Manga has been the inspiration for anime, video games and even live action movies. Today i take a look at a manga title that was inspired by a popular video game.

Title: Sakura Taisen

Publisher: Tokyopop

Genre: Action, Romance

Age: Teen 13+

Volumes: 3 so far

Violence: Military combat style

Sex/Nudity: Mild fanservice

Status: Ongoing series, still being published.

At the Edajima Naval Academy cadet Ichiro Ogami is at the top of his class. He’s a skilled tactician and a natural squad leader with a knack for embarrassing his drillmasters by constantly defeating them in field training missions. Apon graduation he is delighted to learn that he has been assigned to the be under the command of the legendary General Ikki Yoneda. However he is bewildered as to why his assigned posting is the Grand Imperial Theater in Tokyo. Arriving at the theater he is shocked to learn that not only has General Yoneda retired from active duty, but he is now simply the alcoholic manager of the theater and Ogami’s job is to be that of head ticket taker and general handyman. Ogami believes that this posting is in fact punishment for his upstaging of his drillmasters at the academy but at least he seems to be getting along well with the actresses of the theater. Sumire is the star of the theater and quite the demanding diva. Maria is a stern half Russian, half Japanese woman who plays the male roles. Iris is a young but cute preteen french girl who seems to develop an instant crush on Ogami and Sakura Shinguji is a pretty japanese girl and she and Ogami start to develop an attraction to each other. With the help of the girls and the rest of the theater troupe, Ogami slowly begins to settle into his new life but than one day while out shopping Ogami comes across a monstrous creature attacking people and he leaps in to save them. The bystanders are amazed to see Ogami become surrounded with a glowing blue light and actually wound the monster with a sword where the bullets of the police had simply bounced off it’s hide. But Ogami is still unable to defeat the creature, but suddenly a shot fired from somewhere behind him hits the monster and a woman’s voice tells him to get out of the way. He than watches two suits of large steam powered armour kill the monster. Realizing that the demons thought defeated after the last Demon War 8 years ago are returning, Ogami demands to be reassigned to a combat unit. General Yoneda then tells him that he is in a combat unit, that the Imperial Theater is simply a front for a secret military unit dedicated to fighting the demons and that all the actresses are really highly trained combatants. Sumire is a master of the naginata, Maria is an expert marksman, Iris can move things with her mind and Sakura is an expert swordswoman. Not only that, but it was Sumire and Maria in the armour that came to his rescue and now he, Ogami, is to assume field command of the unit. Now Ogami and his ever growing team must ready themselves as the Black Council has reemerged, prepared to start another Demon War.

Good Points: The artwork is very good. The storyline is great and while it relates to the video game plotlines, is in fact independent of it

Bad Points: The worst being the 8 month wait between the release of Volume 3 and Volume 4. Fans of the anime or video games might be put off by the change of perspective in the manga.

Overall Review: Based on the wildly successful Sakura Wars video game franchise, which also spawned an equally popular anime by the same name, this manga series shares many of the main traits as both game and anime in terms of character cast and base storyline elements but manages to be it’s own seperate entity. Where the video games and anime focus on the character of Sakura Shinguji, the manga instead focuses on Ichiro Ogami who was more of a side player in the games and anime. The series has a cool mixture of humour, action and with Sakura and Ogami,a nice touch of growing romance that not once while reading this series did i ever stop and think that it was based on a video game nor did i compare it to the anime. That may just be the secret to enjoying this series, DO NOT compare it to the anime or video games, just let it be itself and enjoy it for what it is. While it shares the same universe as Sakura Wars, it is not Sakura Wars. As i stated in the bad points, Volume 3 was released in April Volume 4 is due out in December (that’s 8 months folks!!!) Tokyopop is saying that the series is only going to go to 5 volumes, but than it was originally only going to go to 3 but they extended it run so who knows.

For a great series with a good dash of just about everything that will make for a great kick back and relax kind of read, i really recommend this series!