Features:
Description:
Based on a popular Sega game, the OVA of Sakura Wars is set in the 1920s, when demons are attacking Tokyo. To combat them, Kanzaki Heavy Industries has developed the Oobu, a low-tech mecha armor powered by "spiritual energy." Sumire Kanzaki, the arrogant granddaughter of the owner, is the first to control the armor successfully. She's immediately taken into the Imperial Floral Assault Unit, charged with defending the capitol. She's joined by karate champion Kanna Kirishima, sharpshooter Maria Tachibana, psychic Iris Chateaubriand, klutzy gadgeteer Ri Kohran, and sword fighter Sakura Shinguji. The arrival of their male commander, Ichiro Ohgami, a comic cute guy in the Tenchi Muyo mold, inflames tensions and rivalries. When they're not quarreling, the members of the Floral Unit put on plays, which somehow increases their spiritual energy. The threat of the assault by demons who resemble the monster in Alien gets derailed as the girls defeat a Russian murderer and his steam-powered mecha, and the ghost of a silent film star. Even the plays fall by the wayside when Sakura leaves Tokyo to attend a cousin's wedding, and the rest of the Unit follows, convinced they have to save her from an arranged marriage. Sakura Wars suffers from a surfeit of characters and an underdeveloped plot--and the hokey European accents the voice actors affect don't help. (Rated 7 and older, but more appropriate for 12 and older: violence, minor profanity, alcohol and tobacco use) --Charles Solomon
|
