The True Meaning of Power: Nobunaga in "SD Gundam World HEROES"

Yes, today I'm going to talk about an unexpected Nobunaga's rendition which becomes weirdly dear to me, and not just because I'm a hopeless gunota. I'm talking about the character Nobunaga Gundam Epyon appearing in the ONA series SD Gundam World HEROES (SDガンダムワールド ヒーローズ).

Of course, this is a light-hearted series for kids, but I think it offered some interesting sparks on the "power" issue, usually associated with the portrayal of Nobunaga in fiction. What I found interesting here is Nobu's role as the "anti-hero". He's treated one of the "protagonists" but he's associated to the antagonistic side for a while due to his ambition.

The first appearance of Nobunaga is about the creation of his motto, "Tenka Fubu": Here Nobunaga discussed its meaning with one of his faithful servants, the shinobi Sasuke.
"What does 'Tenka Fubu' mean..? 'Bu'... Does it mean 'rule the whole country by force'?"
"'Bu' means 'a force that can settle war'. But to me, Nobunaga Epyon, 'Bu' means to swallow all those battles, and make Musha World mine. 'Bu' is the power that I need in order to achieve this."
Punctuated by the manly, deep voice of seiyuu Ryouta Takeuchi, followed a declaration to conquer the whole world, an expression of this Nobunaga's dull quest for power. 'Power this and power that', that's how the most of Nobunaga's scripts went in this work.

When confronted with his imminent defeat though, he retired to accept his failure, presenting us a "fitting" version of Atsumori--
At this point he's given a chance to "join the dark side", though, that he gladly accepted with a laugh, turning into the infamous "Demon King":
"My life has ended once. If I'm going to wander around and be filled with remorse, I would rather sell my samurai sould and fulfill my ambition!"
At this point the climax was reached and Nobunaga faced his "alter-ego", Cao Cao Wing Gundam, the "anti-hero" of the previous season. The vis-a-vis between Nobunaga and Cao Cao was quite exciting as it's probably the "dream meeting" of every history buff, as the two characters are usually associated for their similar deeds.
"You can't fight alone. While we encounter difficulty, that's exactly when we should trust our friends and fight together with them.
If you do that, it'll make you way much stronger than standing alone."
This offered a moment to Nobunaga to face his very belief on "power".
'Power' isn't something that one could acquire by themself, and it doesn't measure on how much land you can subject to your will or how many people fear you. It refers to the strenght acquired with the support of others: your 'friends', your subjects, your followers.
That's how the real Nobunaga built a stronghold out of his native territory, it was when the majority of people recognized the fruits of his politics.

This is probably a bit too simplicistic and naive, but I really wanted to make this the last, and hopefully more inspiring, review of the year.