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R1 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Tuesday, 03 July 2007 17:00 |
 End of the line for the Imperial Theatre, and for Sakura Wars TV as the battle between the Flower Division and Aoi Satan reaches its climax. Will the Flower Division emerge triumphant, or will evil win the day? Don't ask Yoneda for his opinion - he's left town. Perhaps he knows something we don't...
22 - The Imperial Theater Goes Up in Flames
Yamazaki and his lackeys have uncovered and destroyed another Tenpu Stone, bringing him that little bit closer to his ultimate aim - which seems to revolve around a very personal crusade against Yoneda. Back at the theater, Maria and the others have noticed that Yoneda and Ayame have been acting strangely lately, and Sakura draws the connection between their behaviour and Yamazaki's reappearance in the form of Aoi Satan. Not that they can ask Yoneda about anything - he's left town on an "important business trip". Just in time to avoid the Black Sanctum Council's assault on the Imperial Theater...
23 - Machine of Dreams
The Flower Division arrive at the Hanayashiki Branch, which is to become their temporary headquarters now that the theater has been destroyed. Under the cover of an amusement park, the gang get a chance to catch their breath and regroup. They also managed to get their Koubu out of the theater, which at least gives them a way of fighting back. Kohran had been working on a way to improve the performance of the Koubu - but ever since learning the truth about Yamazaki, she's been keeping a very low profile. Seeing Yamazaki on the side of evil is almost a betrayal to her, and she begins to doubt why she ever got involved in working on the Koubu in the first place. Meanwhile, several groups of Wakiji appear, and being to make their way towards Hanayashiki...
24 - Ties
Yamazaki's Wakiji are rampaging through the city, but rather than fighting back against them, Flower Division are heading to get their Koubu repaired - although their backers have lost faith with them anyway. With the Koubu being worked on at Kanzaki Heavy Industries' facilities, Sumire gets a chance to meet with her family again - although it's not an opportunity she particularly welcomes. Meanwhile, Ohgami is promoted to Acting Commander of the Division when Ayame fails to return from her mission, while Yamazaki uses the chaos provided by the Wakiji attacks to work towards his true aim in the background...
25 - Continuation of the Dream
With their Koubu finlly ready to go, the Flower Division head out towards Edo Castle and their final confrontation with Yamazaki and his sidekicks. Ohgami's first to find himself in combat, against Setsuna and his muscle-bound companion, and it soon becomes clear that Kohran's upgrades to the Koubu are every bit as effctive as she'd hoped. But fighting Satan's minions on the ground is one thing - going up against the man himself is something different, and once inside the castle the real work begins...
Sakura Wars TV has always seemed a strange beast to me - the mixing of the theatrical side of the series with the more serious and action-oriented fight against Aoi Satan and the Black Sanctum Council have never really seemed to sit too well together for me. The destruction of the theatre in episode 22 goes a long way to solving that little issue, and helped this little action junkie enjoy the episodes a good bit more than I thought I would. Certainly, the final confrontation at Edo Castle is suitably challenging for the Flower Division and entertaining for the viewer.
There are one or two issues left unresolved, though. Much was made around the series mid-point of the way that Sakura's father died, and how Yamazaki now believed that Yoneda was planning to impose a similar fate on Sakura herself - that plotline seems to have died a death without ever really being pursued. While Sakura's heavily involved in the final battle, there's never any prospect of her making a noble sacrifice, which after the way past events had been built up was maybe what I was expecting to happen.
The pacing of these episodes is also rather slow, given we're at the climax of the series - the fighting is sporadic, and broken up by number of little character pieces, most notably for Kohran and Sumire. I'd argue that the place for the character-building scenes would have been a little earlier in the series, so that the final episodes could have concentrated on the resolution of the conflict - as it stands, you get a confrontation, a retreat, some character scenes, then repeat the sequence again. It makes events feel disjointed, and doesn't help maintain the atmosphere.
None of which is to say this isn't an enjoyable disc - it's just not as good as it could have been, and you could lay that verdict on the whole Sakura Wars TV series. The games are hugely popular and the series plays on that popularity, but I don't think the setting or characters work as well outside of the games. I've also had a problem warming to most of the characters in the same way that fans of the game have, particularly Sumire. If buying the series at full price were the only option, I'd say it wasn't worth the money - but fortunately that's not the case. There's now a Complete Collection available for significantly less money than the individual discs, and that is worth the asking price. Sakura Wars TV is enjoyable enough up to a point, but possibly because it's trying to stay true to the games, it falls some way short of what it could have been.
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