Sengoku Basara/Characters/Azai Clan

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Azai Clan

Azai Nagamasa

Voiced by: Kouji Tsujitani (Japanese), Christopher Bevins (anime)

"My mission is to erase all evil in the name of justice!"

Oichi's husband and a fierce defender of justice, Azai Nagamasa wields his sword and shield with a passion. He loves Oichi but is too shy to say it outright. He was an NPC in the second Sengoku Basara, and in the Expansion Pack he became a selectable character.

His default costume resembles an old Japanese SciFi hero.

Oichi

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Laura Bailey (English)

"Everyone's dying. This too is Ichi's fault..."

Hoo boy, where do we start? Oichi is the introverted younger sister of Nobunaga, who got sent off to marry Azai Nagamasa. Debuts in SB2 as an NPC, but gained such a massive following she is made a playable character in Heroes. She seems to think that everything bad in the world is her fault. And with a brother like Nobunaga, it always get worse. She also has dark powers which can possess her and turn her into a psychotic murderer, but she usually keeps those in check... unless she's pushed too far.

And yet, the universe seems to want her to be pushed beyond that line. Her story revolves about her getting possessed by her powers after Nagamasa's Heroic Sacrifice to save her and Nobunaga making her commit lots of atrocities she didn't want to, culminating in killing Nobunaga and all his aides, and then getting killed by a falling ceiling... with a heart-wrenching Image Song at that. The anime follows a similar route too, where she gets tricked by Mitsuhide into warning Nagamasa of impending danger, only for Mitsuhide to turn back against his words... and kill Nagamasa in front of her. She makes a last-minute Heel Face Turn and kills Nouhime, before being murdered by Nobunaga.

She appears in Sengoku Basara 3, once again proving her Popularity Power. However, not only does she now lead the remnants of Nobunaga's army (who have chosen her as his successor), she has discarded her naginata and utilizes only her demon hands. Her storyline was taken from the canon story (Nagamasa's death) up until the point before she snapped, where she purposely lost her memories to avoid facing the extremely harsh reality and is now obeying whoever gives her orders.

  • Apologises a Lot: Make that all the time.
  • Ascended Extra: Joined her husband as one of the popular playables in the expansion.
  • Back From the Dead: Certain lines from her and Nobunaga suggest this is the case in the third game and the opening narrator/other characters are just guessing.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Why she decides to be Ieyasu's Psycho Supporter, as well as just not wanting to be alone.
  • Beware the Nice Ones
  • Black Eyes: Very beautiful and emotional. Also very sad, making her fit into the second category best.
  • Break the Cutie: Over and over and over...
  • Brown Note: One of her prisoners apparently passed out from sheer terror after looking into her eyes.
  • Chickification: A minor case in the anime, where she's not even shown fighting.
  • Cosmic Plaything: The universe really seems to hate her and wants to prevent her from ever achieving any kind of happiness.
    • Throw the Dog a Bone: Except if she chooses to follow Ieyasu in SB3, who treats her kindly and promises to protect her, possibly the only happy ending she could hope for.
  • Cute and Psycho: Most of the time she's very demure and sweet, if a little depressing, but when she snaps you had better run fast.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Blame Nobunaga for drawing out her dark powers, which she seems to dislike and fear.
    • The powers themselves appear to be the only thing that consistently treats her nicely. In Samurai Heroes, at least, the hands are very gentle in the way they (for instance) put her on her feet, carry her instead of running, or catch her and set her down after a zipline or slingshot.
  • Demonic Possession: By the third game. Whether it's Nobunaga or something else remains unknown.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: Her method of dying in her Heroes story.
  • Damsel in Distress: TWICE. In Nagamasa's story and in the anime, both courtesy of her brother.
  • The Dog Bites Back: In her Western Army ending, after killing Ieyasu she flips out entirely and kills Yoshitsugu while he's busy indulging in maniacal laughter.
  • Extreme Doormat: Doesn't help her situation by just doing whatever she's told without complaint.
    • Sengoku Basara 3 makes this trope more apparent with her. In one path of her story, she's captured and essentially used as an attack dog by Yoshitsugu. It bites him in the ass in the end.
  • Fake Static: Sort of. During her dialogue in battle you often hear this as she speaks, a reference to ghost movies.
  • Flower Motifs: White lilies for her love with Nagamasa, and red lycoris for her demonic side.
  • Hime Cut: A variation with the bangs trimmed at different lengths around her face.
  • Humanoid Abomination
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: The thing that seems to trouble Oichi the most in the third game is being alone. When anybody tries to befriend her (Tsuruhime, Ieyasu) she instantly latches on to them and seems much happier. She's even quite content binding Nobunaga in hell, just because it means she doesn't have to be alone anymore.
  • Image Song: "Nemure Hi no Hana" by Mamiko Noto.
  • Instant Death Radius: Several of her Super Arts involve this.
  • Ironic Nursery Rhyme

"Wander freely, wander far, off beneath the Devil's star
In the dark, the girl so bright, got up to see the day by night
Her fear in hand, her fear in heart, her fear did tear her soul apart
The white of flesh, the white of bone, the worms will leave your soul alone
On and on the road does go, down into the depths below
Off you went to call the king, you wish to hear the Devil sing..."

  • Laughing Mad: When she properly loses it. Even her voice changes.
  • Limp and Livid: In the third game. She moves like a puppet with a drunk puppeteer behind the strings, and half her movements involve her shadow hands picking her up and moving her around.
  • Looks Like She Is Enjoying It: Inversion. Her grunts of pain and certain battle lines sound horribly like a rape scene.
  • Love Hurts: More like... love chews you up, spits you out, and leads you to a tragic demise.
  • Love Makes You Evil/Crazy: One of the reasons she turned to The Dark Side is because of her love for Nagamasa and the pain it caused her.
  • The Mario: In the second game, with slight edge towards Mighty Glacier.
  • The Mole: In the anime, this was the whole reason she was married to Nagamasa in the first place. However, she falls in love with him for real, and cannot carry out her duties.
  • The Nicknamer: "Lord Happy" and "Lord Grumpy" for Ieyasu and Mitsunari, and "Lord Lightning" and "Lord Flame" for Masamune and Yukimura, respectively. Also "White Bird" for Tsuruhime.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Oh lord, Oichi... Thought she was scary enough in SB2? SB3 cranks it Up to Eleven. From the way she moves like a dead human puppet, dark hands cracking up skulls of unfortunate mooks, to playing with said hands while singing a haunting song, complete with distorted audio when she speaks making her feel like she was out of a Japanese horror film. Just see for yourself.
    • Half the time when you block with her she whispers in a quiet voice "kill me!" It's really creepy.
    • Her stages are just as bad, with the complete darkness and the shit-scary music.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: So perfect that she grows more devoted to Nagamasa than to her elder brother, who arranged the marriage.
  • Popularity Power: How she managed to earn her story arc in Heroes -- and that's saying something in a series loaded with testosterone, which also leads her to be the sole female character in Cross.
  • Psychopathic Woman Child: She's not entirely coherent in the third game.
  • Psycho Supporter: In the Eastern Army path, she becomes one to Ieyasu. He's actually quite uncomfortable about it.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin
  • Red Baron: The Demon Queen of the Fifth Heaven in the third game.
  • Redemption Equals Death: In Heroes, she dies after killing her brother and his subordinates. SB3 retcons this into saying that she was the Sole Survivor.
  • The Remnant: In the third game, as the "successor" of Nobunaga she's followed by the Remnants of the Oda Army, who serve her with a cult-like fervor. This leads to Fridge Logic when she fights against her brother.
  • Say My Name: Particularly in the anime, though the games are guilty of this as well. If she's not apologising, she's saying "Nagamasa-sama" over and over.
  • Shaping Your Attacks: Her Darkness. Though is hard to tell who's controlling who.
  • She's Got Legs: Her thighs are given a lot of attention.
  • Shiny Midnight Black: The anime adds in purplish highlights too.
  • Shout-Out: Her demeanor and bizarre utterances are quite reminiscent of Dru.
  • The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female fighter in the fighting game spinoff.
  • Squishy Wizard: In Samurai Heroes. Her attack and defence scores are quite subpar and she moves and attacks slowly, especially in regards to cooldown. However, all her moves have very good range and area-of-effect and involve grabbing, throwing or locking down the enemy's movement, and her shadow element gives her an effective Instant Death Radius against mooks.
  • Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: She bears similarities to this, especially in the third game, including her long black hair, pale skin, haunting voice and hellish powers.
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
  • Third Person Person: Makes her seem meek and child-like.
  • Token Good Teammate: Well, she used to be amongst the Oda clan. And even then, compared to Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, Nouhime and Ranmaru...
  • Trauma Conga Line
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: It's revealed in SB3 that following Nagamasa's death and her fall into darkness, she forced herself to forget all the terrible things that had happened.

"Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream..."

  • Voice of the Legion: During her Basara attack.
  • Walking Wasteland
  • What Have I Done: Her story ending in Heroes, after she goes beserk and kills Nobunaga. She dies herself when the building collapses.
  • World's Most Beautiful Woman: Has inherited her real life counterpart's status as the most beautiful woman in Japan.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: After having some sense beaten into her during her second stage, the dark powers around her recede completely, she stands straight under her own power and she starts calling out to people, disoriented but entirely lucid for the first time all game. It lasts about 30 seconds before Tenkai kills her to revive Nobunaga.
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