Arrival in the Sengoku Period Arc

Is the first arc of Oda Nobuna no Yabou and covers the events of the first light novel, wherein Yoshiharu Sagara, a mere highschooler, finds himself suddenly in the middle of the Sengoku Period

Waking up in a War Zone
Sagara Yoshiharu finds himself waking up in the Sengoku period under unknown circumstances, in the middle of a battlefield no less. He runs away from the fighting only to land himself in Imagawa Yoshimoto's camp and attacked by the vassel Motoyasu Matsudaira, the funny thing is, the historic figure he remembered have been replaced by two young girls. After being rescued from Motoyasu by a strange old man trying to defect and join Oda, Yoshiharu agrees to come with him, their shared objective being to become lords with castles and a harem of girls. However, Yoshiharu is soon shocked, not only to see the man die, but to relise in the man's dying moments that he was in fact Kinoshita Toukichirou, the man destined to become Toyotomi Hideyoshi and unify Japan after Oda. Now the man is dead, long before his place in history could be acted out, and Yoshiharu, along with the man's shinobi companion, Goemon, move to join Nobunaga's forces on his behalf in order to take his place.

Joining The Oda Clan
Yoshiharu reaches the Oda camp, bypassing a number of suicidal Imagawa soldiers who seek to take Nobunaga's head thanks to the arrival of Oda's cavalry. Brandishing a spear, Yoshiharu saves the Oda lord's life and distracts the enemy long enough for Goemon to eliminate them. The cavalry returns, led by a young woman whom the Oda lord reveals to be Katsuie Shibata, who immediately wants to behead Yoshiharu for gawking at her. However, the Oda lord prevents Katsuie from doing so. Yoshiharu requests to become a vassel of Nobunaga's, but is immediately kicked down by the Oda lord, a young brash and strangely dressed girl named Nobuna. After introducing himself, Yoshiharu's name is mistakenly heard by Nobuna, who had a gun in his mouth, and she nicknames him Saru, before dragging him off to a nearby lake. Nobuna explains that the locals intended to sacrifice a young woman to the supposed dragon god of the lake, and has Yoshiharu try to remove all of the water and prove no such god exists. Motivated by the apparent beauty of the girl, and seeking to be introduced to her, Yoshiharu completely drains the lake, though was secretly aided by Goemon, who grew bored with how long the task was taking him. Yoshiharu's reward is cut short however, as the sacrifice girl had a fiance who she then departs with. Nobuna officially allows Yoshiharu to become her subordinate as a result of his efforts.

Meeting Saitou Dousan
Yoshiharu is later dragged away by Katsuie to Nobuna's meeting with Saitou Dousan and is entrusted with Nobuna's gourd and her shoes when she goes to change. Saitou Dousan, having seen Nobuna's laughable getup before, dresses informally to the meeting and is shocked alongside Yoshiharu when Nobuna reveals herself in noble attire. This gives Nobuna the advantage for their discussion, mostly because of the way she caught both men off guard. The meeting itself then begins with Dousan asking several questions from Nobuna, all of which she answer, and though the two get along and have the same end of conquering Japan Nobuna seeks to go further and even conquer the world, for which she needs Mino. Dousan refuses to hand Mino over, seeing this would lead to an unnecessary conflict Yoshiharu speaks out and reveals his knowledge of Dousan's history by stating aloud what Dousan was truly thinking, his sons would never beat Nobuna, so when he fell Mino would as well. Dousan asks him how he knows this, to which Yoshiharu reveals that he came from the future. Defeated by his words, Dousan decides to surrender Mino to Nobuna.

Power Struggle in Owari
After returning to Owari, Yoshiharu becomes Inuchiyo's neighbour and is shown to his new home by her. Later the two visit Asano, the greatest of the samurai tenents in the area, who comes off as rather senile, confusing Inuchiyo for Nobuna, a dog, a boy, and confusing Yoshiharu for her husband, which she jokingly reinforces. Asano then introduces Nene, his granddaughter, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, to Yoshiharu. Soon after they hear a commotion outside caused by a number of soldiers asking to see the Saru of Nobuna, led by her younger brother Nobukatsu. Yoshiharu meets Nobukatsu and ultimately takes issue with the way he mocks his sister. After intellectually defeating Nobukatsu's claims that he's better than his sister Yoshiharu loses his cool and strikes him when the boy brings up how their mother despises his sister. Katsuie, who is Nobukatsu's retainer, then tries to execute Yoshiharu on Nobukatsu's order, however Yoshiharu notes that her pampering the young lord is the cause of Nobuna's inability to unify Owari. After Inuchiyo talks Katsuie down by pointing out how Nobuna likes having Yoshiharu around, Katsuie decides to retreat. Nobukatsu and his retainers insist Katsuie kill Yoshiharu, but ultimately give up when they're reminded of Imagawa's impending invasion. Despite being pulled away Nobukatsu vows he will get back at Yoshiharu for hitting him.

For the next few days Yoshiharu regularly trained with Asano to learn to wield a spear, he also bought a used helmet and simply waited for the day Nobuna would call for him. The vassels of Nobukatsu continued to hound him, but were more or less ignored by him. When he is summoned by Nobuna, and they finish yet another argument, Yoshiharu is ordered to secure rice, twice as much as he's given money for, in two weeks time. Initially he considered gambling to double the money, but upon being told he'd be executed if he failed the job in question he decided against gambling. Using Goemon's information network, Yoshiharu uses the money to buy items cheeply in certain cities and sell them in cities where they are more expensive, thus raising more than enough money to fill Nobuna's demand. However he goes mad with the sheer amount of money he managed to rake in and forgets until the last moment to buy the rice, forcing him to leave the job to Inuchiyo and Goemon while he goes and meets with Nobuna.

Upon arrival in Nobuna's palace Yoshiharu is ultimately faced with her very real warning that if Inuchiyo and Goemon don't return in time he will be beheaded. Their conversation shifts to the subject of Nobukatsu, but Nobuna eventually expresses that even if her mother complains she will kill her brother if he rebels against her again before changing the subject to her globe. After Yoshiharu reveals some knowledge of the globe to her, Nobuna briefly warms up to him, but ultimately the time arrives where she is forced to execute him. Yoshiharu is saved only by Inuchiyo and Goemon's timely arrival, however, the former is covered in blood. Instead of 8000 koku worth of bags of rice, it's revealed that Yoshiharu actually managed to raise 30000 koku worth of bags of rice instead, but is denied a reward under the excuse of being late. Inuchiyo then asks for Nobuna to behead her, as she cut down one of Nobukatsu's men when they got in the way of her making the delivery, however, seeing that Nobuna does not want to do so, Yoshiharu instructs Inuchiyo to abscond until they can settle the incident. Inuchiyo reminds Yoshiharu of the fact that he promised to buy her a silk garment with the money they made, and he replies that he will buy her as many as she wants when she is able to return. Inuchiyo thus departs.

Three days later Katsuie comes on Nobukatsu's order to ask Nobuna to hand over Inuchiyo or he will rebel, however, Nobuna informs Katsuie of her intention to execute her brother should he rebel again and remarks how Imagawa's impending invasion prevents her from tolorating his foolishness any longer. Katsuie is ordered to bring Nobukatsu before his sister, which she does. Given that it took her 3 seconds to grab him and scare his men into submission Katsuie also realises her foolishness in not acting sooner and decides that if the worst comes she'll offer her life to keep Nobuna from executing Nobukatsu. They are brought before Nobuna and her retainers soon after. Nobuna tells her brother to comit seppuku, but he states he cannot do something so painful and she resolves instead to kill him herself. Katsuie begs for her life to be taken instead but Nobuna notes that killing Katsuie would only be a demerit for them and informs all of her retainers that she will punish traitors and rebels the same way as her brother. Yoshiharu stands up amid all of her terrified subordinates and ultimately talks Nobuna into confessing that she doesn't want to kill her brother, but feels that there is no longer an option. After realising she's just cried before her retainers she resolves to make peace with her brother, but takes issue with Yoshiharu and brandishes her sword. She is only stopped this time by the appearance of her strategist, Niwa Nagahide. Nagahide insists that they complete the matter with Nobukatsu before Nobuna starts playing around with "saru" and Nobukatsu, motivated by his sister's mercy, decides to change his name to Nobusumi Tsuda and swear his loyalty to Nobuna. Nobuna then orders him to train under Katsuie as a commander, effectively making him her subordinate.

Swearing Loyalty to the Princess
Yoshiharu returns home contemplating how they should now try to bring back Inuchiyo since the strife in Owari has ended. He finds Goemon has dissapeared and upon entering his house finds Nene, Nobusumi and Katsuie there to greet him and celebrate the outcome. Seeing the fact that Nobuna has indeed become more cheerful since Yoshiharu showed up, Katsuie ends up drinking in her jealousy and ultimately proves to be somewhat of a comically violent drunk. Nobusumi ultimately states he will never forget the debt he now owes Yoshiharu and will work hard to fight alongside him in the battlefield.

Later, after the rest of the group falls asleep, Yoshiharu leaves the house for a stroll and runs into Nobuna in the inner citadel. Nobuna brings Yoshiharu to her room and, after staring at the moon for some time to collect her thoughts, notes to him that she did not believe he was from the future. She notes that she believed he knew the viper's thoughts by mere bluff, but notes that he was more or less correct when pointing out the location of the "barbarians" on the globe. she begins to talk about the missionary who gave her that globe and her dream of uniting Japan, building a large metal boat and exploding the open world with it, and brings up how the people she loves seem to die easily. She asks Yoshiharu how he, a mere monkey, could've known that if she killed her brother she would end up killing more and more people she cares about, and he replies that it is obviously because he came from the future. After he begins to tell her about Nobunaga's path, she stops him and notes that she does not wish to hear her future, since it will make her feel like he's controlling her and she'll kill him for it. Yoshiharu accepts her feelings and prevents himself from telling her anything more. Yoshiharu vows that if he sees her losing her way he will bring her back onto a proper path, which Nobuna accepts. Nobuna then asks Yoshiharu to become her servant and swear his loyalty, but uses a western style ritual instead of a Japanese one and has him kiss her hand. Yoshiharu swears to loyally serve her until he can return to his world and vows to make her dream a reality, to this she notes he can't go back until they succeed and asks him what his dream is so she can grant it. Yoshiharu remembers Toukichiro's dream of making a harem and declares he wants one himself as his dream and asks if Nobuna can allow him to marry the most beautiful girl in Japan as his wife. the result of this is that Nobuna strikes him and jumps to the conclusion that he meant her and that it was more or less an outright confession, as usual she thus brandishes her sword and ends up chasing him from in the inner citadel straight out to the third citadel of the city, laughing all the while.

Rescuing the Viper
Goemon returns the next morning and informs Yoshiharu of the fact that Saitou Yoshitatsu, Dousan's son, has rebelled against him and taken Mino. Realising that Dousan will die, Yoshiharu goes to inform Nobuna, but is aware that she must not send reinforcements. Nobuna agrees with his belief that reinforcements can't be sent, despite internally wanting to, and ultimately reveals that Saitou Dousan's letter, the Handing over of Mino, is actually a letter thanking Nobuna for showing him the continuation of his dream and noting he will die proudly so long as she takes care of his daughter. When Saitou Dousan's daughter arrives and her servant reports Dousan directly telling Nobuna not to help him, she breaks down and tries to order her men to march. Katsuie stops her by knocking her unconscious and Yoshiharu, being the only one able to move without weaking the Oda forces, chooses to go and save Dousan himself. Goemon appears and notes she will not allow him to go and die by himself, thus she will help him rescue the viper.

While on the road Yoshiharu rides on Goemon's horse with her and her group gradually assembles towards the pass. When they reach the river, Goemon tries to convince Yoshiharu to stay behind, but he refuses since only he can possibly talk the viper out of dying in the battle. Goemon is ultimately forced to let him come along. Due to the mist the rafts are able to reach Dousan unnoticed in the battlefield. Dousan protests that Yoshiharu should be the one to share Nobuna's dream with her and that he is merely an old man who will die there, however Yoshiharu states he will remain and die with him if he refuses to leave. Yoshiharu then points out how sad Nobuna was talking about the people she loves dying and refuses to let her show him that face again. Finally convinced, Dousan decides to leave with him, however the mist has subsided and the army of Yoshitatu is baring down upon them. While being chased by the enemy army, Yoshiharu uses a bow to shoot at them, but his poor experience prevents him from being much help on his own. Yoshitatsu's army approaches, but is soon set upon by Nobuna's army and forced to retreat. Yoshiharu, shocked to see Nobuna, asks Katsuie what she was doing, to which Katsuie can only state that Nobuna woke up and demanded to know what happened. Niwa Nagahide appears to inform them that Imagawa Yoshimoto has invaded their terratory.

Imagawa Invasion
Imagawa Yoshimoto arrives overdressed to her camp and decides to stop and rest, meanwhile she summons Motoyasu to attack Oda's castles and finish her invasion for her, since Motoyasu's life is expendible in her eyes.

Nobuna, in her camp, ultimately performs a dance of war and then marches her soldiers out into battle, ignoring Yoshiharu as he looks on. Saitou Dousan, who until then was sidelined by his back pains, asks Yoshiharu what he intends to do, and Yoshiharu notes he intends to help, despite being banished for going against Nobuna's order to not rescue the viper. Realising that the battle taking place is most likely the battle of Okehazama, Yoshiharu, Goemon and the Kawanami group head for Okehazama in order to look for Yoshimoto's camp. Upon reaching Okehazama and realising it's a mountain Yoshiharu rethinks his logic and remembers that Imagawa Yoshimoto died in Dengakuhazama, another mountain with a pass beside it exactly like what he is looking to locate. They are then greeted by Nobukatsu and his army of 100 girls(who being little more than farmer's daughters really can't be called a military force) and are told that Okehazama does have a pass on it. Goemon and her men head for Dengakuhazama while Yoshiharu and Nobusumi's group head for the pass in Okehazama, both agreeing to inform Nobuna of the location of the Imagawa camp when either of their groups locates it. Yoshiharu's initial guess proves to be correct as Yoshimoto's base turns out to be in Okehazama. Seeing that someone needs to report back and someone needs to distract Yoshimoto's men and keep them there, Yoshiharu at first decides he will lead Nobusumi's group to the diversion while Nobusumi himself reports to Nobuna, but since the group will not leave Nobusumi Yoshiharu decides instead to have him distract Yoshimoto while he reports back to Nobuna on horseback. Nobusumi and his group sneak into Yoshimoto's camp to distract her after this, with Nobusumi himself dressed up in drag.

On his way back Yoshiharu is suddenly attacked by Motoyasu's ninja, Hattori Hanzo, and is repeatedly assaulted by shuriken, knives and techniques which are aimed to eliminate "the Oda Spy", however, as Yoshiharu continues to evade his attacks with only light wounds Hanzo realises that they're getting too close to the Oda camp and decides to resort to poison, despite his philosophy against it. Yoshiharu is then saved by the return of Inuchiyo, who, due to now wearing a tiger skin and entertainer's red makeup, he does not immediately recognise. Inuchiyo manages to fight Hanzo on equal ground, but is ultimately forced down by her shorter stature, Yoshiharu tries to interfere, but it only makes Inuchiyo even more vulnerable as she now has to protect him as well. Finally, remembering Hanzo's role as Motoyasu's shinobi, Yoshiharu convinces Hanzo that letting them go is to his master's benefit as it means she can defect from the Imagawa when Nobuna wins. Seeing as even if he loses Hanzo just has to kill Yoshiharu, Hanzo allows the two of them to get away.

After reaching Nobuna and informing her of the location of Yoshimoto's camp, Nobuna prepares to charge at the camp, despite having banished both Yoshiharu and Inuchiyo previously. on Nagahide's advice she speaks to the gods, but instead of asking for their help she dares them to provide it and prove their divinity. Goemon then appears to tend to Yoshiharu and Inuchiyo's wounds. Yoshiharu then rejoins the army as it marches on the Imagawa camp under cover of the thunder clouds, seemingly brought on by Nobuna's prayer. Hanzo spots their army, but refuses to report it to Yoshimoto since it is "a dragon" and therefore none of their business.

Due to Nobukatsu's distraction all of Yoshimoto's 5000 men are either drunk or unconscious, and the storm effectively masks the marching of Nobuna's horses and has caused the drunken men to seek shelter in the woods, the muddy ground prevents them from returning in a hurry either. When Katsuie comes charging through the lines of what few men she has left Imagawa Yoshimoto ends up ultimately defenceless, she is told to either die, which she doesn't want to do, or surrender, which she doesn't want to do. Katsuie is stopped from killing her in the end by Yoshiharu, who hugs her into submission. since Katsuie wasn't wearing armour due to her desire to enjoy the battle he also ends up groping her and causing her to fall onto Yoshimoto's lap. Yoshimoto then asks Yoshiharu who he is, to which he replies he is a mere Oda footsoldier and asks her to surrender before his ill tempered master executes her. Yoshimoto looks away and decides to co-operate.

After their victory, Yoshiharu asks for two rewards from Nobuna, firstly he wants to form an alliance with Motoyasu Matsudaira as her his deal with Hanzo, but Nobuna has already seen to it. The second request he asks is for her to let him get close to the no.1 bishoujo(thinking of Imagawa Yoshimoto herself), which causes Nobuna to ultimately repeat the fact that as always he acts like a monkey. She asks him to wait for her in the courtyard that night as a result of his wish.

The No.1 Bishoujo
Later that night Yoshiharu is visited by several members of the Oda clan's retainers, namely Nobukatsu, Inuchiyo, Nagahide and Katsuie, and celebrates the victory. Gradually, the guests leave and he is left talking to Goemon, who wonders about the reward of her men becoming Samurai. Having totally forgotten about that in his request for rewards, Yoshiharu tries to cover it, but is found out, and forgiven, and cautioned that next time he'll be tortured, by Goemon as a result. Goemon then decides to sleep, with Inuchiyo hearing her lisp and calling it cute, which annoys Goemon repeatedly before she nods off.

Yoshiharu is left wondering if Yoshimoto will really come to the region he lives, and realises he never specified which bishoujo he wanted, which causes him to wonder if Nobuna herself, due to what she said, was the one who was coming. his delusions are swiftly broken when Nene arrives, revealing Nobuna did indeed send him the girl who, in ten years time, would become the no.1 bishoujo as his sister. Realising he was deceived Yoshiharu is told by Nene that he has been promoted to Vice-commander and that he is now part of the Asano clan due to becoming her older brother, thus he is officially a retainer of Nobuna. Finally, she has been ordered by Nobuna to keep Yoshiharu from so much as staring at girls, with suspiciously specific denial in the verbally given letter. Tired beyond the point of arguing back, Yoshiharu gives up and goes to sleep.

Continuity and Conclusions

 * The man who would become Toyotomi Hideyoshi and unite the country dies early, thus thrusting Yoshiharu into taking his place and inheriting his dream of having a harem.
 * Yoshiharu recieves Nene as a little sister. In true history, Hideyoshi's wife, and she is given the job of keeping him away from other women by Nobuna.
 * It's worth noting towards the previous two facts that in history Hideyoshi was actually something of a flirt, so much that Nobunaga Oda of all people, ended up comforting his wife Nene on occasion.
 * Yoshiharu manages to become employed by the Oda Clan, also, as he gains a contract with Goemon and her Kawanami group he also takes the first steps towards forming his Sagara Corps, as it would latter be referred to.
 * Yoshiharu convinces Saitou Dousan to divert from history by surrendering to Nobuna during their meeting, he again causes it to divert when he saves Dousan's life.
 * Yoshitatsu takes over Mino Province
 * Nobukatsu's rebellion is thwarted, but instead of being killed by Nobuna he is saved by Yoshiharu
 * Yoshiharu begins training with a spear, a bow, and is not yet capable of riding a horse
 * Yoshimoto Imagawa is defeated, but history diverges when Yoshiharu saves her life.
 * The divergence point in history is actually hinted to pre-date Yoshiharu's arrival, since the rule of this world seems to be that males and females can gain equal inheritence and leadership of their respective clans, thus leading to the Princess Daimyo.
 * The Kawanami group are not given their wish to become true Samurai due to Yoshiharu's oversight, Goemon warns him not to forget them next time.
 * Katsuie goes from being Nobukatsu's retainer to Nobuna's.

Anime Differences

 * Several scenes are cut, including the scene with the lake and pretty much every scene prior to the death of Kinoshita Toukichiro. pretty much the only scene's included in the events prior to meeting Saitou Dousan from the novel are Yoshiharu reaching the Oda camp, rescuing Nobuna and being recruited immediately after, the scene of the dragon lake is also completely removed.
 * Yoshimoto in the anime reprimanded Motoyasu for failing to kill Nobuna, this is utterly absent from the LN.
 * Yoshiharu also meets Goemon a little later in the Anime after she abducts him and introduces herself, in the novels he was introduced to her the instant after Toukichiro died.
 * In the Anime, rather than brandishing a spear, Yoshiharu rescues Nobuna using his phone to confuse the enemy.
 * The Anime had an extra scene during Nobuna's travel to meet with Dousan, where he tried to ambush her army on the road, however Yoshiharu instructed Nobuna and her men to light their weapons, thus preventing the ambush for fear that the guns would explode.
 * The sub-plot of Nobukatsu's rebellion is also rather different, firstly in the anime Yoshiharu is told to get the rice or be beheaded because of Nobukatsu's request, secondly in the LN Inuchiyo is forced to temporarily leave the Oda clan after striking down a group of Nobukatsu's retainers who tried to stop her from delivering the rice and saving Yoshiharu's head, she returns later to save Yoshiharu from Hanzo. Thirdly, also in the LN, the rebellion itself is crushed by Katsuie, who under Nobuna's ultimatum brings Nobukatsu to her before an armed uprising even began. in the Anime, Nobukatsu did start an armed uprising, but surrendered when his own men started cheering for Nobuna's side.
 * In the anime Nobuna is visited by Azai Nagamasa earlier in order to ask her hand in marriage in order to save Saitou Dousan, this scene is in the novel series, but occurs later on.
 * Humourously, Saitou Dousan is depicted as far more lecherous in the LN than in the Anime, even provoking Nobuna to kick him repeatedly by asking to touch her chest and butt, however he does not let this disrupt his business attitude or his ability to threaten Nobuna with death if she says or does something he dislikes during their meeting.
 * Yoshiharu learning to wield a spear is given a passing mention in the LN, but not even brought up in the anime. He also wears a foot soldier's typical uniform rather than his modern era clothing.
 * The Anime cuts off the scene of Yoshiharu swearing loyalty to Nobuna before she brandishes her sword.
 * In the Light Novels the party which celebrates Motoyasu joining Oda occurs later than in the Anime, in the next novel even.
 * In the LN Katsuie assaults Yoshimoto's camp without wearing armour, thus when she is hugged by Yoshiharu and accidentally groped her breasts move around as a result, in the Anime she did wear armour, not that this stopped Yoshiharu.

Trivia

 * Yoshiharu's evasive skills are directly stated to be like the techniques seen in the Matrix film series