere, we learn that the Oda clan is responsible for the death of Monkey’s imouto. Alright then. Good to know? I hope this doesn’t mean this episode’s going to shine a spotlight on the guy. I really, really don’t care about his character.

• Oh good, more exposition to tell us all about what has changed since last week’s episode. Instead of actually showing us how Nobunaga has managed to strengthen his alliances with neighboring nations, the anime will just flat out tell us that he’s done so. What a missed opportunity, though.

After the first nine episodes of the anime, there’s no reason to think of Nobunaga as nothing more than an overly masculine, bloodthirsty, piggish warrior. Had the anime shown us how he’s managed to strengthen his alliances, however, we’d actually get to see a new side to his character. We’d actually see him prove himself capable of being a leader of a nation and not just a warlord. But nope, let’s not bother to show us any of that!

• Man, these people are idiots: “It would have been simple to crush the Oda while they were lacking. But that would have been too crass, no?” This just shows you that the people responsible for this show don’t understand a single thing about what it takes to be strong. Powerful people never squander their advantages. Powerful people pounce especially when their opponents are weak. How else do you think the strong will claw its way to the top? By playing fair? Puh-lease. That’s naivete at its best. Only the weak concerns itself with shit like honor and avoiding crassness.

• Uesugi’s excuse is that he wants war to be chaotic and violent or some nonsensical shit like that. In other words, he’s not a capable leader whatsoever. He’s just a psycho masquerading as a leader. Then again, Nobunaga’s a psycho too but of a different sort.

• Ichihime: “In a way, a woman cannot truly come between men.” Cool!

• We see Monkey and Nobunaga spar for a bit. The former manages to win a point, so Nobunaga offers him a side dish. This is probably how Nobunaga sees himself:

• Unfortunately, Mitsuhide shows up to deliver the bad news: Caesar’s getting giant war armors from the Star of the West. This is where da Vinci offers us his brilliant insight: “I see. He does not intend to stand idly by while we gather strength.” He’s a true military strategist, guys.

• Everyone decides to prepare themselves for battle. Somehow, this involves a shot of Jeanne tightening her sarashi. Nice camera angle there:

This is relevant to the story, y’see, because…

• Anyway, Nobunaga sends his troops to confront Caesar’s main encampment. What Caesar doesn’t realize, however, is that this was all a trick. The troops’ movements are nothing more than a distraction as our hero infiltrates Takamagahara to (presumably) intercept Caesar’s shipment of giant war armors from the West. B-but trickery? Isn’t such a thing crass! Where’s the honor in this, Nobunaga!

• There’s just one small problem for the good guys: Takamagahara is full of “quantum distortions,” whatever the fuck that means. Well, basically, Nobunaga’s going to have to do this on foot. As such, I’m surprised by the lack of ninjas in this week’s episode. Instead, the characters just wear what they’ve always been wearing. I’m sure their ostentatious outfits won’t be noticeable at all.

• Oh god, this week’s episode is about Monkey. But even the anime realizes that Monkey is too boring as a character to carry an episode all by his lonesome. As a result, he’ll pause in the middle of a serious infiltration mission in order to tell Jeanne all about his former imouto and how he wishes she could munch on his rice balls, if you know what i mean…

Yawn.

• In The Pilot’s Love Song, the starving peasants overthrew the monarchy. In Nobunaga the Fool, Monkey’s poor imouto died so he decided to… enlist in the Oda army?

• Monkey: “It’s because Nobu’s strong. The strongest warlord should rule.” Yeah, that has never ended badly before. Basically, he thinks that if he helps Nobunaga conquer the universe, cute imoutos like his sister won’t have to starve to death. Ahahaha, I don’t even know what to say to that. But it’s okay, guys. If Nobunaga ever shows any weakness, Monkey won’t hesitate to kill him. Uh-huh. Sure he will.

• Meanwhile, as Monkey and Jeanne are busy talking about the former’s imouto, which somehow became a story about Nobunaga instead, one of the enemy’s soldiers spots them and tries to stab Monkey in the back. Naturally, Monkey kills the guy without even having to turn around. But still, this just shows how stupidly careless the characters are being. I’m on a serious mission? Let’s take a break to talk about my imouto. Monkey’s just lucky that the bad guys are always dumber than the good guys in the long run. So instead of calling for backup, sounding an alarm, or just doing anything remotely pragmatic, the dude tries to assassinate Monkey and fails horribly.

• In yet another stunning display of common sense, Monkey asks Jeanne to keep what he’s told her a secret. Y’know, the part about how he’ll kill Nobunaga if Nobunaga shows any weakness.

• Great placement of Nobunaga’s weapon:

• So anyway, da Vinci created a “quantum condenser,” which will then allow our heroes to pilot their war armors in Takamagahara. At this point, I don’t even care about the details anymore.

• But somehow, Caesar saw all of this coming, so one of the giant war armors he received from the Star of the West comes pre-equipped with a pilot. I guess the guy was just sitting inside one of those containers for God knows how long just in the very specific case that Nobunaga had somehow concocted a master plan to attack Takamagahara.

• Not to be deterred, Monkey finds another of Caesar’s war armors and rides it into battle. Man, shouldn’t these vehicles of mass destruction require some sort of key or a keypad in order to operate them? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like that would be a useful thing to include in the design.

• But as expected, Monkey gets his ass kicked, so Nobunaga has to save the day once again. We then get treated to stilted, unnatural lines like, “What? Did he just fire an arrow precisely between the Giant War Armor’s two armor plates?” We literally just saw that. We literally just saw the arrow fly between the two armor plates. The show thinks its viewers are too dumb, however, to put two and two together, so the bad guy has to painstakingly explain to us what we literally just saw with our very own eyes. That’s why these shows never follow the age-old adage of “Show, not tell.” The audience’s just too dumb to believe what they see!

• Anyway, Nobunaga tells Monkey to not die, because dying will not help Monkey, uh, kill him.

Monkey is shocked that Nobunaga had him figured out all along. As for the bad guy, he can’t believe what’s unfolding before his very eyes:

Dude, please… can’t you see that we’re trying to have a conversation over here?

• And knowing that Monkey wants to kill him, Nobunaga entrusts his buddy with the Regalia of wind. Y’know, so that Monkey will have the power to one day, uh, kill him…

• Monkey then kicks the bad guy’s ass. Ho-hum.