Shibata Katsuie

Katsuie Shibata （柴田勝家 Shibata Katsuie）, nicknamed Riku, is a high-ranking general and samurai of the Oda clan. She is notable for being very warlike, and is a highly skilled fighter. Originally, she was an aide to Nobuna's younger brother, Nobukatsu, but her true loyalty lied with Nobuna. Due to an agreement that was made after one of Nobukatsu's failed rebellions, she officially became one of Nobuna's retainers.

Appearance
Shibata Katsuie, also nicknamed Riku by Nobuna Oda, is one of the Owari generals headed by Nobuna. Katsuie has flowing chocolate-brown hair that is always tied up in a high ponytail by a long red ribbon. Her skin is fair and and she has sharp blue eyes. As commented by Yoshiharu, Katsuie is also very busty, and is easily angered by those who stare at her bosom.

Katsuie seems to be constantly angry and puts on a stern expression, as if she has to uphold her reputation as a ruthless warrior. She is almost always seen donning her armour, which consists of a rich-blue tunic and gold-trimmed steel platelets.

In her freetime, she can seen without her armour. What she wears instead is a long, blue battle kimono tied off with a wide, black waist-belt and black under-sleeves.

Unlike the other female generals in the Oda Faction, Katsuie is normally seen riding a horse. Her weapon in battle, for the most part, is a long, blue-handle, European-styled halberd. Her secondary weapon is a katana that she keeps strapped to her hip. Only in occasions where she is not in battle, but feels the need to demonstrate her anger, does she unsheathe it.

Personality
Katsuie displays many expected traits of a Sengoku era samurai: very duty bound, very brash at times, and seemingly quite violent; as when she goes to behead Sagara at the beginning of the series, but only to be stopped by Nobuna.

Because of her busty appearance Katsuie is often a target of Sagara's sexual harassment. Despite her high rank, and Sagara's extremely low rank, she does little more than throw fits aimed at Sagara in the Anime. However, it's most likely that he is one of the only people who could get off easily with this, and she would be brutal with any other low ranking person who would try that. In the LN this is particularly different as she constantly remarks that she will cut "Saru's" head off for defiling Nobuna and herself (it's worth noting that in the novels her admiration of Nobuna is strong enough to even be considered a minor obsession, or ulterior motive of sorts.) However, she has shown to have grown attached to Yoshiharu to some extent and, following his successful survival against the Azai-Asakura forces, promised to let him fondle her if he succeeded (however she herself states outwardly that she was certain he'd die.) she followed through with this promise later on.

She may just be the quickest to resort to violence over any character in in the series; and on several occasions, has only needed one wrong phrase as an excuse to draw her sword, as shown with Yoshiharu, and Nagahide. She is also depicted, especially in the LN, as a bit of an idiot, which she herself is aware of and prone to admitting. this, by her own words, is why she believes she can only wield her spear for others and should leave the heavy thinking to others. She has a bit of a habit of not thinking things through as well, as she allowed Nobuhide's rebellion to escalate despite having the power to prevent it and also demanded Yoshiharu fondle her (as stated above) to get it over with, Nobuna, who wasn't very far away at the time, caught sight of this scene.

In stark contrast to Yoshiharu, Katsuie seems to have no problem taking lives of her enemies, shown when she prepares to execute Yoshimoto.

Despite her usual cool and dutiful behaviour expected from her high rank, Katsuie can at times act like a typical girl, such as showing embarrassment and sadness. Due to her duty as a retainer to Nobuna, she rarely has a chance when she let herself act like a woman instead of a Samurai. When Inuchiyo Maeda asked if she and Yoshiharu were having a tryst, she immediately became flustered and began denying her accusation. Following a series of rather embarrassing skits performed by Nobuna and her retainers in order to "rescue" Yoshiharu, she comes to acknowledge the fact that she is not very feminine and attempts to make some changes. She is specifically envious of Nagahide in this department. Oddly, she seemed to take Yoshiharu's advise on how girls act in his time period, but appears to have misunderstood his words, thus embarrassing herself in front of the other retainers. She has also taken to talking like Yoshiharu, saying her brain "short circuited" when she's being stupid as an attempt to cheer up Nobuna in his absence.

Also, she is not very strong when it comes to alcohol and is a potentially aggressive drunk, neither Nobusumi or Yoshiharu are immune to her outbursts at such times.

Background
Katsuie was born into a clan directly serving as warriors of the Oda clan, it was known since she was young that if given a spear she had the talent and skill to prove herself nearly unbeatable, some would say even throughout the entire country. However, she had neither the intellect or intuition for politics, which causes her to become a poster child for the phrase "God does not bestow two gifts". She was a fan of Nobuna's since a young age, but also a retainer of Nobukatsu and thus ended up caught between her loyalties during the latter's rebellions. When Nobuna's father died she noticed the change it caused in her lord, but was unfortunately not able to think of any way to help her deal with it.

Arrival in the Sengoku Period Arc

 * Main Article: Arrival in the Sengoku Period Arc

Invasion of Mino Arc

 * Main Article: Invasion of Mino Arc

Kyoto Arc

 * Main Article: Kyoto Arc

Retreat at Kanegasaki Arc

 * Main Article: Retreat at Kanegasaki Arc

Oda Nobuna
For the longest time Katsuie has admired Nobuna, as well as lamented the fact that she is not capable of understanding her dream. She has noted she'd have preferred to serve Nobuna over Nobukatsu, and was happy when this came about. Early on she only spared Yoshiharu's life because Nobuna ordered it, and later she went out of her way to protect Nobuna's "chastity" from the "Saru", this has at least on one occasion bordered on a crush as she is seen blurting out that she will be the one to conquer Mino and use one wish Nobuna promised to make her her's and not Yoshiharu's. She of course caught herself in that thought and questioned it. Despite her own admitted stupidity, she was able to understand that Nobuna had big dreams, but couldn't quite comprehend the vastness of them herself.

Sagara Yoshiharu
Katsuie repeatedly wanted to behead Yoshiharu for staring at her chest and also for his rude way of referring to her and Nobuna. However, she ultimately acknowledges him for being the only person aside from a now deceased missionary who could truly make Nobuna happy when talking to him, and as a result she begins to develop faith in him. Later, when Yoshiharu prevents Nobuna from executing Nobukatsu, Katsuie is both shocked and amazed by his bravery, or sheer stupidity, but goes back to hating him when he stares at her chest later on. Her opinion of his spikes even higher after he uses his one wish, which Nobuna had to grant, to prevent her marriage to Nagamasa(Katsuie had believed that if Yoshiharu won he would take Nobuna instead, and that she had to protect her from both him and Nagamasa), During this particular instance, Katsuie is visibly seen hugging Yoshiharu.

She is strongly implied early on to be developing and harbouring feelings towards him, which becomes more apparent over time, however her feelings of admiration towards Nobuna are ultimately strong as well and she hates how close the two of them are while she herself wants to be close to Nobuna. If nothing else, she is willing to say she will protect herself and Nobuna from the "saru" and is quite clearly jealous and frustrated with how close he has become towards Nobuna early on in the series.

Nagamasa eventually pointed out to her that Katsuie is probably so openly hostile to Yoshiharu specifically because she's fallen for him, she also seems to be openly annoyed whenever he gets along with other girls; for example, she very much disliked how he managed to bring Louise Frois over to their side, despite not even knowing what the relationship between the two of them was even like. Because of Nagamasa's words, she seems to have become somewhat aware of her feelings towards him, even if she still hates having to admit to them. She gave him 500 voluntary soldiers to help him during the retreat from Kanegasaki and, when he noted that as long as he could see her chest again he would be sure to survive, she promised he could touch them if he did indeed return alive. When he did return she was visibly so happy she started doing jumping jacks, which resulted in her knocking down the men behind her. She later bluffed that she was sure he would've died and was very insistant he fulfil her promise to let him fondle her and get it over with.

Later on, as Katsuie begins trying to act more womanly, she ultimately tries to take Yoshiharu's advice on how girls in his time act.

Her feelings have become such that she considers both herself and Nobuna might be "tainted" by the "saru" if she isn't careful and calls him crafty for it, although later on it's pretty obvious she wouldn't mind it nearly as much as she says she would.

Niwa Nagahide
Nagahide is a rather strong parallel to Katsuie, in that while Katsuie is a headstrong warrior Nagahide is calm and analytical. Also, as Katsuie regularly notes, Nagahide is a lot more feminine than her, and as such is a constant source of her envy. She is usually the one to talk sense into Katsuie whenever she gets too headstrong, and Katsuie understands her intelligence to a point where she's willing to take her advice without questioning it, despite admitting she doesn't understand the topic itself. They're usually seen together at Nobuna's side as her closest personal subordinates and strongest retainers. As Katsuie starts to learn, and completely fail at imitating, Yoshiharu's futuristic mannerisms, references and even asks him how girl's talk in his time to get that down, Nagahide is usually the one who ends up having to tell Katsuie, with a rather embarrassed tone, just how bad she is at doing it.

TRIVIA

 * This girl version of Katsuie is based on the legendary Oda general with the same name.
 * By far she is the 'bustiest' character in the anime, even catching the ogling eye of Yoshiharu Sagara during their first "official" encounter, much to her dismay.
 * Her breasts tend to jiggle under her armor. However, in real life this would, of course, not be possible.
 * the LN reflects this as it should be, with her armour being solid, any times her breasts jiggle in the LN is represented either by someone (Yoshiharu) reaching under her armour, or her not wearing it due to the circumstances at the time.
 * Other than her halberd/katana pairing, her armor also show a cross between European and Japanese cultures: while her breastplate is a solid European style cuirass, the shoulder and hip pieces came from the traditional samurai armor.