In the early 2000s, anime fans encountered an anime called Sakura Wars, a twenty-six episode anime or four episode ova that mixed pilotable robots (mechs), demons, a steampunk Japan, a group of female characters and more. The first game in the series, adapted in the 2000 anime and in 1997 ova, tells the story of Ichiro Ogami, a newly appointed captain of the Flower Division of the secret Imperial Assault Force, a military unit dedicated to fighting supernatural threats in Tokyo, maintaining cover in a theater. A feature of this division is the use of pilotable robots to combat supernatural threats. Set in a Japan in the Taishō period, Sakura Wars is a strategy RPG that features a unique story system based on encounter simulators (date-sim), with the story told in an episodic format where each had their own eyecatches (screens before commercials) and previews of the next episode. The question that remains is how a game with such an interesting set of elements has been lost in time, and the only significant memory is its adaptation in anime.
Hello to everyone, my name is Gabriel Sansigolo (@G_Sansigolo). I’m a game developer for the Sega Saturn, and a huge fan of the Sakura Wars series. In this article I would like to talk about the last game I played, Sakura Wars for Sega Saturn.
Production
In 1994, the president of SEGA at the time sought out Oji Hiroi, a famous author and founder of the Red Company, with the aim of giving the company the job of developing a first-party adventure game for the launch of Sega Saturn. Oji accepted the invitation and started working on the project. A while later the company hired Kōsuke Fujishima, a famous manga author, to work on character design and Kohei Tanaka, composer of the famous anime One Piece, to work on the project’s soundtrack. Subsequently Kōsuke Fujishima brought to the team, Hidenori Matsubara a Japanese animator to work on the various anime scenes that the game would contain. Another anime/manga industry star who joined the project was writer Satoru Akahori, author of Saber Marionette. Because of his familiarity with anime writing, Satoru wrote the script in an episodic format where at the end of each episode a preview of the next one was shown. With the complete Oji Hiroi star team, the Red Company started the game production project.
Setting and characters Tokyo
Sakura Wars is set in a representation of Japan from 1920. A feature of the game is the soundtrack and visual interface inspired by the taishō period, the period between wars (1912–1926). In this society, the secret Imperial Assault Force uses a theater as a cover, the Grand Imperial Theater, this includes sporadically the preparation by the plays team and general maintenance of the theater. The stars of the Grand Imperial Theater are part of the Flower Division. This name was chosen because all the characters have names inspired by flowers, they are:
Sakura Shinguji, inspired by cherry blossoms, is the main heroine of the series, with a cheerful personality she is the newest member of the Flowers Division.
Sumire Kanzaki, inspired by a type of violet, is a renowned actress and heir to the Kanzaki industrial, with an arrogant personality she is a very skilled pilot.
Iris Chateaubriand, inspired by the iris flower, is the youngest girl in the Division of Flowers, daughter of French aristocrats she has psychic powers and can teleport.
Maria Tachibana, inspired by the orange blossom, is the deputy captain of the Flowers Division. She is very cold and closed, thanks to her traumatic past in Russia.
Kohran Li, inspired by the orchid flower, is the stage manager of the Imperial Theater, born in China, she is very good-natured and loves working with robots.
Kanna Kirishima, inspired by the canna lily flower, is a master in martial arts. She is a young woman with visible biceps, she works as the team’s muscles in various situations.
About the game
Playing the first Sakura Wars, for me, was remarkable. I knew about the series, having already played the fifth game in the series (So Long My Love), I knew about its production, the genre, the impact of the game and a little of the legacy, despite all that the game still managed exceed my expectations. I played the version translated by fans (https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5318/), released in 2019. Since the release of this translation I expected to play it, but it was only after I had my own Sega Saturn that I gave it a chance. As I can describe the experience of playing, it was incredible, just as Square formed a dream team to create the classic Chrono Trigger, Sega did it with Sakura Wars, each task in the project’s development was in the hands of one professional, this is noticeable when playing it. My first highlight goes to the opening. The game has an animated opening tracked with the theme of the series. With about a minute and a half the animation sets the player to the game’s universe.
The theme of the series is thanks to the majestic work of Kohei Tanaka, who was so successful in composing said theme, it ended up being mixed in almost all openings of the games in the series. This theme was also used to open the anime adaptation of the game. Over time the theme became an anthem for fans of the series and is still reminiscent today.
Another feature that attracted me enough to play Sakura Wars, was the battle system. As previously mentioned, the game is a mixture of the genres of encounter simulator (date-sim) and S-RPGs (Strategy RPGs).
The game’s tactical battle system with colorful robots mixes board game strategy elements, something inspired by the Fire Emblem game series, with a limited number of actions the player must carefully decide how to move his troops to achieve success in the battles. Inspired by Kamen Rider and Ultraman, the way the battles unfold is episodic, the enemy of the week, but with a larger narrative involving the villains of history. The inspiration in Tokusatsu doesn’t just go there, it extends to colorful robots, entrance animations, scam ads, flashy enemies, world domination plans, victory poses, among others. For those who like the genre, it is a full plate.
Finally, a characteristic that I would like to highlight is the personality of the characters, as previously mentioned, thanks to the excellent work of the writer Satoru Akahori the characters of the game are well written, each one has more personality than the protagonists of many recent games. Knowing more about each of the girls in the flower division is an indescribable experience.
Related to character interaction, a feature of the series is the LIPS system (Live & Interactive Picture System), a dynamic interaction system that requires quick decisions. This system distributes points of affinity with each of the characters, this affinity results in better performances (status) in battle. This system was the inspiration for the Social-Links/Confidents system of the Persona series of games from 3 onwards.
Impact
Once released, it didn’t take long for Sakura Wars to be a success. In the first week the game already had 205,270 units sold, a record for the time, the game ended its life with 359,485 units sold. The anime adaptation, released in 2000, was also a success, taking the story far beyond Japan. Despite this, anime was not the first audio-visual work of the universe. A year after the launch of the game an OVA was released, named: Sakura Wars: The Gorgeous Blooming Cherry Blossoms (1997). Both animations adapt the story of the first game. They released a manga adaptation of the story years after the anime, written by the game’s author.
The anime’s popularity in the world was even greater than the game, being considered a success globally. It even was serialized in several western countries, being dubbed in that countries’ respective language. One reason why the anime is more popular than the game is that, until last year, the only game officially launched in the series in the west was “So Long My Love”, the fifth game in the franchise. Therefore, the only way to experience the story it was through anime. Translations made by fans weren’t readily available before due to the difficulty of translating games for Sega Saturn. With the success of the first game, a sequel was announced for the same platform, the Sega Saturn. Over time, the franchise received more games, two for the Sega Saturn, two for the Sega Dreamcast, one for the PlayStation 2, later ported to Nintendo Wii, and one for the PlayStation 4, the latter being released last year in the West, a soft-reboot of the series. With numerous spin-off, the series today has four million units shipped to Japan.
Conclusion
Sakura Wars is a unique experience, whether playing the Sega Saturn game, watching the 1997 OVA, the 2000 anime or reading the manga, Everything around the work has a very rich personality, I highly recommend it to everyone, as stated in the title of the article, a hidden gem from SEGA.
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