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| 4.
Tyrenol 
It's a dating sim. It's a strategy RPG. You get to meet pretty
girls. You get to command these pretty girls and have them pilot their mecha to
fight against demons. In the world of anime, anything's possible. Sakura
Wars (or which I refer to as "Cherry Warz") is an OVA based on the
first dating / strategy simulation which took Japan by storm. It featured Ichirou
Ougami trying to put his best face forward as he ends up spending more time punching
tickets than punching the lights out of demons. Okay; the show featured more about
the young ladies and how they interacted with each other. But it was cute to see
how those mini-games get fitted into the OVA. |
| 3. Tempy
The first Sakura Taisen OVA series is something best
appreciated by fans of the games it's based on. While it does start with introducing
the main players, it doesn't continue with making it a show that could stand on
its own. The enemy serves merely as fodder for the battle sequences, and there
seems to be a main villain, but he only appears for a few seconds, utters his
own name, and then disappears, never to return again in the show. Kanna leaves
the troupe for revenge and returns in episode 4 with no word on how her mission
went. Commander Ohgami's introduction to the girls also falls into the gap between
episode 3 and 4 unfortunately. In the meantime he has transformed the Teikoku
Kagekidan into a formidable fighting force, working as a true team together. We
don't actually see this growth process happening (usually the most interesting
aspect in many stories), but episode 4 does serve as a display of the results,
giving the fans a nice battle. Not having played the games myself, the characters
seem quite likeable, except for Sumire, who seems to be your typical arrogant,
spoiled, and stuck-up princess. Whether the anime characterizations are true to
the game counterparts I cannot say at this time, but having seen this show and
heard about the games, I can say my interest in the Sakura Taisen universe
has grown. |
| 2.
Konoha
I suppose I may be going into this slightly biased, as I have
not played any of the games, but read about them online and knew a bit about the
plot and the characters before I read this. The series is really a prequel to
the first game, so it explains some of the girls' backgrounds and what was going
on before Ohgami appeared. Knowing that, I enjoyed the show. The girls are cute
and have interesting personalities, and I liked watching how they all interacted
together. While Sakura got most of the spotlight, Maria (my fav) got enough scenes
so I didn't feel cheated. I'd recommend this, but only to someone who has played
the game or read about it. |
| 1. Jeneki
Uh okay, so we've got these generic lords of evil that send
their minions to go cause havoc and mayhem, with no real goals or objectives.
And then we've got this group of ladies with super powers and steam-powered mecha
that get to fight them. This anime tries to fit way too much story into a very
short series. This causes it to never really develop, and leaves several holes
in the story. Characters have emotional problems, have a personal crisis, go off
for revenge, etc., and then reappear a little later like nothing was wrong. I
guess that actually showing how they resolved these problems might actually make
this anime good, so they took those parts out. |
| 
 |
(2.5)