Oda Nobunaga

About Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) was a pivotal and ruthless daimyo credited with initiating the unification of Japan during the late Sengoku period. As the first of the three great unifiers, his military genius and innovative tactics, such as the widespread adoption of firearms, fundamentally reshaped Japanese warfare and laid the groundwork for centuries of relative peace under the subsequent Tokugawa shogunate. This massive cultural and political influence earns him a high standing, ranking #709 in MIT's Historical Popularity Index.

Despite this historical weight, Oda Nobunaga currently experiences a +3x "overattention gap," meaning his 1.1 million annualized Wikipedia views in 2025 place him significantly higher in modern internet visibility than his HPI rank might suggest. Curiously, this level of attention is comparable to modern figures like Jackie Chan (#926 importance, 3.9M views), indicating a strong, sustained interest in the Japanese warlord, though his views declined by 23.4% year-over-year.

This sustained contemporary engagement contrasts sharply with other figures of similar or greater historical magnitude. For instance, Averroes (#323 importance) garners less than 300,000 views, and Otto I (#428 importance) attracts only about 57,000 views, showing that interest in military history, particularly that of the samurai era, remains robust online.