Sakura taisen: Katsudou shashin

Sakura Wars is generally an action/adventure type of anime, with more of a light-hearted tone than a serious one. The DVD contains all four episodes of the first Sakura Wars OVA series. Episodes 1-3 take place before the time of the Sega Saturn game, and deal with the recruiting of the Imperial Floral Assault Group (a team of girls who do battle in steam-powered mecha to protect Japan from demons) and their early days together. Episode 4 seems to take place sometime during the Saturn game, after Captain Oogami Ichirou's arrival.

It's been said that the Sakura Wars anime isn't very approachable to those not already familiar with its setting and characters. This may be true, but if you played and liked the Saturn game, you will enjoy every minute of the OVAs. The dubbing is fairly good, although some characters (Maria Tachibana, Iris Chateaubriand, and Ri Kouran) speak with accents which may not be too pleasant on the ears. However, I prefer watching with subtitles (on the DVD, the subtitles can be turned on or off).

In short, if you liked the Saturn game, you must see this series of videos. If you haven't played the game, you might not find Sakura Wars to be very fulfilling... or you might be inspired to track down the video games.:)