Introduction
It is the 1920s, and Japan is under attack by demonic invaders. The government has designed sturdy, albeit steam-powered, robot armor suits for the impending battle, but only young ladies with the proper combination of virtue and spirit can pilot the robots successfully.
Enter young Sakura, arriving in the Imperial Capital from the countryside to join the Imperial Flower Combat Troop. She has the qualifications to be a fine robot pilot, but she's surprised to learn that this secret Defense Force has a cover story as a musical theatre troupe-and they take their cover jobs very seriously indeed. It's costumes, line readings and robot combat galore, as Sakura struggles to learn the ropes, learn her lines, and do her part to save the nation!
(Source: ADV Films)
Audience reviews
7 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Dragon_EX
This review is written in 2 parts, the first being my review as someone who didn't know anything about the Sakura Taisen series, and the second being my review as newly made fan of the series.
This review is honestly pretty hard to write, because the Sakura Taisen anime is a pretty decent show all things considered, but it's the first anime I ever watched that made me feel like I had to do homework in order to get the full enjoyment it deserves. Being a spinoff loosely based on the games, they take advantage of this and assume that the viewer has already played at least the first 2 games in the series (Sakura Taisen & Sakura Taisen 2). If you watch the show with no prior knowledge of anything about the series (like I did), characters are only half introduced, or sometimes not given an in…
Read at the sourceundamoth
Nostalgia can be a total exercise in frustration; that something that really liked as a kid remains reliably cool even now, even with your developed perspective in life and worldview being drastically altered by reality. The same could be said for its alternative; that there are things you've missed about something you didn't give a hoot as a kid and that maturity would have surely allowed you to see things in a different light and now appreciate it. In case of Sakura Wars however, none of it was true.
In short, Sakura Wars the Animated Series was as disappointingly, harrowingly lackluster for me as both a kid and an adult. It should've had it all for me: the 90's aesthetics, dieselpunk, and kickass motiff music. All I got was a mixed salad of overdramatic storytelling, ridiculous pilot s…
Read at the sourceBioMegaBear
As someone who didnt play the original game this was based off of, I found my experinces with Sakura Wars 2000 to be a consistantly enjoyable throughout. Just seemed like a well paced, nice looking, well written bunch of episodes with consistant character drivien-- I dont think there was a single episode that felt like it was wasting my time with what was being focused on. Characters visually all look very nice. I dont know if they had a big or small budget but no one looked bad to me, everyone is distinct I never confused one character from another. Villians I need to give props to making more competent rather than the usual un expected youth beats them easily early on and repeat, it does feel like they're strategists that can think through to reach their goals with their abilities. Very…
Read at the sourceRuisuRiusa
I feel that this anime can be seen as a great re-interpretation of many elements that the original game has.
That is, both the context and elements of the game are respected and the background stories of the characters are also respected.
But I can't help thinking that, in the way the story unfolds and how the characters behave, it is far from what happened in the game.
This is seen in some cases more than in others.
This is not necessarily bad because as a story it holds up very well, although the first 12 chapters are somewhat slow, but it is compensated by the other 13 that are more entertaining for focusing more on the conflict and yet I felt that the end was rushed .
I must emphasize that the chapters that I saw most similar to the game were 15 and 25, this at my own consideration, of…
Read at the sourceinfiraya
One of the oldest anime I have ever watched and I also consider the anime art style back then. I accidentally found this anime when I was playing the game called Project X Zone. This was the first time I was introduced to these characters and I did some research. I didn't really quite expect for the characters to be fighting inside a robot, honest. Ironically enough, the main character of this anime is Sakura and Oogami (which he was for the games).
I understand why Sakura is the mc here because of her inheritance of the sword and of course how huge her spiritual powers are. This is why she is more important that Oogami. (Sakura Wars games can be seen like a Otome game for boys, because you can date the girls there). The anime side is more focused on defeating the Wakiji and the developme…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Apparently based on a popular video game franchise in Japan, Sakura Wars focuses on six girls from different nations teaming together to combat demonic threats using their spiritual abilities to pilot mecha. It appears part of the anime's influence comes from a popular all-girl theatrical group in Japan called the Takarazuka Revue, considering the girls occasionally perform drama performances in theatrical plays as a means to hone their spiritual powers. The series offers enough depth on all the girls to explore their personalities and backgrounds, devoting episodes to focus on aspects of each character. While their characters are somewhat cliched, they are still a likeable bunch and undergo differing degrees of growth throughout the show's run such as Sakura learning to gain confidence in…
Read at the sourceArchaeon
One of the problems with visual media like anime, TV and movies, is that they are all extremely competitive businesses, with numerous production companies and studios all vying for a share of the viewing audience. The upshot of this is that more and more often the audience is subjected to a remake, a formulaic cash cow, or an adaptation of a successful game. That's not to say there isn't anything original in anime from one season to the next, however the fact that anime is a business means that the shows that are more likely to be produced will be of the type that are almost guaranteed to make money.
It's unfortunate then, that money seems to have been the driving force behind this series of Sakura Taisen.
Based on the long running and highly successful game series, the original Sakura T…
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