Nobunaga, is that you? Too iconic, despite Stitch

A few days ago I went to my usual comic shop and I noticed this manga about Stitch featuring Nobunaga. Long story super-short, Stitch and the Samurai (殿さまとスティッチ, Tono-sama to Stitch) doesn't feature Nobunaga but an original character inspired to him.
The appeal of the comic is the gap between the ruthless, silent warlord and his cute attitude towards the "blue tanuki" Stitch.

This made me wonder about the power of the Nobunaga's icon, which can be applied even to random, original characters, and still come out as a recognizable reference.

First of all, the infamous "Western Armor", completed with the devilish red cape: Probably one of the most iconic appearance of Nobunaga, surviving generations of fans despoite being completely fabricated.

Next, the presence and usage of fire as a weapon: "Burning up towns of innocent villagers" became a feature of Nobunaga's imagery because of the burning of Mount Hiei, but this strategy was used quite frequently through the Sengoku Era. Burning a site to the ground was indeed the fastest way to hit critically the expansion of another lord and undermining his popularity with the population. Burning the fields of a town meant destroying not only the mean of survival of the villagers but also their capacity to pay taxes.

The idea of vassals being unable to fully understand their lord because of his reserved nature: Here used for comical purpose, being unable to "read your lord" could prove fatal in the Sengoku Era.
Expecially when it came to Nobunaga, who was famous for his flimsy personality.

--Finally, at a certain point Nobun-Aehm, Yamato starts dancing something quite similar to "Atsumori" to entertain our Stitch! If you're curious you could find a few free chapters on the manga over Comic Days, from which the above pictures come from.
The original, online version is quite fun, because some panels are animated!