Animation: Good
Depth: Bad
Design: Good
Characters: Weak
Story: Bad

Type: OVA   (4 episodes)

Vintage: 1996

Category:

» adventure
Verdict: Reviews @ Archen's Anime Page
Weak
Review:

Sakura Wars


Summary: >

The year is an alternate version of 1919. The story is about... various girls developing their abilities I guess. The world survived the first demon war, with a second looming. Girls with various spiritual powers are gathered in in Tokyo to form an elite group. (I learned that from a website, the show tells you nothing).


Thoughts: >

The problem with this OVA is that need to be familiar with the Sakura Wars franchise to understand anything. The Sega Saturn game system bombed pretty hard in America, and Sakura Wars was never released here. In Japan however Sakura Wars was all the buzz, and they went batshit crazy over it. There's a fair amount of context and background information required to understand what's happening, but even if I knew all that I'd say this is clearly intended to capitalize off the game popularity and not good enough to stand on its own.

The story has no coherency, nor does this title really begin or end. Instead this anime takes clips of the characters doing stuff, like a drunk person's scrap book. Why is this group formed to save the world in steam powered mecha, practicing dancing in fairy costumes? The story behind that must be interesting, making it unfortunate I never knew what it was.

Nothing to see here. Move along.


Screen Caps: >

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reviewed by archen in 1999