Onin War

The Imagawa were one major shugo family who enjoyed the fruits of the Onin War - at the expense of the Shiba. The Shiba's rapid decline after the onset of the war allowed the Imagawa to move into Totomi. This was not uncontested, however, and numerous minor Totomi houses resisted the Imagawa intrusion, some forming alliances with the wavering Shiba (including the Ii family, of later Naomasa fame). In 1476 Imagawa Yoshitada marched against the Katsumada and Yokota clans and defeated them in battle. On his return to Suruga, however, Yoshitada was waylaid at Shiokaizaka and then set upon and killed by members of the two houses he had just defeated. This provoked a succession dispute within the Imagawa that brought Ise Shinkuro to the forefront (and by extension into a position to claim Izu and establish the Go-Hojo).
The decline of the Shiba was also a boon, of course, for the Asakura.

Ichijo Fusaie(1445-1511) fled embattled Kyoto and his duties as Kampaku in 1468 to his estates in western Tosa. The preoccupation of the Hosokawa with the Onin War allowed Fusaie to establish a promising domain and his family as one of the most powerful in western Shikoku.

The Ouchi were probably the only great Shugo who took an active part in the fighting in Kyoto and came out of it as strong or stronger then they had been going in. The Mori, who had fought under the Ouchi banner in Kyoto, did not materially gain from the war, but could count on the friendship of the Ouchi. Prior to the war, they had been closer to the Bakufu.

The Amako gained a shot at independance with the virtual eclipse of the Kyogoku during the Onin War. This was not to come without some harship, however. In 1484 Amako Tsunehisa and his father were driven from Gassan Toda Castle by local rivals and forced to wander about Izumo province seeking out allies. In 1486, aided by Yamanaka Katsushige and a handful of loyal men, Tsunehisa retook Gassan Toda and would make his family into one of the most powerful in western Honshu.