How reliable is badassoftheweek.com historically?

by Wardenonetwothree

Obviously, its an entertainment website so their purpose is to entertain rather than give 100% accurate history. However, a lot of the stuff seems just too good to be true. Is it reasonably legit, or is he just making stuff up?

EDIT: [link](http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi)
bigbluepanda

So obviously I can't speak to its merit regarding other areas, however for my own, I've given a brief look over the article on Oda Nobunaga among others.

First off I'll mention that, whilst there are many differing opinions on his primary drive for conquering Japan, the description of him being a

hardcore, murderous town-burning peasant-smiting samurai-decapitating Japanese feudal badass with psychotic mood swings, zero respect for authority, and an epic sense of entitlement

disregards any perspective of Oda as less than a murderous, barbaric, callous villain, which is far from the case. Whilst it sets a great dark horse storyline, it's not entirely true. Other inaccuracies include:

dr[inking] wine out of human skulls ... train[ing] peasants how to shoot the balls off of aristocratic samurai

I haven't seen mention of either. The first is a myth that has been perpetuated by many, however of all the sources available to me none mention the act of using skulls as cups.

When Nobunaga’s dad died Nobunaga lost his shit, flew into a rage (during the middle of the funeral), threw a bunch of incense into the grave, punched a hole in the wall, and started screaming like a pissed-off maniac.

There aren't many references to his supposed psychotic outburst at Nobuhide's funeral (certainly not to this extent, from what I know).

Touching upon my earlier point - the entire article already seems to be vilifying the Oda, and this sentence doesn't fail to disappoint.

The Shogun was like, well, dude, maybe I can just make you like my assistant or something? Like deputy Shogun? And Nobunaga was like get humped, dipshit, you do what I say. I’m the fucking assistant of anything.

Not how the system of Shogunate worked - I touch upon this a bit here.

Nobunaga bought as many guns as he could, updated his army with matchlock muskets, and then sent his army to capture the only place in Japan where muskets were manufactured. He taught his men how to fire in waves, with one group shooting while the other group reloaded, and laughed his ass off at the idea that he could take a handful of previously-unskilled peasants and turn them into a fighting force capable of mowing down battle-hardened samurai left and right.

Other than the laughing bit (which could have happened, citation needed), all true. Stopping there though - like I said, the article in total paints a fearsome picture of Oda Nobunaga, many feats of which are inaccurate or dramatically hyperbolised, and so sacrifices historical accuracy for audience engagement and retention. It plays the tunes of many common tropes surrounding not only Nobunaga's conquest but also the acts of samurai in general - this same pattern is repeated throughout many articles, such as (but not limited to) Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Hattori Hanzo, and Taira no Masakado. Whilst the general outlines don't seem to deviate radically from established history, the detailed accounts (specifically the gore and mindset) seem to take more from the mythical elevation of samurai and the near-godlike reverence of all things Oriental.