English Dub Season Review: Kochoki Season One

Biopics are always a bit trickier to analyze than typical fiction, since they’re covering a take on real events with real people and usually through a specific lens so the director can make a specific statement about those events. So, reviewing the product of that has to balance possible knowledge of historical accuracy alongside whether or not it’s a well made story, and often the two don’t get along. Sometimes making a good story requires fudging some details because real life is not typically made to fit into a story formula. And usually it doesn’t matter since no one is going to use a fictionalized version of history as some sort of academic source anyhow, just entertainment. But still the question lingers: how important are the facts when making a true story more entertaining?

Oda Nobunaga is very important figure in Japanese history, to the point that he has been interpreted in numerous ways in adaptation, including in anime. Good, evil, man, woman, and everything in between. As such, a series adapting a straightforward history of his greater accomplishments in his younger years would have a lot to work with in terms of tackling how he is perceived or should be perceived. And in the case of “Kochoki: Young Nobunaga”, it seems that interpretation comes down to: “Nobunaga was a great guy who was super hot and surrounded by hot people and everyone liked and if they didn’t, they were either bad or being manipulated to feel that way by other bad people.”

To be completely upfront, I’m not exactly going to be able to the best at determining how to approach this story. It’s a historical drama that seems to be LASER FOCUSED at a Japanese audience, specifically one that is likely already more familiar with this sort of history than I will ever be. But Funimation thought it was worth dubbing and showing to its customers, so here it is for me to view from my ignorant American perspective. And that perspective tells me that this series might just fail about both being either HISTORICAL or being a STORY. Characters enter and leave the plot rather suddenly at times, with little name cards appearing to indicate they were probably important enough to mention but not enough to give them actual personalities, almost as if they’re easter eggs for the history buffs in the audience who this show as probably made for.

Plus, putting your subject on such a pedestal like Nobunaga is here basically bubbles him from being much of a compelling character, especially when he is characterized as a goofy by charismatic leader who charms most to his side through sheer will and cunning, while those who doubt him are either eventually proven wrong or prove to be snakes with no motivation other than greed for power. Instead, the more interesting stories tend to come from the people AROUND Nobunaga, specifically the corruption of his younger brother Nobukatsu and the odd character arc for his first wife, Kichou, who serves as the story’s narrator. Even when I learned of what was inaccurate about those two, I either didn’t care or didn’t care as much because I was so fascinated by how they were written, which is probably how this should have gone. In a similar vein, another show titled Sengoku Basara probably won’t be winning awards for historical accuracy, but gets fans for its raw energy and fast pace to the point that you get swept up in the action more than anything else. I’d probably recommend that over this by a country mile.

In the end, I still feel at a loss for how assess how well this show accomplishes what it sets out to do. If it’s to say that Oda Nobunaga was an amazing leader who did nothing wrong, I guess it succeeds (though I would question the worth of that as a message). If it’s to give a fresh account of a history not often put to animation, then it probably does that alright. Though as a well structured story in its own right set apart from the history it’s based on, I would have to say it’s not your best option, especially for those who have no interest in Japanese history. Like most of history, I expect this adaption to be lost to the sands of time soon enough.