History Main / DemonKingNobunaga

A subtrope of DevilComplex, HistoricalDomainSuperperson and HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, WeDidntStartTheFuhrer and {{Dracula}} (as Vlad Tepes); another East Asian example is [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Cao Cao]]'s transformation from his historical persona to stock CardCarryingVillain in UsefulNotes/PekingOpera (though not to an extent of being a demon).

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A subtrope of DevilComplex and HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, WeDidntStartTheFuhrer and {{Dracula}} (as Vlad Tepes); another East Asian example is [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Cao Cao]]'s transformation from his historical persona to stock CardCarryingVillain in UsefulNotes/PekingOpera (though not to an extent of being a demon).

* ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'' depicts Nobunaga as a [[AntiHero deeply flawed but ultimately sympathetic]] person who has quite understandably earned the hatred of multiple characters for his ruthless killing of countless people but also has just as understandably earned the loyalty and admiration of multiple other characters with his charisma, ToughLove for his men, and genuinely well-intentioned ambition to create a world in which no one has to suffer from poverty or class-based discrimination. He has no supernatural powers in this game, but is given the "Devil King of the Sixth Heaven" moniker by Kennyo, a monk who witnessed his killing of other monks and has vowed to kill him in revenge but is portrayed as being NotSoDifferent from him.

* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors''. Nobunaga most certainly looks the part of a black-armored EvilOverlord wielding a blade shrounded in darkness, but is portrayed as a ruthless WellIntentionedExtremist who seeks to drag Japan kicking and screaming into an era of peace. He was more overtly brutal and villainous in the first game, with later installments touching upon more of his noble qualities. It's outright subverted in the ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi'' series, where he's consistently on the side of the heroes fighting against {{Orochi}}; that is, until ''4'', where he leads a war of conquest in the new world [[spoiler:as a SecretTestOfCharacter to prepare them for the eventual battle against the Greek and Norse gods.]]

* Downplayed with Nobunaga in ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors''. He most certainly looks the part of a black-armored EvilOverlord wielding a blade shrounded in darkness, but is portrayed as a ruthless WellIntentionedExtremist who seeks to drag Japan kicking and screaming into an era of peace. He was more overtly brutal and villainous in the first game, with later installments touching upon more of his noble qualities. It's outright subverted in the ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi'' series, where he's consistently on the side of the heroes fighting against {{Orochi}}; that is, until ''4'', where he leads a war of conquest in the new world [[spoiler:as a SecretTestOfCharacter to prepare them for the eventual battle against the Greek and Norse gods.]]

* Downplayed with Nobunaga in VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors. He most certainly looks the part of a black-armored EvilOverlord wielding a blade shrounded in darkness, but is portrayed as a ruthless WellIntentionedExtremist who seeks to drag Japan kicking and screaming into an era of peace. He was more overtly brutal and villainous in the first game, with later installments touching upon more of his noble qualities. It's outright subverted in the ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi'' series, where he's consistently on the side of the heroes fighting against {{Orochi}}; that is, until ''4'', where he leads a war of conquest in the new world [[spoiler:as a SecretTestOfCharacter to prepare them for the eventual battle against the Greek and Norse gods.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{MGCM}}'': In "NEAT" limited-time event, stage boss Demon King of Sixth Heaven Oda Nobunaga from AlternateUniverse, who is GenderFlipped and has similar hairstyle with Eliza, seems to be a ruthless samurai warlord [[FishOutOfTemporalWater who gets stranded in the modern main universe]]. It's revealed that she has supernatural powers in her OneWingedAngel form. On another note, ''MGCM'' has its own dress series "Dairoku Tenmaoh/Demon King of Sixth Heaven" for Eliza and Seira, which resembles the female expy of Oda Nobunaga, complete with an {{oni}} face shaped shoulder armor plate and firearms (reference to Oda Nobunaga's revolutionizing the ways Japanese armies used firearms).

* Downplayed with Nobunaga in VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors. He plays the Evil Overlord angle to the hilt and wields a blade shrouded in darkness, but he's big on PragmaticVillainy, and is really no more exaggerated than any of the other playable characters in the series. The only time he's closest to this trope is in the first installment where he's decidedly more brutal and embracing his 'Demon King' persona, and the installment where his struggles against the Ikko-Ikki sect got a big highlight. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Koei rarely touched on that afterwards.]] Voiced by [[Creator/JurotaKosugi Juurouta Kosugi]] here. Outright subverted in the ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi'' series, where he's consistently on the side of the heroes fighting against {{Orochi}}. In the 4th game, on the other hand, he likes to live up to his Demon King epithet by suddenly subjugating areas by force in the new world and being antagonistic to the heroes [[spoiler:[[SecretTestOfCharacter because he's just testing them for the eventual battle against the Greek and Norse Gods]], since he was chosen by the Eastern Mystics to wield the bracelet imbued with the power of Japan's creation God Izanagi.]]

* Hilariously inverted in ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'''s movie, where Nobunaga was a big [[{{Manchild}} crybaby and pushover]]. He was so incompetent that Geiz Myokoin, the Secondary Rider of the series had to do the things that historically earned Nobunaga this trope.

* Hilariously inverted in ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'''s movie, where Nobunaga was a big [[{{Manchild}} crybaby and pushover]]. He was so incompetent that [[SecondRider Geiz Myokoin]] had to do the things that historically earned Nobunaga this trope.

%%* ''VideoGame/{{MGCM}}'': Downplayed. In "NEAT" limited-time event, Oda Nobunaga from AlternateUniverse is GenderFlipped and has similar hairstyle with Eliza. Nobunaga is more like an ambiguously good/WellIntentionedExtremist samurai warlord who gets stranded in the main universe. ''MGCM'' has its own dress series "Dairoku Tenmaoh/Demon King of Sixth Heaven" for Eliza and Seira, which resembles the female expy of Oda Nobunaga, complete with an {{oni}} face shaped shoulder armor plate and firearms (reference to Oda Nobunaga's revolutionizing the ways Japanese armies used firearms).

* ''VideoGame/{{MGCM}}'': Downplayed. In "NEAT" limited-time event, Oda Nobunaga from AlternateUniverse is GenderFlipped and has similar hairstyle with Eliza. Nobunaga is more like an ambiguously good/WellIntentionedExtremist samurai warlord who gets stranded in the main universe. ''MGCM'' has its own dress series "Dairoku Tenmaoh/Demon King of Sixth Heaven" for Eliza and Seira, which resembles the female expy of Oda Nobunaga, complete with an {{oni}} face shaped shoulder armor plate and firearms (reference to Oda Nobunaga's revolutionizing the ways Japanese armies used firearms).

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{MGCM}}''. Although there's no actual Oda Nobunaga in the game, ''MGCM'' has its own dress series "Dairoku Tenmaoh/Demon King of Sixth Heaven" for Eliza and Seira, which resembles the female expy of Oda Nobunaga, complete with an {{oni}} face shaped shoulder armor plate and firearms (reference to Oda Nobunaga's revolutionizing the ways Japanese armies used firearms).

* In Sengoku Rance the actual Nobunaga is a jovial, joking (though sickly) man not dissimilar to the "fool" persona people knew him for in his youth. Then he gets possessed by the Dark Lord Xavier and becomes the monster he's usually protrayed as. By the end there's nothing left of his original personality and he's just another demon to kill.

According to the Jesuit Father [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luís_Fróis Luís Fróis,]] UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga called himself "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Demon King of the Sixth Heaven]]" (''dairokuten-maō''), a title properly belonging to Māra, the Buddhist counterpart of {{Satan}} (though portrayed in mythology as a NobleDemon). While Nobunaga was most likely being sarcastic, and in any case he's not the only ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku Jidai whose ruthlessness has inspired a HistoricalVillainUpgrade, many popular depictions of Nobunaga literally demonize him, or at least give him supernatural powers.

* While Oda Nobunaga himself does not appear in Anime/BatmanNinja, ComicBook/TheJoker (time-displaced to UsefulNotes/SengokuPeriod Japan, along with a few other villains and heroes) takes the title ''Dairokuten-maō'' for himself.

* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/{{Nioh}}'': In this game, he really did mass-murder a great many men, women and children at Mt. Hiei, but treats his crimes as another facet of a rather complicated man, one who was driven by ambition and who also appreciated life and death to the fullest. He demonstrates this by [[spoiler:flipping the bird to the necromancer who brought him back, then giving the protagonist his pet phoenix before leaving to the afterlife, even though he was given the demonic power to rule the world uncontested]]. Most of Nobunaga's former retainers say that he was a strange, unpredictable man. He's voiced by Kou Shibusawa, [[DescendedCreator a major head producer]] at Creator/{{Koei}} Creator/{{Tecmo}}. Notable for the fact that [[spoiler:despite following the trope very closely, even as a fabled Demon King, Nobunaga was portrayed not as a megalomaniacal super villain, but more of a NobleDemon.]]

* In ''Anime/GhostSweeperMikami'', the vampire lord Nosferatu is actually Oda Nobunaga. [[spoiler:Or if Father Karasu's theory is correct, Nosferatu murdered a young Nobunaga and stole his identity. Either way, UsefulNotes/AkechiMitsuhide eventually discovered his master's demonic nature and that was the reason for his betrayal at Honno-ji.]]

This is also not helped with Nobunaga's attitude during his time, while he was ruthless, there may be other factors on how Nobunaga was singled out to be the Demon King candidate instead of any other ruthless daimyos out there. In those times, [[GoodOldWays traditional and old fashioned honor was especially revered.]] Nobunaga mostly threw a middle finger on those, as he collaborated with 'barbarous' foreigners to bolster his forces (and also wearing European clothes a lot), promoted meritocracy instead of judging people based on their status (which was the norm back then) and several of his enemies that were mostly traditionalist eventually got trounced by him[[note]]The Azai clan turned against him despite being linked through marriage due to their older alliance with Asakura, which Nobunaga attacked. Additionally, Nobunaga's usage of muskets obliterated the Takeda clan, often thought as the last of the mighty traditional clans thanks to their Takeda Cavalry, in Nagashino[[/note]]. These days, Nobunaga's actions might have been thought to be a stroke of genius, but in the days past, this was considered rather blasphemous and extremely dangerous, such that people thought only demons would think of this kind of trouncing of what was good in their eyes. And considering that even in modern Japan, traditions are well preserved and those who do not try to blend in with others and try to stick out often get ostracized, it's more than likely that Nobunaga would be seen as a violator of Japanese ways, making him perfect to be referred as an evil, tradition-wrecker demon (even if those who values individuality would see Nobunaga as a genius instead).

A subtrope of DevilComplex and HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, WeDidntStartTheFuhrer and {{Dracula}} (as Vlad Tepes); another East Asian example is [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Cao Cao]]'s transformation from his historical persona to stock CardCarryingVillain in UsefulNotes/PekingOpera.

The biggest inspiration of this usually comes from one of Nobunaga's biggest ShootTheDog (or most commonly believed as [[KickTheDog a kick]]) moment: the burning of Mt. Hiei, taking out the Buddhist warrior-monks of Ikko-Ikki and [[KillEmAll leaving none alive]], including [[WouldHitAGirl women]] and [[WouldHarmAChild children]]. Whoever had the higher moral ground was unclear at that point (whether Nobunaga was just being callous, or the monks themselves were really disruptive and just adding on chaos in Japan that needed to be quelled no matter what, even if they used religion as a way to excuse their behavior), but considering Buddhism eventually recovered and once again became one of the major religions in Japan, Nobunaga's actions towards those Buddhists were not going to win him many fans from the future Buddhist storytellers, so they tend to use his previous sarcasm and make it a literal statement. And in addition of his more accepting stance with Christian missionaries, being considered 'barbaric foreigners with foreign religion' (more below), Nobunaga himself has been said to be rather disrespecting towards Buddhism in general, so that's even more reason to make him a devil figure by the Buddhist majority.

This is also not helped with Nobunaga's attitude during his time, while he's being ruthless, there may be other factors on how Nobunaga was singled out to be the Demon King candidate instead of any other ruthless daimyos out there. In those times, [[GoodOldWays traditional and old fashioned honor was especially revered.]] Nobunaga mostly threw a middle finger on those, as he collaborated with 'barbarous' foreigners to bolster his forces (and also wearing European clothes a lot), promoted meritocracy instead of judging people based on their status (which was the norm back then) and several of his enemies that were mostly traditionalist eventually got trounced by him[[note]]The Azai clan turned against him despite being linked through marriage due to their older alliance with Asakura, which Nobunaga attacked. Additionally, Nobunaga's usage of muskets obliterated the Takeda clan, often thought as the last of mighty traditional clans thanks to their Takeda Cavalry, in Nagashino[[/note]]. These days, Nobunaga's actions might have been thought to be a stroke of genius, but in the days past, this was considered rather blasphemous and extremely dangerous that people thought only demons would think of those kind of trouncing of what's good in their eyes. And considering that even in modern Japan, traditions are well preserved and those who do not try to blend in with others and try to stick out often get ostracized, it's more than likely that Nobunaga would be seen as a violator of Japanese ways and makes him perfect to be referred as an evil, tradition-wrecker demon (even if those who values individuality would see Nobunaga as a genius instead).

In the old days, this trope was used for a more common BlackAndWhiteMorality, since Nobunaga's brutality was perfect to play the role of villain. As time passed, however, values started to shift and people learned about the grayness of war, that the Buddhists that relegated the role to Nobunaga might not have the absolute moral high ground. Because of this, the trope started to evolve. Rather than playing the Demon King factor of Nobunaga totally straight, there are also works that used the NobleDemon or DarkIsNotEvil treatment for our resident Japanese Demon King; just because Nobunaga has demonic traits or can be rather brutal doesn't mean that he always had to play the cackling Saturday morning cartoon villain.

** The fourth iteration of her event seems to play this directly straight, introducing a new version of Nobunaga, with an Avenger class, at the height of her legend as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, doing away with the gag and joking nature she had before. But you had to level her up first, because she started out as just her wacky Archer form in a new class, followed by somewhat-''male'' Nobunaga, and THEN you get the Demon King... who's still female. And then played with in that her alignment is only ChaoticNeutral to every other Avengers' ChaoticEvil, making her effectively a TokenGoodTeammate.

* As opposed to her more gag-natured traits in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' or ''Koha-Ace'', Nobunaga plays the trope more straightly in ''WebComic/FateTypeRedline'', since it's basically the previously [[GagSeries hilarious Imperial Holy Grail War]] [[DarkerAndEdgier re-imagined in a dead serious manner.]] She pretty much trades her wacky antics with terrifying battle lust with SlasherSmile aplenty, living up to the term 'Demon King'. And that was before she became her final Avenger version.

A subtrope of DevilComplex and HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, WeDidntStartTheFuhrer and {{Dracula}} (as Vlad Tepes).

A subtrope of HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy, WeDidntStartTheFuhrer and {{Dracula}} (as Vlad Tepes).

This is also not helped with Nobunaga's attitude during his time, while he's being ruthless, there may be other factors on how Nobunaga was singled out to be the Demon King candidate instead of any other ruthless daimyos out there. In those times, [[GoodIsOldFashioned traditional and old fashioned honor was especially revered.]] Nobunaga mostly threw a middle finger on those, as he collaborated with 'barbarous' foreigners to bolster his forces (and also wearing European clothes a lot), promoted meritocracy instead of judging people based on their status (which was the norm back then) and several of his enemies that were mostly traditionalist eventually got trounced by him[[note]]The Azai clan turned against him despite being linked through marriage due to their older alliance with Asakura, which Nobunaga attacked. Additionally, Nobunaga's usage of muskets obliterated the Takeda clan, often thought as the last of mighty traditional clans thanks to their Takeda Cavalry, in Nagashino[[/note]]. These days, Nobunaga's actions might have been thought to be a stroke of genius, but in the days past, this was considered rather blasphemous and extremely dangerous that people thought only demons would think of those kind of trouncing of what's good in their eyes. And considering that even in modern Japan, traditions are well preserved and those who do not try to blend in with others and try to stick out often get ostracized, it's more than likely that Nobunaga would be seen as a violator of Japanese ways and makes him perfect to be referred as an evil, tradition-wrecker demon (even if those who values individuality would see Nobunaga as a genius instead).

This is also not helped with Nobunaga's attitude during his time, while he's being ruthless, there may be other factors on how Nobunaga was singled out to be the Demon King candidate instead of any other ruthless daimyos out there. In those times, [[GoodIsOldFashioned traditional and old fashioned honor was especially revered.]] Nobunaga mostly threw a middle finger on those, as he collaborated with 'barbarous' foreigners to bolster his forces (and also wearing European clothes a lot), promoted meritocracy instead of judging people based on their status (which was the norm back then) and several of his enemies that were mostly traditionalist eventually got trounced by him[[note]]The Azai clan turned against him despite being linked through marriage due to their older alliance with Asakura, which Nobunaga attacked. Additionally, Nobunaga's usage of muskets obliterated the Takeda clan, often thought as the last of mighty traditional clans thanks to their Takeda Cavalry, in Nagashino[[/note]]. These days, Nobunaga's actions might have been thought to be a stroke of genius, but in the days past, this was considered rather blasphemous and extremely dangerous that people thought only demons would think of those kind of trouncing of what's good in their eyes.