Sakura Wars the Game and OVA vs TV Series

I'm a fan of the Sakura Wars (サクラ大戦) game franchise since the series came out for the Sega Saturn. It was the first dating sim game I have ever played and finished. So far I have only finished four and three of them were Sakura Wars 1 to 3. Most other dating sim games are just a big bore to play with. The game itself is in a language I can barely understand -- Japanese, so I had to make up some of the story as I go along. I had some corrections from a friend who can understand Japanese though. I don't think this game will ever make it to North America, it's too Japanese. The character design, imagery and use of music were good enough that it does evoke emotions if you play with it enough. Each character has their own story, music and mini-game for you to explore. The strategy part I didn't care so much, except for the cut-scenes. I don't really recommend it to anyone to play. I think its a game that if you want to play it, you'd want to play it. It is not something that can be recommended with the likes of Electric Playground (maybe the taller guy would give a better opinion, the short annoying guy will just dismiss the fact that the robots look like trashcans and not bother). Also its been years since I played it so why am I just writing about this now? Well the other week, I decided to watch the Sakura Taisen TV series. I have seen bits and pieces of the series when I was in the Philippines. The TV series changes the plot quite a bit from the game that I remembered. In short, I was very disappointed with the TV series. The director of the TV series just messed up the characters. They don't evoke the same feelings as the video game itself. It felt more of a long and dragged out patch work of the lives of the Hanagumi intermixed with some characters from Sakura Wars 2. Its only redeeming feature is that it does introduce a plot close enough to the game, but the portrayal of the characters really need work. Some relatively spoiler free differences from the game I would complain about are:

• Sakura Shinguji has no backbone in the TV series.
• Like most dumb North American cartoons back in the old days, no one really important dies.
• Special attacks only come out in the end in the TV series, they are available throughout the game though.
• The bad guys are slightly different from the game.
• You only get brief glimpses of the character's past with the exception of Maria Tachibana.
• There is too much focus on Sakura it detracts from the rest of the people in the TV series.

Anyway, today I watched and finished OVA 1. OVA 1 follows the game much closer. It is set before the game even starts. The fourth/last episode are more of animed clips from the game that shows the minigames and one of the best episodes in the game. The OVA 1 is just significantly better in the direction than the TV series, though it is short every character has depth (even if you don't see it since most of it were from the game). The end is quite happy, not to the same level as Joy Luck Club's but lets say about 50%. If you are not interested in playing the game, you can plod though the mediocre TV series then watch OVA 1. At least you'd get to know how some of the characters are.